90 Compton 4th-Graders Go to College (for a Day) : Education: Smallest details make biggest impression as youngsters tour Loyola Marymount.

There aren’t any dormitories in the average elementary school. No fraternities or sororities, game rooms or fountains either.

So when 90 fourth-graders from Compton toured Loyola Marymount University on Friday, it was the smallest details that made the biggest impression.

There was, for example, the hush that came over the fourth-graders when tour guide Andrea Petersen told them about a university tradition of throwing people in the main campus fountain on their birthdays.

“Have you ever been thrown in?” one girl asked.

“How deep is it?” asked another.

“I wouldn’t let nobody throw me in,” offered a third.

The students were touring LMU under the “I’m Going to College” program, organized to expose young children to college life and plant the seed early that college is something all students should aspire to.

The program is run by the California Assn. of Student Financial Aid Administrators and is in its first year in Los Angeles County.

“We want them to think college,” said Jackie Martin, a fourth-grade teacher at George Washington Carver Elementary School, who accompanied the students on the trip. “You can’t start too early. Study habits begin early, and they meet role models on these trips.”

Before they even arrive on campus, the children complete a semester-long program on what college is all about, fill out college applications and receive official-looking acceptance letters granting them--for a day--”all the rights, privileges and responsibilities of a Loyola Marymount student.”

The first day started just like the real thing--standing in line for registration. Then, after Father Thomas O’Malley, the recently inaugurated LMU president, welcomed the group by singing “America the Beautiful” and telling them to dream big dreams, they were off on a whirlwind campus tour.

Then the questions began: Did the library stock “The Three Little Pigs”? How did two people fit in such a tiny dorm room? Do students get lost on their way to class?

In the classrooms themselves the students heard real professors lecture about biology, computers and African dance. Computer class was an especially big hit when the children discovered that college students play games like Tetris too.

Reaction was uniformly positive, but each child brought home something a little different.

“It’s real big, and they don’t have any gangs,” said 9-year-old Jesus Cazares, who says he wants to be a police officer.

Terrence Manuel, 9, who is still choosing between a baseball or a football career, said he enjoyed the science class in which lab assistants tested blood samples to determine which antibodies they contained.

Jose Castillo, 9, another future policeman, said he wasn’t all that concerned about the transition from elementary school to college life.

“Fourth grade is just a little different from college,” he said. “In fourth grade they only let you play kick ball. Here you get to play on the computers.”