The State's oldest university, Trinity College, has embarked on a campaign specifically aimed at recruiting students from regions outside Dublin.
The campaign, promoted by the college's board, comes as competition for students among universities intensifies because of a fall in the youth population.
Trinity has traditionally been stronger on the eastern seaboard, but now wants to broaden its base in Munster, Connacht and parts of Ulster.
The university said it hoped the campaign would dispel a perception among some students that Trinity was "strictly a Dublin college".
The university said it was under-represented in students from many counties outside Dublin. While 45 per cent of its first years come from Dublin, only 1.3 per cent hail from Kerry and 1.9 per cent are from Donegal.
Senior Trinity academics will attend regional information meetings, starting next Thursday in Tralee. Meetings in Galway, Leitrim and Donegal are also being organised.
Ms Patricia Callaghan, admissions officer, said Trinity was reaching out to groups who may not traditionally have considered going to the university.
She said with projections showing a falling youth population it made "good sense" for colleges to target new groups.
The move by Trinity is a further sign that competition for students among colleges is intensifying. Already some institutes of technology are finding it difficult to fill their courses.
Trinity is still one of the most successful colleges in attracting CAO first preferences, but it faces serious competition from the two other Dublin universities - DCU and UCD. The Dublin Institute of Technology is also popular, and this year it topped the chart for total CAO first preferences.
Ms Callaghan said the regional meetings would also allow the college to dispel the myth "that you need 600 points to go to Trinity". She said the university's courses - particularly in arts and engineering - were "highly competitive".
The meetings would also allow students to learn more about individual courses. "One of the problems in terms of poor attrition rates in recent years is that students do not put down the right course in their applications. So these meetings will very much focus on what each course involves," she said.