Because of a recent decline in Minnesota high school graduates, St. Thomas is looking to ramp up out-of-state recruitment.

Dan Meyer, vice president for enrollment management, said the university monitors demographics with a book called “Knocking on the Doors,” which plots public and private enrollment and then totals them by state. According to the book, the Midwest has been decreasing in high school graduates.

“We’re in this kind of about seven-year period of a drop. And then if you look at the data at the end of it, Minnesota actually ends up a little bit OK because we’re about 2 percent ahead in terms of the overall high school population,” Meyer said. “So that’s some of the good news because the rest of the Midwest is pretty much down.”

Meyer said the key to St. Thomas raising enrollment is growing beyond its primary market around the Twin Cities area.

Junior Claire Callahan is from Chicago said St. Thomas did a good job recruiting prospective students during campus tours, which ultimately affected her decision to attend the university.

“Once I got up here, they were pretty actively engaged in keeping me interested in coming to St. Thomas,” Callahan said.

Meyer said the university is looking to expand even further within the next three to five years.

“There’s a ring even further out. I call them tertiary markets. We don’t even have a foothold there. That would be (areas like) Seattle, San Francisco, (Washington) D.C.,” Meyer said.

In President Julie Sullivan’s strategic plan, she stated that one of St. Thomas’ goals is to gain more students outside of the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

“While the University of St. Thomas has an excellent local reputation, we need to do a better job getting that message out beyond the Twin Cities,” Sullivan said.

Callahan agreed that the university should be reaching out to more out-of-state students.

“I think this school has a lot of cliques, and I think it’s hard for people out-of-state to come in knowing nobody and then having everyone have their same friends from high school – that’s the only reason why I wouldn’t recommend the school,” Callahan said.

Junior Daniel Roberts from Alaska said he came to St. Thomas because his dad told him about it.

“I know that since I came here, my high school is getting a lot of recruitment attention from the university,” Roberts said. “Both advisors and seniors there get information from St. Thomas in the mail and stuff.”

Sullivan intends to attract more out-of-state students by reaching out to a wider variety of people.

“The university aspires to enhance our current student populations, at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, by attracting well-qualified students from a broader geographical area, recruiting more racially and ethnically diverse students, and increasing our international student population,” Sullivan said in the strategic plan.

Meyer said alumni involvement is one of the most effective strategies that the university should be using.

“There are certain things that alums could do,” Meyer said. “We’ve got 100,000 alums scattered across the U.S. and around the world, and we can ask them to do simple things like refer a student; that’s the easiest thing.”

Despite the current recruitment shortcomings, Meyer said he is confident in St. Thomas’ future.

“I think St. Thomas is poised to kind of take off,” Meyer said. “We should be better known outside of Minnesota.”