Correction appended.
Ever since Sarah Shoeb was little, she saw herself going out of state for college. She said she wanted to "try something new" and "be with a whole new gang of people."
When she toured Ohio University before her freshman year, she knew it was the place for her. Hailing from Manassas, Va., which is roughly a six-hour drive from OU, getting involved was how she kept herself from getting homesick.
“I guess I am scared that one day I will wake up and want to go home," Shoeb said. "It just hasn’t happened yet.”
Shoeb, a sophomore studying communication disorders, was one of 2,813 out-of-state undergraduates at OU’s Athens campus her freshman year — a number that has been steadily increasing with the overall enrollment increase at OU.
In Fall 2015, nearly 16 percent of undergraduates came from states other than Ohio. In 2011, the proportion of out-of-state undergraduates was about 13 percent of the total undergraduate population on the Athens campus.
OU officials said their goal is to maintain a fairly consistent ratio of in-state to out-of-state students on the Athens campus.
“We push toward 85 percent in state and 15 percent out of state, but that can vary,” Craig Cornell, the senior vice provost for Strategic Enrollment Management at OU, said. “We’re not removing any in-state students for out-of-state students. We’ve never done that.”
Cornell said that number can vary slightly for OU as a whole because of online programs and regional campuses close to state borders.
He also said enrollment from out of state has increased for all of OU in the past few years. Other colleges in Ohio have have seen increasing numbers as well.
In 2015, Kent State had 3,892 total students enrolled from out of state, which is about 15 percent of the university’s total population at its Kent campus. At Miami University's Oxford campus, 6,074 students, about 32 percent of its population, came from out of state.
OU's admissions counselors work with both in-state and out-of-state students. In comparison, Miami University has seven regional counselors tasked with recruiting out-of-state students.
Susan Schaurer, assistant vice president for enrollment and director of admission at Miami said the school focuses more on attracting certain types of students, rather than maintaining a certain ratio.
“We look for the brightest, best and most diverse students, regardless of where they reside,” she said.
Cornell said OU officials "attend hundreds" of recruitment events across the United States.
"In Ohio, a lot of students already know us," Cornell said. "(Out of state,) it’s about getting in and making people familiar with the university."
One tool the university uses to recruit out-of-state students is the Out of State Ambassadors, a university-sponsored organization that helps recruit and support out-of-state students as they go through the transition of living far from home.
“It’s kind of hard because you can’t talk to somebody who lives an hour away about what you’re dealing with and not being able to sleep in your own bed for four months,” Shoeb, secretary of the group, said.
The university also holds "OHIO Up Close" days, which allow members of Out of State Ambassadors to connect with students at their old high schools and meet with prospective out-of-state students.
“(The group's) ultimate goal first semester is making sure ... every out-of-state student feels like they are at home,” Shoeb said.There is one piece of advice Shoeb would give to out-of-state students deciding to attend OU.
"You just have to go in with an open mind,” Shoeb said. “It was the best decision I ever made.”
Correction: A previous version of this article misstated who hosts OHIO Up Close Days. The article has been updated to show the most accurate information.
