Baltimore Kids Head South For College

The Baltimore Sun reports:

Five years ago, a kid from Reisterstown might have felt out of place at Sewanee, The University of the South, an isolated redoubt of southern gentility where young men wear bow ties to class and young ladies pearls, and professors lecture in academic gowns in the manner of Oxbridge dons.

Today, Matthew Lafferman is just one of many guys who gather Sundays at the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house on the rural Tennessee campus to watch the Ravens on television.

"The Baltimore kids are all in SAE," the 2005 McDonogh School graduate said. He's one of 23 Baltimoreans enrolled at the small private college - up from one in 2002.

The enrollment surge in Ravens fans is not accidental, but rather the fruits of Sewanee's five-year initiative to shed its parochial image by seeding word-of-mouth campaigns in a handful of communities outside its core region - among them Baltimore-area private schools.

"This is the way you do it now," said Richard Hesel, a Baltimore-based consultant to universities, of the niche-marketing trend. The strategy is increasingly employed by small Southern colleges that recognize an opportunity to attract students - particularly the coveted "full payers" whose parents can afford skyrocketing tuition - who have traditionally aspired to elite mid-Atlantic and New England campuses.

Heading South.