Around 62 percent of Boone residents have participated in the 2010 U.S. Census as of April 26, according to census records on 2010.census.gov.

Boone’s participation rate is 6 percent lower than Watauga County’s current average and is 12 percent lower than North Carolina’s current average participation rate.

The current national participation rate is 72 percent.

After each Appalachian residence hall was given the appropriate amount of census forms earlier this year, each resident director and assistant devised their own method of census completion, Jeff Doyle, department of housing and residence life director, said.

“We gave out the censuses and said the census needs a minimum of an 80 percent response rate, but let’s shoot for 100,” Doyle said. “It was sort of up to each building to figure out how they wanted to try and get as high of a response rate as they could.”

Doyle

Though Appalachian’s on-campus population makes up around 16 percent of the total Boone population while school is in session, the university’s off-campus population makes up around 38 percent.

Since the mail-in period ended last week, off-campus students who want to complete the census should wait for door-to-door census workers, Doyle said.

“We’ll start knocking on doors starting May 1 in most of the apartment complexes in Boone,” Greene said. “Last week was the last day to mail the census in, so what I would recommend to off-campus

Appalachian students at this point is to wait for a knock on the door.”

Though Boone’s current participation rate is 8 percent lower than the state’s average, the town does boast a completion rate 11 percent higher than the last census in 2000.

For more information or statistics on the 2010 census, visit 2010.census.gov.

Story: NASH DUNN, News Reporter