Campus Life: Samford is a campus of 3,373 undergraduates and 2,136 graduate students, totaling about 5,500 students. It's a Christian university, ranked as the #1 school in Alabama according to The Wall Street Journal and Forbes Inc. Even though most applicants come from Alabama, the #2 state as far as applicants is Georgia, and 70% of their students coming from outside of the state of Alabama!
Admissions Requirements and Process: The middle 50% of admitted students had scores of 3.6-4.0 GPA, 23-29 ACT, and a 1150-1380 SAT. They open their application on August 1st, and will start releasing admissions decisions on November 1st, with their first scholarship deadline being December 1st. They do look at demonstrated interest, which means that they take into consideration how interested you are in attending Samford. You can use Common App or the Samford website to apply.
Scholarships: There are several scholarship opportunities, with their Presidential being the highest honor, but outside of that, there are many academic, leadership, and department-based scholarships. 90% of their students are able to find out about their scholarship amounts by Christmas. There are two scholarship deadlines, but specific scholarships are due by the 1st one of December 1st, which are the Leadership, Presidential, and Fellows Scholarships. There is an additional scholarship application that will need to be completed.
Minors/Majors: Samford has a liberal arts education, with their core curriculum are interdisciplinary, and all freshman start with this curriculum. Additionally, there are distribution areas that students build on the 1st year courses to gain insight into a variety of disciplines. There are 10 different schools, and a 172 majors, minors, and concentrations, providing a variety of undergraduate and graduate majors, Samford has an array of disciplines to study. They also have new undergraduate majors of Health Information Management, and graduate degrees in both Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) program and Physician's Assistant. They also have many fast track degrees, for example, 6 years total for both a Bachelor's and Law degree, or a 6 year B.S. and Doctor of Pharmacy degree (among many other opportunities).
Unique Programs/Helpful Info:
--Samford admitted its largest freshman class this past year. They also built a new facility for Health Sciences.
--Their academic center just underwent a $16 million dollar renovation.
--Their Brock School of Business has the only Data Analytics Center in the country!
--They have 17 Division I sports
--Life at Samford includes traditions like Step Sing, where groups participate in a musical production contest, over 130 student organizations, and a spiritual/faith component.
Visiting: Samford has both daily visit opportunities and Fall Preview Days, which the one left this semester is November 10th.
