University of Denver administrators have been working to raise the institution’s national profile. Admission officials reported last week that this year the percentage of new, first-year students from Colorado dropped from 51 percent to 47 percent, reflecting the influx of more out-of-state students.
“Two years ago we instituted a direct marketing campaign to purposely reach more out-of-state students in a larger number of states,” says Tom Willoughby, vice chancellor of enrollment.
After Colorado, the top home states for the 1,142 strong Class of 2010 are California, Illinois, Minnesota and Texas. Regionally, 21 percent of students are from the West and Southwest, and 18 percent are from the Midwest. The Northeastern U.S. is home for 8 percent of new DU students, and slightly more than 3 percent are from the South.
Willoughby says DU’s Institutional Research and Assessment data show that the University’s efforts to attract prospective students from other states are paying off. Those efforts include expanding “list targeting” by purchasing more names and addresses of prospective out-of-state students then targeting those prospective students for an integrated print and electronic marketing campaign.
“All of our efforts to increase geographic diversity have been marketing efforts,” Willoughby says. “We’re not giving [prospective] out-of-state students any advantage in the admission process in terms of who we select.”