by Dave Best
Colleges strive to be diverse. As an applicant, you can benefit from a boost in admissions if you are willing to look at schools outside your home region. Colleges value all types of diversity, including geographic.
Students often have low cost instate college options. But colleges have a goal of recruiting a diverse freshman class. To help recruit students from across the country, many schools have added admissions representatives to cover new regions of the country important for them. Plus, they have ramped up marketing to recruit students from target markets. This can present outstanding opportunities for qualified students, athletes and artists to land at solid programs outside their home region.
Highly-qualified students may be more willing to travel for the right school. Especially if that school shares a mutual interest to recruit them or entice them to attend. Students from small states that are significantly underrepresented (or not represented) for a college could have preference in admissions, having their financial need met, and perhaps earn merit scholarships if applicable. Examples include students from tropical areas willing to venture to colleges in the frozen tundra of the Midwest, or perhaps Midwestern kids open to schools in the Southwest. Please note that the most popular schools typically have a solid number of students from California, New York, Texas, Florida and other large states, so there usually is not an admissions bounce from those states.
Colleges publish their freshman class profiles and fact books that share their geographical diversity. Some highlight a US map and fill in the number of students enrolled by state. Others provide the number of students from instate as well as nearby states and perhaps other top states. Many highlight a count of how many states their freshman class comes from.
Diversity enhances education in many ways, including promoting creative thinking and providing different perspectives in the classroom and across the campus. Diversity can help prepare students for life and employment.
Here are some examples of some highly regarded schools across the country that have a large concentration of students from nearby states. All can possibly provide special admissions opportunities for students from outside that region.
Northeast
Lehigh University
Bethlehem, PA
ABE Airport 6.6 miles away
24% instate
62% from Pennsylvania + New Jersey + New York
US News Rank 44 National
Just announced plans to add 1,000 undergraduates to increase diversity (including geographic)
Southeast
University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, AL
Birmingham Airport 60 miles away
43% instate
54% from Alabama + Georgia + Florida
US News Rank 103 National
Actively recruiting OOS with automatic merit scholarships based on test scores and grades
Southwest
Trinity University
San Antonio, TX
San Antonio International Airport 6 miles away
76% instate
79% from Texas + New Mexico + Arizona
US News Rank 1, Regional (West)
Midwest
Marquette University
Milwaukee, WI
General Mitchell International Airport 8 miles away
30% instate
69% from Wisconsin + Illinois
US News Rank 86 National
West
Pepperdine University
Malibu, CA
Los Angeles International Airport 30 miles away
50% instate
55% from California + Oregon + Washington
US News Rank 50 National
