no, i meant that they will likely have a much greater percentage of in-state students (because the competition in-state is so strong). I wasn’t commenting on the impact on school culture. And It’s just a guess. I have no data to back that up.
My DD went to a private university in CA. About half of the students were from CA or nearby. You know…my kid wanted to experience CA culture, so she was happy that many of her friends were from the area. If she HS wanted to experience some different part of the country, she would have chosen a college in a different part of the country.
That being said, very very very few of her friends went home on weekends unless there was some special occasion like a family birthday or event. They stayed on campus where there was plenty to do nearby or on campus.
The parents of these local students adopted far away kids like mine, and my kid was often invited to some of these family events, or invited to have dinner and do her laundry.
I should add, something like 45 states and a bunch of other countries had students on this campus.
My other kid went to a large university where there were a LOT of kids from many different places. None of his friends lived locally. Actually, none of his good friends had families even in the same state as this school. But like DD, this kid had an abundance of friends and plenty to do.
Honestly, unless it’s a college where the vast majority of students commute from their parent home, I don’t think in state vs OOS matters.
1 Like
It does seem like that would cause that biggest impact (though I do think general culture is impacted in general). I’ll have to drill down about this at various schools. I wonder if schools know though. Like, they may live “off campus” but do they discern between a student’s actual home and an otherwise off campus apartment?
Some colleges do…and this is even reflected in their cost of attendance at some colleges.
1 Like
I think it depends on what kind of culture you’re going for. When I was at Berkeley every OOS, with one exception, and foreign student I knew was loaded and there were 800 kids from just down the road in Oakland with 4.0’s who weren’t admitted. I’m definitely of the opinion that local schools should be for local kids first, even if they need FA.
Commuter schools can usually be noticed by looking at the percentage of frosh living in the campus housing in the common data set section F1. Lower percentage suggests more commuters.
However, determining “suitcase” prevalence is more difficult. (This means resident students who leave for home most weekends.)
5 Likes
Sometimes the college shows different cost of attendance for living with relatives versus living off campus.
In terms of public information, the common data set section F1 distinguishes only on campus versus otherwise (meaning resident students living off campus are combined with commuters). The frosh percentage on campus is more useful in determining the percentage of resident students, since frosh resident students usually live on campus, in contrast to upper class resident students who often live nearby off campus.
1 Like
This is true about UVM. There are only about 5,000 total high school seniors annually in the whole state. Of those, only about 60% go on to a 4-year college. So yes, it’s inevitable that there will be far more out-of-state students at UVM. UVM can potentially also still be quite expensive for many Vermont families at $36,000 with room and board. Yes, there is the generous Green & Gold that covers all of that, but that goes to one student per high school… Most kids that I know that are planning to attend college are also eager to leave Vermont for at least a few years - S25 included. Some of them do end up at UVM anyway, but I would still say that OOS students have a much bigger impact on campus culture there.
2 Likes
you’re right. I was really referring to suitcase schools when I said commuter school.
I went to school about 45 minutes from home, and I never went home. Even for Thanksgiving I’d go home in the morning and back to school the next day (if not that night). My parents moved when I was a senior and it made no difference to how much time I spent on campus (99%). We had lots of kids from Boulder in my sorority too and while they might have gone home for dinner more often than the kids from Chicago, it didn’t make a difference to how often we saw them around campus. The sororities and dorms didn’t serve dinner on Sunday nights (this was a long time ago) so often the locals took us home for dinner on Sunday nights (or we all went to Taco Bell).
it could be depressing being on campus over a weekend or break when everyone has gone home.
Yep. Source: I go to a school like that. At about 45 minutes from home, I’m from farther away than most people I know (commuter or resident). They told us on the tour that 40% of students live on campus (which according to their website’s own stats, is an inflated number), but hearing numbers and percentages doesn’t tell you what that actually feels like.
Thank you so much for the info. My D24 was just accepted to uva. We are from Alabama
And she hasn’t found anyone locally that was admitted. She’s excited for the change but I am a bit apprehensive about her getting to school and finding everyone has friends already. So in your son’s experience, in state kids are open to welcoming OOS kids? Maybe this seems silly but no one enjoys being an outsider!
My daughter went to UNC (in-state). Because of the high percentage of in-state students, many do know each other. Even if they didn’t go the same high school, it’s like six degrees of separation in the bigger counties (Wake & Meck). It could be somewhat challenging for an OOS student who is more introverted. That said, two of my daughter’s closest friends from UNC are from NY & California (they befriended each other first semester freshman year). It helps if they are willing to join campus clubs and groups where they can meet other students.
My youngest is an OOS at another state U where the in-state/OOS ratio is not as drastic as UNC. She is more on the introverted side, and we definitely discussed the challenges she may have at a college where many would already know each other. She has a good mix of friends from in-state and OOS but her closest friends are from OOS (states other than ours) - not on purpose, it’s just the way it worked out. She has found most of the in-state kids to be welcoming and has never experienced a scenario where she was treated differently as an OOS student.
1 Like
Congrats! Not sure if you’ve participated on the UVA EA thread but some of us there are talking about housing, etc. at the moment. You could ask the experienced families there more about this:
1 Like
My son is OOS in Virginia with about one-third OOS students. In his friend group, only one is an in-state student. He hasn’t felt that the instate students have stuck with people they already knew. Most want to move on from high school and are ready to meet new people.
1 Like
I’ll head over and take a look. Thank you!
One of the things that I think is super important that is often overlooked is what kind of a transition program a college has available for incoming freshman. The longer and/or more immersive the experience before school starts, the easier I think it is for students to start building a social network, especially for those who are not social butterflies.
Also, people seem to be overlooking the diversity that is in pretty much every state in the union. Even in states that are almost all red or blue, there are areas of the other color. And frequently, an area of a certain “color” will often have 30-40% of people of the other “color.” They will have people who are devout evangelicals and people who are agnostic or atheists. They will have people with socioeconomic differences as well. This doesn’t even begin to include transplants who moved to the state from a different part of the country.
I went to college out-of-state at a midwestern flagship that was about 30% OOS at the time, I believe. Apart from my freshman roommate who was from the college town and went home almost every weekend, almost everyone else spent almost all their time on the college campus. Thankfully, my college did have an immersive experience for incoming freshmen, and I’m convinced that was one of the biggest reasons why I loved my time at the university and didn’t transfer after the first semester or year.
.
My group of good friends were mostly from in-state. But they now live in California, New York, D.C./Europe, and only two of them remain in-state. And while we were in college, one of the families would always include me for Easter, or the families would pick me up from the airport and spoil me before returning to the campus, or if a parent was visiting their kid, then we’d be invited to join in a nice dinner away from campus. And friends also came to visit me in my home state more than 800 miles away, whether over the summer or for spring break, etc.
All that to say, is that I don’t think the percentage of in-state vs out-of-state students affects a campus’ vibe too much. Of course, my experience was in the Midwest, and midwestern nice is real.
11 Likes
Good article that includes an interactive map with the OOS data at public research universities: " State universities admit more out-of-state students for the tuition bump" https://stateline.org/2024/02/15/state-universities-admit-more-out-of-state-students-for-the-tuition-bump/
2 Likes
Thanks for the take. And I agree that pre-start programming can be key. Though, at my alma mater, my particular hiking group was a total DUD…not a single lasting connection made! I was quite jealous of the tight knit groups I observed…
I understand. Just to clarify for others, however, I don’t think that forming super close bonds right away is essential to a pre-start program. At the conclusion of my participation, I didn’t feel super close to anyone, but I felt like I had people with whom I could at least arrange to eat lunch or dinner with so I wouldn’t be alone in the dining hall, or I might get a casual invite to do something on the weekend. And having just that much was enough to get me through some of the times when I would have otherwise struggled (particularly with a poor roommate fit, beyond her going home every weekend, and being the only freshman on a floor with upperclassmen).
Granted, some of those people with whom I was superficially friendly at the end of the pre-start program I did end up becoming closer with and really bonded with them, but I definitely couldn’t have predicted which set of superficial friends were going to become long-term, if any, at the conclusion of the program. But having any kind of social network, no matter how flimsy, was important in my own transition.
3 Likes