Welcome to Pepperdine University. I'm Nichole Erin

And I'm Shayna [assumed spelling] Jean and we're taking you for a tour.

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[background music] Pepperdine is named for its founder, George Pepperdine, a Christian businessman who started out in the Western supply industry.

Pepperdine is located in Malibu, California, less than an hour from downtown Los Angeles and is just a short drive from many of the areas cultural and recreational centers.

The University sits on 830 acres with an overwhelmingly beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean in Malibu and is arguably one of the most scenic in the whole country.

The campus is snuggled in the mountains, the winding seashore and beautiful Malibu Canyon. It just doesn't get any better than that. [music] Pepperdine enrolls approximately 8,300 students in five colleges and schools with about an even male to female ratio.

Wondering what it takes to get accepted into Pepperdine? Incoming Freshman average a 3.77 GPA as well as a 1911 SAT and have an ACT score of at least 28.

It is a rigorous application process cause we thoroughly read all applications, certainly more than once, and really have the benefit of going through and handpicking the student body each year.

For one year of tuition at Pepperdine including room and board, both residence and non-residence of California, can expect to pay around $48,000.

Pepperdine University has five distinct schools, offering students comprehensive undergraduate and graduate courses that cover a broad range of programs and majors.

We have a permanent biological preserve on campus, a greenhouse and our students work on campus. Probably the most exotic project, working on Catalina Island looking at the effect of pulse fire recovery and the response to deer. They don't belong on the island. They're eating the plants when they come back from fire and many of them are dying as a result.

Pepperdine's top five majors are business administration, advertising, international studies, international business, psychology and political science. [music]

Hola, BonJourno, 50% of Pepperdine undergraduates spend a semester or more abroad. Pepperdine has been recently voted as number 7 by the Institution of International Education for having the best study abroad programs in the nation.

Pepperdine has all of these satellite campuses all over the place. It's like a mini Pepperdine overseas. So in Florence there's this huge old villa that half of it used to be the home of a duchess and half of it used to be a hotel and they put them together and so it's this great school.

Every other year we go to Edinburgh, Scotland. We spend a month in London taking classes together, seeing as many plays as we possibly can and rehearsing two plays which we then load into Scotland the end of July and play for 2 and a half weeks in the Edinburgh French festival. It's an international French festival with artists from all over the world and if you can make it through sort of the grueling rehearsals that it takes to get a show up and running at Edinburgh, you can really do anything.

An impressive 96% of all faculty members at Pepperdine have earned a PHD or their terminal degree.

But even more importantly, Pepperdine students and alumni consistently mention the quality, accessibility and caring nature of their teachers.

The faculty, Pepperdine faculty is amazing. There is a personal relationship between students and teachers. The faculty helps you all the time. They're really next to you. If something happens to you they're calling you asking you, hey how are you and they're just amazing. [music]

Sports time, Pepperdine University has 14 NCAA division I athletic teams that compete in the West Coast conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports federation.

During a 27 year time span, Waves athletic teams have won 103 conference championships and a total of 139 teams have earned a national top 20 ranking.

Pepperdine offers housing for undergraduate, graduate and even married students.

The dorm situation at Pepperdine, it's sort of set up in like a suite set up where they have four rooms of two girls each that all share a big living room and that is, I think, one of the most important experiences of being a freshman. It sort of puts you in contact with people that you might not otherwise get to know very well. Yeah I think they do a great job with on campus housing here.

Residents are even invited to attend Pepperdine sponsored events and because of its great location they also enjoy complete access to the wide range of activities available in the Los Angeles area, not to mention all the great one's on campus.

On campus we have all sorts of clubs. There are clubs ranging from prelaw, premed to the Harry Potter Club, The Pirates Swashbuckling Club. We do a lot of community service activities here at Pepperdine. One major activity that we're actually working on right now is project serve.

Project serve is an annual service trip that takes students to 16 cities around the globe to help communities in need. [music]

SongFest is a tradition here at Pepperdine that we do every single year. It's where groups of students create their own 12 minute musicals and we actually bring in local celebrities to judge each 12 minute musical and it's an event that sells out every single year. The entire campus participates in it.

Can't find the love of your life while in school? Then call your fellow alum, Marilyn and Neal Clark Warren to help you out. They're co-founders of the online service eHarmony.

So if a midsize Christian University with a low faculty to student ratio and a superior athletics program is what you're looking for in a college, be sure to take a look at Pepperdine University.

[background ocean sound] Thanks for joining us here in Malibu, California on our tour of Pepperdine University.

Shayna and I are going to hit the beach.

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