Florida Atlantic University (Florida Atlantic) is a public research university with ten colleges, 30,000 students, and six campuses spanning over 100 miles of coastline. The University has seen remarkable growth in its programs and reputation in just the last few years, including doubling research expenditures, enrolling an all-time high number of National Merit Scholars, setting new records for private gifts to the FAU Foundation, increasing graduation and academic progress rates, and raising the profile of Florida Atlantic’s athletics program. For the first time in 2026, Florida Atlantic was named as a “Top 100 Public University” by the U.S. News & World Report, rising from No. 103 in last year’s ranking of the nation’s best universities.
Created to address the healthcare needs of the state, the Schmidt College of Medicine is a community-based medical school that admitted its first class of students in 2011. The College includes 175 faculty (103 full-time and 72 part-time), 1,274 affiliate faculty members, 326 medical students, 181 residents and fellows, as well as 70 graduate students in biomedical science.
Five local hospitals from top healthcare systems in the region, namely Baptist Health and Tenet Health, serve as key partners for undergraduate medical education (UME) and form the Graduate Medical Education (GME) Consortium that offers residency and fellowship programs. The college is also affiliated with Cleveland Clinic Florida, HCA, and local behavioral health medical centers. The college also has a faculty-practice plan, Florida Atlantic Medical Group, and is home to the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience, offering outstanding research and educational opportunities for faculty and students. Research and development activities in the college drive a university-wide effort to build key pillars of research strengths consistent with the University Strategic Plan.
The College annually provides approximately 400 students with a variety of educational offerings, including an M.D. program, an M.D./Ph.D. program, M.S. and Ph.D. degree programs in Biomedical Sciences, and graduate certificates.