More than a thousand prospective students filled the academic buildings, spilled onto the sidewalks and cheered on the football team during this year’s CMU and You Day on Saturday.

Beginning at 9 a.m., high school students and their families explored Central Michigan University’s campus, met and spoke with faculty members and professors and found the answers to their questions about admissions and academic programs.

Over the last two years, the annual event has grown both in attendance and registration, according to Ray Wilson, assistant director of admissions at CMU. As of Saturday morning, Wilson said pre-registration had reached 1,550 students, not including their family members.

“We won’t know final attendance until probably Monday," Wilson said.

This year’s numbers are an improvement from the last event, which Wilson said brought roughly 1,320 pre-registered students to CMU’s campus. He attributes the event’s growth to better and earlier marketing and advertising and improved marketing materials.

“We’ve been a little better at planned marketing,” Wilson said. “One thing that I think has helped us out as well we don’t have proof of, but I’d like to think so. CMU and You Day the last two years has been earlier in the year than it ever has been and we’ve now seen two years in a row that we’ve had a considerable increase in attendance.”

Members of Campus Ambassadors were posted all over campus to guide and help visiting families. Scottie Steele, a senior from Litchfield, said he hopes prospective students leave CMU better acquainted with the campus and with a good idea of the academic options the school has to offer.

“I think it’s a great opportunity to be able to give back,” Steele said. “I mean, I’ve been in the same situation, lost and not knowing what to do, so being able to provide guidance and understanding is pretty neat.”

Each visiting family was provided with a free meal at either Real Food on Campus or Fresh Food Company as well as three tickets to the afternoon football game against Syracuse. There were also bus tours of the campus, residence hall tours and options to submit early assurance applications for admission and scholarships.

Several of the buildings on campus had informational presentations playing periodically along with numerous staff members lining the halls ready to share information about their specific programs.

In the Engineering and Technology Building, Juan Peralta, an associate professor in the physics department, demonstrated several material examples of physics for passersby with the help of seniors Amber Hockemeyer and Troy Lyons.

“They are very curious about the demos,” Peralta said. “People want to understand what’s going on when they see something.”

Hockemeyer and Lyons volunteered to help Peralta at his table when he petitioned one of his classes.

“People are looking for future career options in physics and what kind of classes they might take,” Lyons said.

Peralta said he hopes to gain more diversity within the physics department in the future.

“We hope to increase our number of majors,” he said. “We still have the capacity to receive more students in the department.

Elsewhere on campus, parents and family members formed their own opinions about CMU as a potential option for their children.

Patsy and Rich Payment accompanied their daughter, Riley, as she toured the Education and Human Services Building. They said they enjoyed the campus and are looking for the school that will give their daughter the best options.

“We want somewhere where she’s safe,” said Rich Payment. “And somewhere where she can get involved in a lot of things so she can get the full experience of being away at a university. Also somewhere that really offers her a good opportunity and program she wants to take, and it sounds like this one’s pretty good.”

Riley Payment hopes to go into early childhood development and learned several things about the CMU program at one of the tables scattered throughout the EHS Building.

“You get to actually be with little children during your program here,” she said. “The representative said that you can get done within four years and have two smaller minors, so I liked that.”