The weekend event featured Tom Joyner of the Tom Joyner Morning Show
Florida A&M University (FAMU) experienced one of its largest ever Fall Previews as more than 1,200 students from across the state, Georgia and elsewhere converged on campus.
“FAMU’s culture and educational focus not only prepares students for the contemporary job market but it also instills an entrepreneurial mindset. When a student graduates from FAMU, their degree will matter,” said President Larry Robinson, Ph.D., who has allocated $3.5 million for scholarships.
The weekend event also featured a visit from the Denny’s Hunger for Education HBCU Tour and Tom Joyner, of the Tom Joyner Foundation, which has donated more than $66 million in scholarships over the past two decades.
FAMU is one of seven historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) on the tour. During the FAMU stop Saturday, Joyner and representatives from Denny’s, the National Council of Negro Women and PUSH Excel provided $500 to four high school students and four college students, totaling $4,000 in scholarships.
“At Denny’s, we have found that supporting HBCUs is an incredibly effective way to invest in the diverse communities we serve,” said April Kelly-Drummond, head of Diversity Equality Inclusion & Multicultural Engagement. “HBCUs make up only 3 percent of the colleges and universities in the United States, yet they produce 23 percent of African-American college graduates.”
William Hudson, Jr., vice president for Student Affairs, said 1,273 students and more than 600 chaperones and family members registered for Fall Preview.
“This is the largest Fall Preview registration we’ve had,” Hudson said. “FAMU is hot right now with all the great things that are happening on campus.”
According to the 2020 U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges list of Top Public Schools, FAMU placed higher than any other public HBCU among national universities. FAMU placed sixth, (No. 123) among the State University System’s (SUS) 12 public universities. Eight SUS universities placed in the Top 140 list of national public universities.
FAMU was 45th in the Social Mobility rankings – which reflect the number of Pell grant recipients who earn degrees and go on to make more than their parents.
As part of the Fall Preview, students and their parents toured the campus while others visited tables set up by the University’s schools and colleges in the Grand Ballroom to introduce prospective students to the academic programs offered by FAMU.
The large attendance at Fall Preview comes on the heels of a strong recruitment year for the University. More than 11,500 undergraduate and graduate students applied for admission to FAMU in fall 2019. However, Hudson said, competition is stiff, and he encouraged students to take test prep courses to help boost their ACT and SAT scores.
Students seeking merit-based scholarships must be admitted to the University by Nov. 1.
