<p>Hello UFPR. I'm here to tell you about FAU (Florida Atlantic University) in Boca Raton, Florida.</p>
<p>Regarding the things you wanted:</p>
<p>1) located near/on the beach: FAU is 3-5 minutes from the beach. You take Spanish River east for 5 minutes and you're there.
2) sororities: membership in at least 3 sororities here just broke triple digits. Pledge classes had between 50-90 girls. FAU is working on the specifics of getting houses for them as we speak; every Friday there is a meeting about the logistics and they expect to break ground in 2009 to open in 2010.
3) communications major (journalism, public relations, ect.): I believe FAU has all of these... possibly not public relations. Journalism has a lot of avenues, including the campus newspaper, campus radio, campus TV.... in fact, our campus newspaper (the University Press) is advised by a very well-connected Sun Sentinel reporter. Every person who comes to the UP and is willing to work hard has been placed in a journalism job. I kid you not. I know five off the top of my head from last semester alone.
4) good academics and athletics: what you learn here is the same as what you'll learn anywhere else in Florida. Perhaps some of the tests at the flagship, UF, are harder but the material should be roughly the same. I have a friend who teaches at UF as a grad student and he can vouch for this.
5) party life: if you are involved in a sorority, you will def be invited to these. A couple of friends from work are in sororities and they're always putting up pictures of parties on Facebook. In fact, there's a keg party this weekend and couple of homecoming parties as well. However, don't expect to go to a block party with 5000 people. These are house parties.
6) under $8k tuition (Florida resident): definitely.</p>
<p>Regarding things you don't want:
-small school (less than 3k): we have 27000 students. The main campus, Boca, has 20k students, with 2400 living on campus. They're building dorms over the next four years to double that on-campus population as well as build a football stadium, shopping, recreation pool, etc
-small surrounding city: Boca is a decent size and cosmopolitan in nature. It's also extremely safe. It has bars, restaurants, malls, movies, bowling and of course the beach.</p>
<p>Now let me tell you about some other stuff. FAU has plenty of school spirit, 100+ student organizations, intramural sports, senior class monuments, multiple 24 hour study centers with computer labs, research opportunities, accessible professors with great resumes, a mall food-court style cafeteria, Starbucks, supplemental instruction labs, a new Recreation Center and one of the most diverse student populations in Florida. It's a great place to be and an underrated school across the baord.</p>
<p>Hope that helped. Let me know if you have any more questions.</p>
