PE Professionals: What do you look for in a networking call with college students?

One specific question I would actually have is that I'm not sure how to present myself. Do I act ditzy and just start off asking basics about the firm even thought I know exactly who they are, what they do, etc? I don't want to go off the deep end either and seem like a hardo or give them expectations that I can't really live up to either. Finding the middle ground seems to be the difficult but ideal thing to do.

You are probably not as knowledgeable as you think you are in terms of what comes across as impressive. I am sure you are a great candidate and conduct yourself well. But I will say: knowing the firm is not that interesting so much as having a detailed nuance of that firm's strategy. For example everyone knows who Audax is but it takes being a professional to really realize what working with portfolio companies that are acquisitive but don't previously have strong M&A functions is like. You can piece two and two together: lots of work on the deal team with tuck ins, but also managing things like building out internal competencies so you don't always have to do this for management. Similarly, when you're working with businesses that size you're also thinking about geographic expansion (what are the risks there), turning a point solution / product into a platform / product cluster, etc. 

This is just one example. There are a whole different host of issues. For large cap firms you might be more focused on things like organically rolling out new initiatives because your firm has the coffers to actually go out and build [division] of the business a year after it's proposed. And then you might be a minority investor because you took this thing fund to fund and so you are jockeying with 2-3 other PE firms for attention (or you are working with those PE firms behind the scenes).

My point is that this is the type of research around dynamics where I would think, holy shit I need to hire this college student ASAP. What would that look like in an interview: asking questions about portfolio company dynamics (lead a horse to water) but also transparently you can give examples of examples you've learned about and ask them to share other situations their firm does commonly that might be interesting for you to learn. There are also other standard "song and dance" questions to ask like What advice would you give to someone who is just starting out their career, knowing what you know now?.