motormouth512 is completely mistaken. They do NOT use the same scores in any way. TCNJ has way higher academic standards and as such has a MUCH better reputation than Rutgers in terms of pre-med, nursing, teaching, art, and by a wide margin the business school. Possibly equal in terms of engineering but i doubt it.
I also suspect in a short while it will be even higher ranked with the opening of Campus Town and the new, first time ever establishment of an actual endowment fund to build on.
motormouth–you’ll find ALL D1 schools accept substandard(average) intelligence athletes and simply hope their scores are offset by others . Seriously, you wouldn’t believe how easy it is for a athlete in terms of test scores to get into say a Brown for example. All it takes is way average scores b’ even c’s if a coach wants you bad enough. Just have to have someone that is well connected in that sport (or have the right last name) tell the head coach your a can’t miss.
lastly, knowing the name of school does NOT equate it to having a stellar reputation. Yes, many know the name Rutgers ie football, so that doesnt mean its known for academics that goes squarely to TCNJ for #1 public undergrade
in NJ , and i think its like tie for #3 overall regional (public and private) as per US news and World. Not too shabby.
certainly time has proven these posters way wrong as TCNJ per med since 2007 (when these posts were made)
is head and shoulders ahead of Rutgers in all rankings other than graduate phd school. The best is yet to come.
bottomline is you’re paying for the education one way or another. For my dollar i WANT small classes, lots of attention from faculty. Thats a better situation imo than a school with 35,000 and lecture halls with 300+ everytime.
If the question is: “which school has a better reputation?” then I think it depends on who you ask. Rutgers has a national reputation as a good school, I believe. I’m an alum and I’ve run into people from across the country that thought it was an Ivy (not everyone is as well informed as those on CC). I think TCNJ has a better reputation locally here in NJ, but it’s not well known nationally, so many people simply can’t compare the two because the’ve never heard on TCNJ.
If the question is: “which school should I attend, taking reputation into consideration?”, then that’s a very personal decision that must weigh lots of other factors than just reputation. As others have said, you can get a very good education at both schools at a “reasonable” price for a NJ resident, but they are totally different in many ways.
name recognition is very different than name reputation. For example , Arizona State is the largest university in the nation. Yet its reputation academically is generally not very high. Facts are NJ as a state has some very fine choices
(albiet overly priced ones in comparision to nation). As far as academic reputation is concerned for undergrades everything i’ve seen gives that advantage to TCNJ. That means better grad schools and opportunities after college.
Having said that, there is no doubt successful experience can be had just about anywhere for the motivated kid.
Personally, i think it makes better sense to forgoe the football team tailgate experience for a very reasonable class size and first name basis with your professors.
@stones3 “Facts are NJ as a state has some very fine choices”.
Um, this is far from the case. We only have five schools (Princeton, TCNJ, Stevens, Rutgers, Rowan) that are any good at all. The rest are all average or worse.
Honestly, I’d take TCNJ before Rutgers academically any day. Rutgers obviously has more name recognition nationwide, but it’s still not that great. It’s way too big for my taste, and finding an OOS student in a school of 30,000 is, surprisingly, a lot like playing Where’s Waldo. Rutgers is for people who are scared to leave New Jersey; TCNJ is for intelligent students who want to stay in-state or at least want an academically intimate setting.
That’s five you listed. I don’t follow how five very good and numerous average schools is a problem or how that doesn’t qualify as “some very fine choices”. I also have said many times TCNJ is a GEM! way way underated and its
rated highly in most lists. Its for high achieving students who want a top 75 most competitive as per Barrons academic experience.Not to mention its the obvious choice for anyone who can do basic math as it’s a tremendous value. Oh and by far the single best business program in NJ not to mention #20 in the entire country in accounting.