I'm American, honey. Our names don't mean shit.

University of Illinois' goal to raise its academic reputation also has raised the anxiety level in high schools, where some students say they fear they might have a tougher time getting into the state's flagship campus.

To address those worries, U. of I. at Urbana-Champaign Chancellor Richard Herman on Tuesday met with Chicago-area high school counselors to explain why he wants to attract more out-of-state, minority and international students--and how that could help their students.

"Let me be clear about one thing: We are trying to create the best education for the students you send to us," Herman told the counselors. "This is why we are trying as hard as we can to attract the best students we can and those who give us as broad an experience as possible."

Among other goals, the University of Illinois' wide-ranging strategic plan calls for increasing the percentage of undergraduates who come from outside of Illinois to 15 percent, from 10 percent. The university has the smallest percentage of non-resident students of any Big 10 university, with seven of the public universities drawing more than 25 percent of their students from other states.

Herman also said he wants more students from the top 10 percent of their high school classes, a category in which Illinois ranks significantly lower than other public universities such as the University of Wisconsin, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Michigan.

Tom Higgins, a junior at private Morgan Park Academy on Chicago's South Side, questions the reasoning behind making a state university into a more elite institution.

"It is a state school and one expects that to be more open than private schools," said Higgins, who is considering applying to the U. of I. "Isn't the idea behind public education that education is supposed to be available to everyone?"

Herman said he's heard those concerns but won't let them affect his goal to make U. of I. the nation's premier public university, a plan that includes raising the academic selectivity and diversity of the student body.