Florida Atlantic University

I visited Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida, and came away impressed. FAU opened in 1964 and serves about 25,000 undergraduate students today. It’s a Hispanic serving institution with about 25% of its student first generation and is the #1 public Florida university for ethnic diversity. They are proud to have cracked the US News and World Report top 100 this year for Public Universities, and it’s also ranked #25 for Pell Grant Graduation Rate and #30 for Social Mobility.

With 10 colleges, there’s lot of opportunity academically. One of them, the Wilkes Honors College, is 45 minutes north in Jupiter; there’s a bus that goes back and forth a couple of times per day. Here are some tidbits on the academics:
·      FAU became an R1 institution last year.
·      The BSN in Nursing is direct admit, which is unusual in large public institutions in the south.
·      FAU School of Medicine offers a 7-year BS/MD program
·      The College of Engineering and Computer Science offers majors in all the usual suspects plus Geomatics Engineering, Data Science, and Ocean Engineering
·      All prospective business majors are admitted to FAU as pre-business, but maintaining a 2.5 in the foundation courses assures successful transition to the major.
·      The business majors include Hospitality and Tourism Management, Management Information Systems, and International Business – which is ranked as #23 in the country by USNWR.
·      The College of Business also offers some very interesting minors such as Casino and Gaming Industry Management, Club Management, Digital Marketing, Event Management, Health Administration, Applied Global Business Communications, Artificial Intelligence, Healthcare Information Systems, and Entrepreneurship, which is ranked #24 in the US by Princeton Review.
·      The School of Environmental, Coastal, and Ocean Sustainability (ECOS) received a substantial donation last year to support scholarships and research.
·      The Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Justice is the third largest undergraduate degree program at FAU.

About 4000 of the undergraduates live on campus, and the priority housing deadline is March 20 at 5pm. Students who are admitted are advised not to wait until May 1. Rather, they should pay a $200 non-binding tuition deposit so that they can then pay the $100 housing deposit to secure first-year housing. At about $39K out-of-state, and a lot less in-state, FAU is a great educational value!