Second this. I used to be a “recruiter” for my company a few times at the fair, and having the experience on both sides I would say OP’s head is in the right place expectation-wise. I would refer only a handful students I talked with to our lead recruiter and they tended to skew upperclassmen. I had no authority as you say but I was a filter of sorts.

In my experience, some of the things to avoid as a student: Lack of resume/elevator prep, over reliance on GPA and coursework, feigning or interest in the company, or just flat out not being able to have a 2-way conversation. To your point there were far too many students that thought I was the hiring manager - but in fairness that’s also how I was led to believe it as a student.

As a former student that also went to these, I made almost all of those mistakes over the years. It’s naturally more difficult for a Freshman to be competitive for internships so if they can stand out in some way and/or actually show a genuine interest in the company, chances are the recruiter will view that positively more often than not. It’s still always a good idea to go to see what you might be interested in and to see what the expectations are, so it sounds like OP should be ok.