Last spring, representatives from the University of California, Davis, made 20 trips to China to encourage admitted students to accept their offer to study in the United States.
The director of admissions at UC Santa Cruz met one young man in New Delhi, India, who had traveled hundreds of miles to make the case that he belonged at the coastal university thousands of miles from his home.
Overseas students interested in UC Riverside can request a Skype appointment with one of six international admissions counselors.
Pushed to look for alternative sources of revenue amid the deep budget cuts of the economic recession, schools in the UC system increasingly are recruiting nonresident applicants, who likely will make up a fifth of all freshman for fall 2014.
Even as state funding has begun to recover, campuses rely on substantial additional fees paid by out-of-state and international students who have brought in hundreds of millions of dollars for the university system in recent years.
Despite criticism from some parents and politicians, admissions officers at UC’s nine undergraduate campuses defend the shift as a mutually beneficial strategy, allowing them to broaden the undergraduate population with diverse perspectives and subsidize more seats for California students.
Walter Robinson, who directs undergraduate admissions at UC Davis, said it’s a necessary strategy in the current higher education environment.