<p>I'm torn between rutgers and tcnj right now. I'm doing nursing, any suggestions? I heard both programs are pretty good.</p>
<p>I also rejected Cornell and NYU for the full ride at TCNJ, and I am certainly not the only one that I know who had similar options. And if you don't believe the anecdotal evidence, consider the fact that the average person on a full ride here must've scored 1450 or higher (many scored much higher) on their SATs (old SATs) and have ranked in the top 5 percent of their class, obviously people with those credentials will have other options. </p>
<p>Anyway to address the original question, Rutgers is more known nationally than TCNJ, but just because people know the name Rutgers doesn't mean they have a good opinion of the school. TCNJ, on the other hand, is rapidly growing in terms of reputation. One of the earlier posters alluded to it, but here is some info from TCNJ's website: </p>
<p>The College of New Jersey is ranked as the 22nd best value in public higher education, according to Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine.This ranking comes on the heels of the U.S. News and World Report's survey, which ranked the College as the top public institution in the north in the Top Universities Master's category for the 15th consecutive year. The College was also recognized as one of the nation's 75 most competitive colleges (and one of only five state-supported colleges on the list) in a 2007 Barron's ranking. </p>
<p>Also #6 on Princeton Review's Happiest Students List and #18 on Most Beautiful Campus. :) </p>
<p>Let me just add that someone earlier made a comment that TCNJ didn't have good faculty, I have no idea what he/she was basing that on, but the faculty here are excellent. They are all good teachers, not just scholars, they love what they do and in shows in classes. Most all of them are also very highly regarded in their fields. If you're interested in checking it out, the TCNJ website has faculty bios, look at the department you're interested in and read about the faculty - they are certainly NOT underqualified.</p>
<p>people rejecting top notch schools for a school that's not even ranked on the top 100 list should seriously reconsider. most of you do it because you're saving money by spending less. let me tell you, spending more money for a better "name" on your resume always is better in the long run. sure TCNJ has a good faculty no doubt about that, but when you're applying for a job and the last two applicants are you, a TCNJ graduate and another, a Cornell graduate, which one do you think is more favorable?</p>
<p>isn't it good to go to tcnj over schools such as cornell because one has a better shot at standing out in his/her program? i'd think that when applying for a job, a seemingly brilliant student from tcnj would fare just as well if not a little bit better than a mediocre student from cornell. the person would have the perfect gpa and have the best ec's/recs, because the school takes care of its top students. of course this only applies to those in the lower tier of the ivy application pool.</p>
<p>"i'd think that when applying for a job, a seemingly brilliant student from tcnj would fare just as well if not a little bit better than a mediocre student from cornell."</p>
<p>When you apply for jobs, most employers don't care about GPA. They'll never know that you excelled academically at TCNJ, or that you got into more highly ranked schools. It's a different matter for grad school, especially med school, which admits students almost solely based on GPA and MCATs. If you are a star student already, then you might have an easier time getting top grades at TCNJ.</p>
<p>Even in the geographic area around TCNJ, Cornell has far more prestige. In my opinion, graduating from Cornell gives you an edge that the TCNJ never will. However, there would be a couple of reasons to choose it over Cornell or even Rutgers: 1. Cost. Was the FA package too good to turn down? 2. Fit. Is a smaller campus better for your personality? </p>
<p>You really do want to be happy at your undergraduate college. If you aren't, then you'll struggle for four years.</p>
<p>TCNJ will never give you that edge in prestige over a school like Cornell...maybe even Rutgers. People saying to give the school time for it to improve should realize that the school has been around since the mid 1800s...and giving it five or ten years won't make any difference at all.</p>
<p>I am currently a senior at a high school in New Jersey, and most of the people in my school applied to either TCNJ, Rutgers, or both. Almost everyone I know who applied to Rutgers got in, many of them being average students, while TCNJ only accepted students with much better academic records. </p>
<p>I know that doesn't prove that TCNJ academics are better than Rutgers, but TCNJ is definitely a much more competitive school with higher standards.</p>
<p>most of the smart kids at my school applied to tcnj as a safety, and most of the average kids applied to rutgers as a safety. (with kids mostly choosing them only for the money)</p>
<p>Practically everyone I know got into Rutgers. A lot of them had SAT scores in the 1500s. While Rutgers may have a better reputation, TCNJ has smarter students overall. I was between Rutgers and TCNJ for awhile, but decided against both of them.</p>
<p>have a D graduating from Rutgers next week and visited TCNJ for other D, also am faculty at UMDNJ. rutgers has strengths (already mentioned), also big weaknesses: apathetic faculty, confusing pre-reqs and co-reqs, only a minority of students finish in 4 years (luckily my D is one of them), and it is sprawled over 4 towns - Piscataway, NB, East Brunswick, and North Brunswick (Cook College is in the last 3 named). Buses run when the drivers feel like driving (D missed classes), exams are given at nights and on weekends, and so forth.
TCNJ is a small LAC, fosters close faculty relationship (faculty don't hate students like many of them do at Rutgers), campus is small, teaching focuses more on critical thinking (at Rutgers, D took way too many exams that were scored by Scantron; not a way to assess how well a student has learned).
You can find summer research opportunities while at TCNJ.
Really it boils down to big U vs small LAC.</p>
<p>"faculty don't hate students like many of them do at Rutgers"</p>
<p>wow, lol are you kidding me? you call yourself a mother and you're still able to make an immature comment like that? sure rutgers gives less personal attention to students than TCNJ since it's so big, but going far as to say the faculty hates their personal students is ridiculous. I happen to have a cousin there, and she claims that if you want personal attention from the professors, you have to seek them yourself according to their personal free time.</p>
<p>It all depends. My son was admitted to both Rutgers and TCNJ, but thought TCNJ too small. He just finished his freshman year at Rutgers. Very successful year, and he made enough contact with professors to have snagged a teaching assistant role in psych for next year. He is looking forward to it. Just spoke to a friend who finished up at an Ivy. He was dissapointed with the number of classes taught by TA's there.</p>
<p>Yes, there are problems with the sprawling nature of the Rutgers experience, but there are also very good things about a universtity that size. Son is taking course at Rutgers Newark this summer, very convenient.
Plusses and minuses, just like any other endevor in life</p>
<p>This is apples oranges. Rutgers is a huge research university, with D-1 athletics. TCNJ is basically a small liberal arts school.</p>
<p>It's unfair to compare how competitive the admissions are. TCNJ is a much smaller school; of course it's a little harder to get into. But so what? That says nothing about faculty, program quality, departments, etc.</p>
<p>If you ask me, Rutgers is the clear choice - unless you REALLY want a small school.</p>
<p>Why?
- Research - Rutgers is an AAU school, with big-time research. For example, do you think TCNJ will ever have a huge new building dedicated entirely to biomedical engineering? Of course not.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Faculty - while Rutgers is not incredibly hard to get into, it has outstanding departments in many important fields. History, English, Physics, and Math are all considered top 20. And the RU philosophy department is widely considered in the top 3. </p></li>
<li><p>Professional schools - some of the professional schools - Mason Gross, Bloustein, and Pharmacy - are really outstanding. </p></li>
<li><p>Sports - Rutgers football is now very good; women's basketball is always great; baseball just won the Big East; etc. This adds a lot to the college experience.</p></li>
<li><p>Social life and atmosphere. New Brunswick is much better than it used to be. While TCNJ is pretty isolated, many RU students can walk to restaurants, stores, coffee shops, theatres, bars, etc. There is a lot to do in New Brunswick, and if you do get bored, you can easily hop on the train to NY. (the station is essentially ON campus - you can't beat that)</p></li>
<li><p>Extracurricular opportunities - RU has many more.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>I believe that both schools are sound in New Jersey since in my school (extremely competitive 4th in NJ) and prove to us that rutgers has programs in history, english physics and math in the Top 20</p>
<p>Maybe that's why Princeton changed their name lol @ idlaunva.</p>
<p>Also, being from New Jersey and having known a lot of people go to both colleges, I think that people are generally more happy with Rutgers as a better college experience. Like people have mentioned, the setting is a bit better, although TCNJ's quaintness may be better for people who are more easily distracted. Academically, TCNJ is a liberal arts college so it attempts to provide a more well-rounded education for students, where Rutgers is more of a place for people who know what they want to do, because I think specialty programs at Rutgers are a lot better. The only thing we can basically compare academically is the liberal arts core, which I think is much better at TCNJ, having looked at both schools this past fall.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>i'm a senior at tcnj and my sister is in high school and wants to come in two years. there are a lot of families at tcnj, and I think that says a lot about how happy people are to be here.</p></li>
<li><p>All of my friends are getting into prestigious grad schools with fellowships: University of Connecticut, Brown, Thomas Jefferson University (me!), Notre Dame, Columbia, Duke to study from a range of programs: math, philosophy, medicine, law (not necessarily respectively).</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Nobody is getting rejected because their transcript is coming from TCNJ. I'm very proud of the school I'm leaving.</p>
<ol>
<li> Beautiful campus! It is simply stunning. A German exchange student who was my roommate for a semester took so many pictures of TCNJ's campus to show her friends and family.<br></li>
</ol>
<p>If all you are interested in is a label, then you don't belong at TCNJ. Go to Abercrombie.</p>
<p>I visited tcnj and i thought the campus was so ugly. and then i saw rutgers and i loved it. tcnj is for kids that just want that small college feel. but it doesnt have good programs. you can't major in math, and minor in international relations for instance because they have such specific schools. That sucks a lot. I guess it would be good for the small community. But rutgers has that school spirit with the football games, and serious recognition outside of nj. It is more respected than tcnj. You will get a better job from rutgers than tcnj...but you never know.</p>
<p>And rutgers sends way more ppl to great grad schools than tcnj. ok bye.</p>
<p>"And rutgers sends way more ppl to great grad schools than tcnj. ok bye."</p>
<p>I'm glad TCNJ doesn't attract students of your caliber. </p>
<p>If school A has 10,000 students and sends 1% to great grad schools, you have 100 who do. If school B has 1,000 students and 2% are sent to great grad schools, you have 20.</p>
<p>Do you follow? Or do you think you know everything just because you visited? "doesnt have good programs," "more respected than tcnj," and "better job from rutgers than tcnj." What do you know about these things? You do not. Thus, don't act like you do.</p>
<p>If you have such little interest, why are you asking questions like this: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-new-jersey/465235-schools-really-competetive-tcnj.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-new-jersey/465235-schools-really-competetive-tcnj.html</a></p>
<p>the fact of the matter is that tcnj is very un-established and unknown. i know people all the way from California that are dieing to go to rutgers because it gives its students more opportunities. tcnj is a good school. it has smarter kids in it than rutgers does. but rutgers provides better careers for its students and i am fully aware of the concept of percentage. even so, rutger sends a higher PERCENT of its students to good grad schools than tcnj does.</p>
<p>ok.</p>
<p>but you didn't answer the question presented by one of the brilliant soon-to-be TCNJ grads "If you have such little interest, why are you asking questions like this: which schools are really competetive at tcnj?"</p>
<p>perhaps you wish to defer the competition...</p>