Look at him lugging his bags up the crowded walkway. Can't be more than 5'9", a buck forty tops, but from the looks of those oversized Adidas, he's still got a growth spurt in him. A handsome face, pale, some freckles, no baby fat but no stubble either. And look at that grin. Girls all around him. Possibility in the air.

"It's surreal," says Will Strasser, an 18-year-old from Wayne, as he signs his name at the check-in table. "It hasn't hit me yet. Everybody says the first year's the best."

Will is just one of the 2,554 incoming freshman arriving at the University of Pennsylvania on this sunny September afternoon. The first day of college: a rite of passage filled with the intoxication of new beginnings, awkward posturing of identity, inflamed hormones and embarrassing parents.

Will's new home is the Hill College Dormitory. Small rooms and no A.C., is the scoop on the place. "But close quarters breed close relationships," says Will, with a shrug.

A traffic jam at the elevator introduces Will to Dan Ross, a curly-haired kid, and another one of the 133 Penn freshmen who hail from the Philadelphia region. The two discover they both checked Facebook, an online directory of college students, to see if any New Orleans natives were there.

"It's awful," says Will of Hurricane Katrina.

Dan nods.

On the second floor, Kasey Meehan, an effervescent blonde from Drexel Hill, lays out her clothes across her pink comforter as her parents unpack boxes. Her little brother swings his legs from the edge of the bed.

"I loved the campus," says Kasey of why she chose Penn. "And … "

"Say something about the academic challenges of the school," whispers her smiling father.

Kasey's mom is welling up.

"This is such a big day for her," she says. "I promised myself I wouldn't cry."

On the fourth floor, a petite brunette protests in embarrassment as her parents knock on doors to introduce their daughter. A few rooms down, another girl sits cross-legged on her bed, phone to her ear, reassuring her long-distance boyfriend that she loves him. And on the fifth floor, just past the bulletin board advertising poetry readings, study-abroad programs, and "The 10 facts you should know about Roofies," a starched-and-pressed new arrival is being regaled by his roommate, a shirtless jock.

"Me and Dan were playing beer pong last night," he brags. "We were killing, yo. Our game was on. But [then] we ran out of beer. I was like word and took a bottle of Tequila out of my bag and was like let's keep this party going. "

Across the street on Locust Walk, a soft-spoken freshman from Jamaica sits on a step with her mother, timidly asking passersby for directions to the office of Student Financial Services. Yesterday she attended the "Living Safely in Philadelphia" information session. Travel in groups and utilize campus police, they advised, but her mother still bears a harried expression.

"I'm trying to let the normal reservations go," she sighs.

Down the path, a clean-cut kid named Michael Zorger sits on a concrete ledge outside Houston Hall making an adjustment of his own: He's eating sushi. There is "none whatsoever" in his hometown of Elkins, W. Va. Speaking with natural poise and confidence (a future student-body president, perhaps?), he explains that Elkins is very rural and very conservative. The new things he's experiencing in his first day at school extend beyond the culinary.

"I live in a coed dorm," he says. "The girls across the hall are from California. I mean — whoa."

Michael's parents sit down next to him. In a few hours, they will leave their youngest child to fend for himself. Asked whom the split will be hardest on, Mr. Zorger answers without hesitation, "My bank account."