<p>I'm looking to go out of my home state. Every college has a certain percent of students from out of state, but how high should that percentile be for me to not feel awkward.</p>
<p>During college visits the first thing I notice are the cars. and the license plates on those cars. esp in the student lots. Gives you a good feel as to where the students hail from.</p>
<p>that said, I agree with you. higher % outta staters is better. I prefer it 50% or greater.</p>
<p>The more OOS, the better, one reason why I would never attend an OOS public school or a very regional private school.</p>
<p>I went to Rose-Hulman, which College Board has as 57% OOS. I didn’t feel awkward one bit being from Florida (Rose is in Indiana).</p>
<p>However, I did feel a bit awkward since most of the people seemed more urban than what I was used to (I think we were told something like 85% of students were from places with less than 50k people or something during orientation). I don’t know exactly how to put it but most of the people thought my screaming music was totally weird and there were way less people with piercings and tattoos and whatnot than the city I grew up in… The imbalance in race and gender was a bit awkward, too. Where you came from didn’t really matter, I think.</p>
<p>I go to UNC-Chapel Hill, which has an OOS population of about 18%. I know plenty of OOSers and they all love it at UNC, even though they are vastly outnumbered. It really isn’t a big deal unless you choose to make it one, and with 20,000+ people your age around you finding friends or people you share things in common with shouldn’t be an issue.</p>
<p>My son goes to a school with a high number of out-of-staters, but they’re from surrounding states. He’d agree with dshinka in that he has felt out of place because he’s from the city and most students are from small towns/rural areas. His roommate played country music and he’s into rap. I think they learned to compromise. He said he was laughed at when he didn’t know what “Carhartt” was. Also, he seemed disappointed that the different races didn’t seem to want to hang out together.</p>
<p>Prior posters make good points. Also, it depends on the state; states like New York or California are very diverse in many ways so being in state might mean very little in terms of homogeneity. And in a region with lots of small states, very well known schools can be surprisingly regional (think some of the NESCAC schools–no single state overwhelmingly represented, but overall student population heavily northeastern, with NY and NJ added to the New England mix). A more valid point of reference might be how many students stay on campus on weekends (that is, the "commuter school/suitcase school)–doesn’t matter as much where they are from as long as the primary community is school rather than their hometowns.</p>
<p>Yeah, what mattmom said. If a state is relatively large and diverse, like Virginia is (NoVa, Virginia Beach, backwoods VA, etc.) then just because a lot of people are in state doesn’t mean it’ll be awkward.</p>
<p>Wisconsin Madison has abit of a problem with this.</p>
<p>There’s the “Sconnies” (Kids from WI and MN) and the “Coasties” (Kids from the Coasts). The sconnies think the coasties are pretentious cake-eaters while the coasties think the sconnies are rednecks. It ain’t that extreme, but the tension is definitely noticeable.</p>
<p>Usually in-state students will be happy to meet you once they find out you’re not from New York/New Jersey. If you’re not from NY/NJ, then the in-staters will be reasonably sure that 90% of what comes out of your mouth won’t be comments about how their entire state is a steaming pile of cow manure compared to NYC.</p>
<p>^^ I can almost smell the jealousy.</p>
<p>I agree with the others. Just want to add that looking at license plates may or may not be helpful. At least where I live, most people don’t take a car to colleges out of state. I would trust the numbers more.</p>
<p>Why would it be awkward?</p>
<p>Also keep in mind that not everyone who resides in a state and decides to attend the state university is necessarily FROM that state. We happen to “live” in Houston but we are not “from” TX.</p>
<p>I can think of 6 people that I know here who had children graduate this year and whose children will be attending TX state schools. But NOT ONE of them calls Texas “home” and all of the families have been in TX for less than 3 years. Two are from Louisiana, 1 is from Alaska, 1 is from the Chicago area, 1 is from Pennsylvania, and 1 is from the UK. But - for purposes of statistics - all of these students are considered “in-state.”</p>
<p>Why would it be awkward? It’s not like Californians have a different culture than the rest of the nation.</p>
<p>OOS students do group together though.</p>
<p>Mattmom made the best point. When I visited Worcester Polytechnic in Massachusetts there were OOS plates all over the place. NH, VT, ME, RI, CT, NY. Massachusetts is a small state. I visited Princeton, there were almost all NJ plates. I think OOS/IS students isn’t a very good metric by which to judge a lot of places, Rice University for instance is in a gigantic state, Brown is in a tiny one.</p>
<p>"It’s not like Californians have a different culture than the rest of the nation. "</p>
<p>GOOD ONE!!!</p>