Michael Adler has noticed something in his two years at Kansas University: a lot of familiar faces.

The Lenexa native, a graduate of Rockhurst High School in Kansas City, Mo., is one of about 7,000 students from Johnson County on the Lawrence campus.

He’s heard the jokes. Some call the campus “Johnson County West.” Others call it “Blue Valley Grades 13-16,” after the upscale Overland Park school district.

“I’d say a fair share of people were Jayhawk brainwashed,” Adler said of his fellow Johnson Countians.

KU officials will gather this week to celebrate KU’s continued expansion in Overland Park, with the opening of Regnier Hall at the Edwards Campus. At the same time, the Johnson County presence continues to expand in Lawrence.

Consider:

• More than one in four KU students is from Johnson County. The 7,036 students from the county in fall 2003 were nearly twice that enrolled from Douglas County, which had the second-highest total among Kansas counties.
• There were 389 transfer students from Johnson County Community College in fall 2003, more than all other Kansas community colleges combined.

KU presence grows in suburban K.C. (8-8-04) Edwards Campus coming of age (7-14-03) KU Edwards Campus

• Seventeen of the 72 members of the KU Endowment Association board of trustees live in Johnson County. That’s a third of the members from Kansas.
• Six of the 30 members of the KU Alumni Association’s board of directors live in Johnson County. That represents half the board’s Kansas members.

High enrollment

At this point, the KU-Johnson County connection seems a self-perpetuating phenomenon.

According to Alumni Association records, there are 33,180 KU graduates living in the county, which is nearly 19,000 more than the second-highest number of alumni, in Douglas County.

“By far, that’s our greatest concentration of Jayhawks,” said Jennifer Sanner, the Alumni Association’s vice president for communications.

By comparison, metropolitan areas such as Chicago and Denver have 5,257 and 4,793 alumni residents, respectively.

And that, along with cost and location, probably explains why so many Johnson Countians choose to attend KU, said Suzi Cammon, a Lawrence resident who serves as the college counselor for Blue Valley North High School.

“For our kids, it’s an affordable education,” she said. “And for many of our kids, their parents are products of KU. Plus, a lot of kids will come to KU because they know kids here from previous classes.”

She said she could tell those factors affected the way KU recruited in Johnson County. The three to four visits by KU admissions counselors usually draw 50 to 60 students, but she said she thought the demand called for more visits to answer students’ questions.

“It’s frustrating as a high school counselor,” she said. “K-State blows the socks off of KU in terms of recruiting in Johnson County.”

Lisa Pinamonti, director of admissions and scholarships at KU, said the university dedicated one admissions representative specifically for Johnson County, and each school in the county was visited three times a year.

“I’d say our recruitment effort is very strong in Johnson County,” she said. “Three times is a lot of visits to a school.”

JCCC connection

KU’s recruitment strategy appears to be different at nearby Johnson County Community College.

Admissions representatives visit the college at least six times a year and conduct an annual “KU Day,” which features booths representing the university’s academic offerings.

Also, a representative from KU’s Freshman-Sophomore Advising Center drives to JCCC twice a week to answer students’ questions about transferring their credit hours, said Megan Hill, assistant director for transfer student recruitment.

“Johnson County is huge,” Hill said. “The students we get from Johnson County are vital to the university.”

Having a transfer agreement with KU also benefits JCCC, said the college’s president, Chuck Carlsen. The arrangement allows students to pay two years of lower tuition rates at JCCC before completing their junior and senior years at KU.

“We’re a flagship institution as a community college,” Carlsen said. “We have a national reputation. KU is a flagship institution. People realize they’re going to transfer to a school with a similar status.”

For Adler, who is majoring in psychology, the decision to attend KU came after he toured KSU and the University of Missouri. His parents are MU grads, but he said KU seemed the best fit for him.

But that doesn’t mean the campus’s location doesn’t have its perks.

“I’m 40 minutes from my home and my parents,” he said. “I can go home and do my laundry, but I’m far enough away my parents don’t come visit me all the time. It’s a perfect distance, really.”