For admissions counselors, travel season is one of the most demanding—and consequential—parts of the recruitment cycle. With limited time, rising costs, and increased pressure to demonstrate ROI, recruiting travel can no longer be built on habit or tradition alone. Strategic travel planning is essential, not just for efficiency, but for equity, enrollment health, and long-term brand building.
Where counselors go, how often they go, and what they do once they arrive all have real implications for application volume, student fit, and yield. And those decisions look very different depending on whether an institution is recruiting in urban or rural markets.
Understanding the distinct challenges and opportunities of each environment allows admissions teams to deploy their resources more intentionally—and avoid a one-size-fits-all approach that rarely works.
Recruiting in Urban Areas: High Density, High Competition
Depending on your institutional profile, urban markets may be the backbone of your applicant pool. The logic is clear: large populations mean more students, more schools, and more potential applications in a smaller geographic area.
The Advantages
Population density allows for efficient reach
Urban areas offer high population density, allowing admissions counselors to reach a large number of prospective students in a relatively short period of time. Travel schedules can be efficient, with multiple school visits, fairs, and events packed into a single trip. Because of this, institutions often return to urban markets year after year, reinforcing pipelines that consistently generate applications.
Established college-going culture
Many urban high schools have well-established college-going cultures, supported by counseling teams, parent expectations, and access to resources. Students are often familiar with application timelines, standardized testing, and financial aid processes. While this can make recruitment smoother, it also means students may already have strong preferences and expectations when engaging with institutions.
Higher earning potential
Urban students are often more affluent, simply due to the cost of living in metropolitan areas, which can positively affect net tuition revenue–not to mention typically stronger community support and more access to internship opportunities.
The Challenges
High Cost of Travel
While urban recruiting can be efficient, it is often extremely expensive. Flights, hotels, meals, and local transportation in major metropolitan areas can quickly consume a large portion of an admissions travel budget. Institutions must carefully weigh whether the application volume and yield justify the increased cost of operating in these markets.
Intense competition
Urban students are among the most heavily recruited populations in the country. They are frequently exposed to college visits, fairs, digital campaigns, and marketing messages from a wide range of institutions. Standing out in this environment requires a clear value proposition, strong brand differentiation, and thoughtful follow-up beyond the initial interaction.
Recruitment can become reactive
Counselors often return to the same schools year after year because “that’s where applications come from,” even when markets shift. It’s important not to go on autopilot, but to carefully evaluate the entire funnel. Are these applications actually yielding enrolled students?
Reduced focus on underserved urban populations
With DEI initiatives increasingly restricted or deemed illegal in certain contexts, institutions may become more cautious about how they approach urban recruiting. This can lead to less intentional outreach in poorer or historically underserved urban communities. Over time, this shift risks narrowing access and reducing institutional presence in areas that may benefit most from sustained engagement.
Urban recruiting can significantly move the needle, but only when institutions are intentional about differentiation and not simply showing up where everyone else already is.
Recruiting in Rural Areas: Fewer Students, Deeper Impact
Rural recruitment requires a different mindset altogether. These markets are often overlooked, but they present unique opportunities for institutions willing to invest thoughtfully.
The Advantages
Less competition for students’ attention
These students are often exposed to far fewer college representatives, allowing each interaction to feel more personal and meaningful. When a rural small liberal arts college rep visits a rural high school, the shared experience can create an especially authentic connection. That student may more easily envision themselves on a similar campus.
Lower travel costs
Travel to rural areas is often less expensive in terms of lodging and daily expenses. However, fewer students and schools can make it harder to justify the cost of travel when measuring ROI purely by application volume. Institutions must define success more broadly, considering long-term yield, student fit, and community presence.
Stronger community impact
In rural communities, colleges have the opportunity to play a visible and meaningful role beyond traditional recruitment. Collaborative college fairs co-hosted across multiple schools or districts can expand access, reduce barriers, and make college exploration more approachable. These efforts position institutions as long-term partners invested in the community’s success, not just short-term enrollment gains.
The Challenges
Lower student volume
Rural regions typically have fewer high schools, smaller graduating classes, and a more limited pool of college-bound students, which naturally reduces the scale of recruitment efforts. This can make traditional metrics like applications per visit or cost per inquiry appear less favorable when compared to urban markets.
As a result, admissions teams must recalibrate expectations and evaluate success through long-term yield, student fit, and sustained community presence rather than sheer volume alone.
Greater dependence on student interests
With smaller student pools, rural recruitment relies heavily on finding students whose academic interests align with institutional offerings. Counselors may only connect with a handful of students who are strong fits, making those interactions especially important.
Success in these markets often comes from depth of engagement rather than breadth.
Lower emphasis on continuing education
In many poorer rural areas, there is less emphasis on postsecondary education due to economic, cultural, or generational factors. This results in fewer high schools, smaller graduating classes, and a lower percentage of students actively planning to attend college. Admissions counselors must often spend additional time introducing the concept of college itself, not just their institution.
Some may have a distrust of the higher education system altogether as the country’s confidence in our institutions have shifted for the worse.
Greater need for nurturing and support
Rural students may have less exposure to the college application process, financial aid systems, and campus life expectations. As a result, they often require more guidance, reassurance, and follow-up from admissions teams. This increased level of support can be resource-intensive but often leads to stronger relationships and higher persistence once enrolled.
To maximize the value of rural travel, institutions must think regionally rather than singularly. Visiting one rural school in isolation rarely justifies the expense, but layering nearby schools, districts, or community events can improve efficiency. Strategic planning ensures that each trip builds momentum rather than functioning as a one-off visit.
Strategic Takeaways for Admissions Teams
The reality is that urban and rural recruiting shouldn’t compete with one another—they should complement one another. Each serves a different purpose in a balanced recruitment strategy.
Effective travel planning means:
- Evaluating true ROI, not just application volume.
- Understanding where long-term enrollment health will come from.
- Matching recruitment intensity to student readiness and support needs.
- Being willing to reimagine “success” beyond immediate yield.
A college’s setting—whether rural, suburban, or urban—plays an outsized role in a student’s decision-making because it directly shapes their day-to-day life.
While many prospective students are still figuring out academics, careers, and even majors, most have a clear sense of the type of environment they want to live in, making campus setting one of the most intuitive and influential factors in college choice. Play to your strengths if you sense your campus is the right kind they’re looking for.
Recruitment Strategy Planning with The Parish Group
In an era of rising travel costs, shifting demographics, and increased scrutiny on enrollment outcomes, admissions teams must be more intentional than ever about where—and how—they recruit.
Strategic travel planning isn’t just about efficiency. It’s about aligning institutional mission with market realities, meeting students where they are, and ensuring no opportunity is overlooked simply because it’s harder to reach.
When done well, both urban and rural recruiting can play powerful roles in building a strong, sustainable incoming class.
The Parish Group can help create a personalized recruitment strategy for your unique institutional profile and goals that optimizes long-term enrollment growth. As a Slate Preferred Partner, we can help you utilize Slate’s Voyager feature for more streamlined planning and precise reporting. In Voyager, you can visualize your current and historical enrollment funnel geospatially, while factoring in school locations, population densities, and regional demographics to help justify travel requests by turning to the data.
Reach out at success@parishgroup.com or call us at 828.505.3000 to set up an exploratory discussion with one of our enrollment experts.
