Summary: When Daria and Quinn have to visit a college as part of a college prep course, Helen and Jake take them to their alma mater, Middleton College.

Full Synopsis: During a visit with some friends, Helen and Jake become concerned about Daria and Quinn's chances of getting into good colleges, so they insist that the girls take a college prep class. One of the requirements of this (rather lame) class is to visit a college, and Jake and Helen naturally pick their alma mater, Middleton College. When they arrive, they're greeted by a tour guide named Heather, and they just barely have time to start the tour when Jake is distracted by a water balloon thrown from his old dorm window. Swept up in a wave of nostalgia, Jake takes Helen to visit his old hangout, leaving Daria and Quinn with the tour guide. The tour doesn't last much longer, as Quinn decides to investigate the fraternity/sorority scene on her own. Daria and Heather then retreat to Heather's dorm room, where Daria gets a much more realistic view of college life: sitting around and watching television, working a stupid job, begging the parents for money, and helping the college students with their term papers (for cash, of course). Meanwhile, Jake gets a little too into the college scene as he tries (with no success) to act cool and "hang" with the college guys, while Helen reminisces about college life... and tears off after the girls (Quinn, specifically) when she remembers how college guys acted around women. They find Quinn at a frat house, where she had been made "keg queen" and was busy wrapping the guys around her little finger; eventually, the whole family is tossed off the campus when security finds out that the two underage girls were wandering around the campus unsupervised (even though Daria had stayed with Heather the tour guide the whole time). Back at home, Quinn receives a letter of acceptance to Manatee College in Florida, which makes Helen and Jake ecstatic... until they read the fine print, and discover that Manatee has no classes and costs $10,000 per semester. Furthermore, Daria decides to quit doing the college students' term papers, as it was getting to be too much work (not to mention the tiny little detail about Helen not letting her keep the money). Daria decides that the whole college experience kinda sucked, but is heartened when Quinn dumps the instructor of the college prep class when she finds out what a "making-out scholarship" is really all about.

Fantastic Voyage: The fantasies of the various students in the SAT class (were they even talking about the SAT's, anyway?) were amusing. None of them were directly about going to college but most high school kids probably think that way about college. Daria seems to have a dark view on going to college here; even the administrator in her fantasy was a jerk (most of them are, but most people are cool in your own fantasies).

Poor Preparation: Daria isn't a senior in high school yet, so it is still a bit premature for Jake and Helen to feel bad about not college searching yet. Hey, I waited until January of my Senior year to submit applications and I think I turned out all right. Three years old is a bit too early to worry about admissions to college (maybe not for college funding :) and Jake and Helen shouldn't feel too bad about it.

College Boring: I know that there are some shady individuals at our fine colleges and universities but the ones at Middleton take the cake. Does anyone go to class or do their own work there? No one there really seems to want to be there for the right reasons. By the way, if you ever meet any stranger that eager to ask for your underwear, he shouldn't be too hard to catch because of his enormous balls.

College Inaccurate: Most of the things about college life in this episode are exaggerated, except maybe the thing about bad checks. While cheating is a big problem on most campuses, I can tell you that most of us don't buy our term papers, we get our smart roommates to write them for us for the exact reason Daria stated: those mailed in ones are bad. All kidding aside (I was kidding about the cheating), anyone who hasn't got to college yet (and is intending to) shouldn't expect people there to be that bad, except maybe the fraternities and sororities (kidding!!).

I think that the fantasy sequence is the best of Daria so far. However, this episode was only OK. It had its funny moments and the plot flowed well but the inaccuracies in college life were, for me, too big (being a college student).

Grade: B-

Copyright © 1998 Mike Quinn [All Rights Reserved]. Used with permission. The views presented here are those of the author, and may or may not necessarily be those of Outpost Daria Reborn.