In-State students and/ or any students that are interested in these schools
With the 2017 Princeton Review rankings now posted, it’s time to take a look at how the Garden State’s institutions of higher learning fared. The following New Jersey schools made the list for the 381 Best Colleges:
Drew
Monmouth
NJIT
Princeton
Rider
Rutgers
Seton Hall
Stevens
TCNJ
The Princeton Review’s list of the Best Northeastern colleges also includes Ramapo and Stockton, but they are absent from the overall best list.
My takeaways:
- The list seems to be the same as last year's. The only copy I could find of the 2016 list is from an Amazon book preview and I'm not looking through every college listed to absolutely confirm there's no additions or removals. Nevertheless, a Ctrl+F search confirms that all nine schools in the new list were also in last year's list. A Ctrl+F search also confirms that the remaining New Jersey schools on the Forbes list, Montclair, Rowan, Stockton, and FDU Metropolitan, did not appear in Princeton Review's list last year, along with Ramapo.
- In my take on the Forbes list, I mentioned that the ranking of the top seven colleges remained the same. Those top seven colleges - Princeton, Rutgers, TCNJ, Stevens, Drew, Seton Hall, and NJIT - all appear on the Princeton Review list. Since the Princeton Review doesn't rank the colleges by overall quality, this list doesn't determine how the New Jersey schools ultimately stack up against each other, but it's telling that the consistently best New Jersey colleges on the Forbes list are on the Princeton Review list. Their presence on the Princeton Review list reinforces that they're supposed to be the best in the state.
- Once again, Monmouth remains the only New Jersey college to not appear on the Forbes' list, but to appear on the Princeton Review list. This is particularly interesting when there are four New Jersey colleges appearing on the Forbes list that do not appear on the Princeton Review list and the Princeton Review's list is more selective. Since the Princeton Review does have entries on the schools it does not include in its lists, while Forbes does not, I still attribute this difference to Forbes not omitting schools because they aren't good enough, but because they only look at a select number of schools.
- Rowan's absence is intriguing because it's generally regarded as being superior to the average New Jersey colleges. A web archive search reveals that Rowan was at least included in the Princeton Review's Best Northeastern list in 2015, but it's since been removed. This seems odd, especially considering that Rowan currently ranks above Rider and Monmouth in the US News' ranking. But on the other hand, the US News ranking hasn't been updated yet and Rowan did go significantly down in the Forbes ranking this year, falling 17 spots and placing behind Montclair, which it was previously above. So it's possible that Rowan's academic standing is dropping - its standing in this year's US News ranking could either confirm or debunk this.
- Rider's inclusion is also intriguing because it ranks lower than Montclair and Rowan in the new Forbes list. In the current US News ranking, it ranks below Rowan. Again though, an accurate comparison between this list and the US News list can't be made until the US News list is updated.
- Like Forbes, the Princeton Review appears to have a disregard for Rutgers Newark and Rutgers Camden, possibly lumping them together with the main campus. Both appear on the current US News ranking, with Rutgers Newark tied with NJIT in the National Universities List and Rutgers Camden tied with Monmouth in the Regional Universities North list.
- As it presently stands, the only difference between the Princeton Review list and the US News' National Universities ranking is the exclusion of Rutgers Newark; all of the schools deemed "national universities" in New Jersey appear in the Princeton Review list. There are no differences between the two in regards to the US News' Liberal Arts Colleges ranking because the only other New Jersey school included in that category besides Drew is Bloomfield and Bloomfield doesn't have a published ranking. The bulk of the differences appear where most of the New Jersey schools appear in the US News ranking, the Regional Universities North list. Like I said before, Rowan currently ranks above Rider and Monmouth, as well as Ramapo and Stockton, despite its exclusion from both the best overall and the best Northeastern lists. Ramapo and Montclair also rank above Monmouth, Montclair ranks above the "best Northeastern" school of Stockton, and again, Rutgers Camden is tied with Monmouth. When US News updates their rankings next month, we'll get the final insight on how, or even if these schools' rankings changed. Personally, I'm not expecting any big changes in the US News list. I expect there to be differences and inconsistencies because Forbes, Princeton Review, and US News all appear to use different methodologies to determine their rankings.
New Jersey is home to about 60 colleges, universities and community colleges. Personally, I don’t think you can go wrong with any of them. Here are my top picks:
TCNJ -consistently makes lists and reports of “best value colleges”
Rutgers - great reputation as a research university for a lot of areas, including psychology, pharmacy and medical sciences.
FDU - has a recently-accredited pharmacy school.
Stevens - also has plenty of accomplishments and accolades, and is consistently ranked among top engineering schools.
TCNJ is among the top ranked undergraduate business schools in the nation at #34 per Bloomberg/business week
Now that Bloomberg has been fully debunked and discontinued, it will be interesting to see how institutions such as TCNJ prop up their various programs. From what I can see, TCNJ gets high marks for Teaching and generally as a public school, but solely when looking at Regional Universities North. The school does have 2 National Rankings of which I am aware, including Top 80 for undergraduate Engineering and Top 300 (barely) for its undergraduate business program. Wondering if there are sub-rankings, e.g., for Accounting, which I understand TCNJ touts as well. In any case, rankings mean a lot less when it comes down to money. While not highly ranked nationally, a school such as TCNJ may well present good “value” by virtue of its location and cost.
This from the Princeton REview just out this month:
Princeton Review gives TCNJ high marks for student satisfaction, more
Posted on September 1, 2016
6
Princeton Review asked 143,000 students at 381 colleges and universities across the country what they thought of their school on a range of topics. Based on the responses, the publication compiled a variety of rankings. In addition to being named a “Best College,” here’s where TCNJ placed on a number of its lists. Thanks to all our students who participated in Princeton Review’s survey:
•#6 in the nation based on overall student satisfaction
•#7 for having the most beautiful campus
•#12 for best career services
•#13 for happiest students
•#15 for best health services
•#19 for how well different types of students (backgrounds, ethnicities) interact at our school.
For those that not only want high quality education but happy kids. something to consider. So if things like ranked top #34 business program in the nation or USNWR rank of #3 overall in the North for ALL regional colleges and the 10 or so other nationally recognized accolades aren’t enough --know the students that attend just ranked it great! have an outstanding day all.
The Princeton Review list is more of a popularity contest than anything close to an accurate metric of school quality. Glad the kids at Drew like their food and have a great college theater. Happy for Monmouth and Rider students that they don’t have to study all that hard (is that really a good thing?). Is this really what we are all struggling to pay for in colleges?
NJIT filed a formal complaint about being reviewed as having the worst professors of the colleges surveyed. They rightfully pointed out that the rigor of the schools curriculum comes in part from tough but fair professors. Surprise, surprise. Students don’t always respond well to tough professors. Is this a fair manner in which to evaluate schools and teachers?
Schools get ranked on the ‘happiness’ of their students and the beauty of their campus. Not one of these schools was ranked on the quality of its curriculum or anything remotely related to academics.This is a KIDS’ survey accompanied by all of the immaturity, poor prioritization, and inexperienced perspective inherent in the 18-21 year old demographic.
The Bloomberg ranking was a joke and the folding of that list attests to that. That ranking is already old news and totally irrelevant moving forward to 2017 and beyond. Kudos for being tied for 3rd in North Regional universities. After filtering out the truly elite national universities and liberal arts colleges, competition is pretty slim for high marks among a handful of remaining colleges in about 9 States.
I wouldn’t select a brand of paper towels using the Princeton Review, let alone a college for my kid.
funny stuff.
Was Bloomberg wrong about Villanova?Notre Dame? Boston College? Texas at Austin?Indiana? Bentley?michigan? and nyu?ETC? or just wrong about TCNJ?
Was Princeton Review wrong about Vanderbilt?Yale? Colby? William and Mary?Bowdoin?virgina Tech?Rice? UCLA? or was it just TCNJ?
I could go on and on but any reasonable person should have gotten the point by now.
So transparent you are.
It is not a question of right or wrong as you put it. It is a question of metrics, accuracy and validity. It is not disparaging to the schools you cite to criticize the accuracy of the Bloomberg survey. You can disingenuously cast it this way, but the fact remains that to rank Villanova as the #1 business school while discounting Wharton is a joke.
The Princeton Review is not “wrong” as far as its metrics go. But it is not evaluating the academic worth of schools. It is polling students to see how much they like various aspects of their school. I personally am more interested in academic merit than I am in food services. The Review may be correct that Drew has great food. So what?
The question of reasonableness is always a function of perspective. If one’s primary criteria for choosing an undergraduate institution are the food, the theater, and whether one’s child can get by with as little work as possible, then by all means use the Princeton Review as your guide.
Transparent? How so?
Using rankings to validate a college’s worth is a fool’s errand. The rankings exist to give prospective students an idea of what college they should attend (and the colleges get something to brag about). They are not the final deciding point in why a student should attend a certain school. Just because a college is supposed to be better than the rest doesn’t mean it’s the right fit for a freshman.
The methodology of various rankings are subject to scrutiny. As I said when the Forbes list came out, Forbes isn’t focused on the academic worth of schools. It’s focused on the outcomes, the amount of money the graduates earn after they leave their colleges. Well, one could argue that students from wealthy families usually attend the highly ranked colleges and these students have the most connections, giving them a better chance of professional success in the future and keeping their alma mater in the upper echelon of the rankings.
To the Princeton Review’s defense, they do look at academic factors in their surveys, alongside the more trivial ones. Yeah, the quality of the food is a pretty minor detail, but students, particularly those living at school, should at least know if it’s worth ordering and save themselves an off campus trip. Also, just for the record, Drew is actually listed among the colleges that are supposed to have the worst food. The negative lists exist to complement the positive ones; there is also a list for schools with students who apparently study the most and a list for the ones with supposedly the best professors. I have to question NJIT’s complaint about students not responding well to tough professors because the schools you’d expect to have tough professors don’t appear on that list. Princeton doesn’t appear on the worst professors list. None of the Ivy League schools appear on that list. Lastly, the negative lists are referring to the colleges that appear on their overall best ranking, not all of the colleges in the United States. It’s how they stack up against each other. If the schools that didn’t make the cut for the best overall list were included, I suspect you’d be seeing them a lot more frequently on the negative lists.
The main problem with the Princeton Review’s methodology isn’t that they include minor factors with the important ones. The problem is they don’t include statistics in their rankings. The list is based entirely on students’ opinions of their schools. Student opinion is a crucial factor because incoming freshmen are more likely to fit in at well-liked colleges and even though statistics are ignored, the statistically top schools still appear on the best overall list. Nevertheless, that’s not to say statistics should be completely discounted because it should be known what the students attending these schools are capable of; how they did before they were accepted and how they did in the end. The abilities of the students is a factor in why they like or dislike their college.
Bottom line, rankings can be useful, but they can’t prove how good a college is supposed to be, especially when the ranking methodologies aren’t bulletproof. You, the student, ultimately determine how good the college was for you. Granted, it’s easy for me to argue against the value of rankings when I graduated from a college that’s not highly ranked, but I’d also argue professional success is not determined by your alma mater. And professional success is more important than graduating from a top school because the entire purpose of college is to help you professionally.
Stevens is in every way the equal of Princeton for engineering, applied sciences, and technological management/quantitative finance. It is ranked at No. 3 in the entire nation by Payscale for return on investment and starting/mid-career salaries of graduates, ahead of all the Ivy League schools. Comparing Stevens, a major research university offering the full range of undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs to a small regional liberal arts college like TCNJ is laughable. Stevens is more selective than TCNJ (38% admitted vs. 44%), and has 60% of its admitted students from the top 10% of their high school classes. Stevens freshmen have an average SAT score of 1342 (1600 scale math/verbal), which is some 140 points higher than TCNJ (and 160 points higher than Rutgers). The “low” 4 year graduation rate is meaningless in Stevens case, since 65% of the students are in the Co-op program, which includes a year off campus in an industrial or government paid internship. This program is five years by design, and the students enter the program with that understanding. Princeton and other Ivy League schools have accepted many Stevens graduates into their graduate programs. I know many. Tuition cost aside, Stevens graduates are the fifth highest paid college graduates in the United States. That speaks for itself. Stevens is 5 stars in those three fields, and 4 in everything else. I attended Rutgers and Stevens, by the way.
65% of Stevens students are in the Co-op (2016). Graduation rate of course is going to be biased towards 5 years in this case. Also, if you really believe TCNJ - whose reputation was largely manufactured by public relations they did when they renamed themselves (and challenged by Princeton whose original name was “CNJ”) is better in any capacity than Stevens you are mistaken. Stevens graduates are in the top 10 of return on investment and salary of all schools in America. That speaks for itself.
Well, because it’s a tech-focused school. Rutgers, TCNJ and Stevens are about the same academically for what it’s worth. Stevens is 3.5 instead of 4 because of the 4-year graduation rate. Even though the 6-year graduation rate means more imo.
When analyzing schools, a key factor is the types of students they’re intended for. Stevens is predominantly a STEM school. If you’re not a STEM student, and not everybody’s strengths lie in STEM, it’s not the right school for you.
Steven’s statistics don’t necessarily make it superior to TCNJ. The SAT scores of the applicants and how well they did in their high school classes says more about Stevens’ reputation than the actual education it provides them. Just because good students are attending a certain school does not mean the education they’re receiving is right for them. Nearly any student who did exceptionally well as an undergraduate could get into an Ivy League graduate program, regardless of what school they graduated from. Their work ethic speaks for itself. While lower acceptance rates are usually indicative of better quality, they’re also influenced by the number of applicants and the quality of the applicants. A large number of applicants, regardless of their overall quality, will cause an acceptance rate to drop, and an acceptance rate will rise if there’s a significant amount of quality students applying. Furthermore, that 38% acceptance rate is from 2013. According to this year’s Princeton Review, Stevens’ current acceptance rate is 44%, which isn’t that far ahead of TCNJ’s current acceptance rate of 49%. And although Stevens does have the benefit of having significantly more graduate programs than TCNJ, that does not take away from the quality of TCNJ’s undergraduate programs.
Just as Stevens is better than TCNJ at providing a STEM education, TCNJ is better than Stevens at providing an affordable and well-regarded education for New Jersey students in general. Good programs can’t be utilized if you can’t afford them and specific programs might not be right for what you’re best at.
I also don’t know where you’re getting some of these statistics from. Payscale puts Stevens at #16 for return on investment and #10 for salaries, not #3, which is below Princeton in both categories (#9 in ROI, #7 in salaries). In salaries, it’s also below Harvard (#3) and tied with UPenn. Those are still solid statistics, but they’re primarily the result of STEM occupations paying well, and again, not everybody is a STEM student. Furthermore, when compared to its STEM peers, Stevens is outranked in both categories by MIT (#2 in ROI, #6 in salaries) and Caltech (#1 in ROI, #5 in salaries) and outranked in ROI by Georgia Institute of Technology in-state (#8). According to Stevens’ website, 30% of undergraduates, not 65%, participate in co-op. Plus, even when you do take the low four year graduation rate out of the equation, Stevens’ five and six year graduation rates (78% and 82%) are still below Princeton’s (96% and 97%) and TCNJ’s (83% and 85%).
Putting aside that Stevens studies are not in the top 10 for ROI and are actually the 10th highest paid college graduates in the US (at least from what I found), isn’t it more important to get a job in a field you want to work in than one that pays you better? I’m sure I sound a little too idealistic here, but if one were to argue that it’s most important to earn the highest salary you could, I’d say you’d be less motivated to make money if you were working a job you didn’t like at all. We can’t all be STEM learners anyways.
The 4 year graduation rate at Stevens is irrelevant compared to others. It is an apples to oranges comparison. If you’re an engineering student at Stevens you take 143-150 credits. No other school has a program of that rigor. 65% of the students enroll in the 5 year co-op program. They do not expect to graduate in 4 years, and having the year or more of professional experience when they do graduate in the 5th year puts them at a huge advantage compared to the 4 year graduate of other schools. As a “tech focused school” Stevens students have considerably more acumen than those of “smorgasbord” liberal arts colleges, as I detailed above. Students do not attend Stevens to have their hands held and to “find themselves”. They are focused and goal driven. They know what they want to major in from day 1 (engineering, sclence, or technological management/quantitative finance). That’s what a university really should be. Like I said, in those three areas Stevens is a 5.
I’ve worked for four major corporations in the aerospace industry and for the preeminent communications and electronics industrial research laboratory in the world. All of them had Stevens alumni in their top 10 of represented schools and their short list of schools from which they recruit. I once had an interview for a transfer to California and asked the recruiter there if she was familiar with CNJ. She said no. CNJ outside of NJ is virtually unknown. Additionally, engineering and science students at small liberal arts colleges do not have the research and co-op opportunities as those at Stevens and other research universities. Lastly, Princeton Review’s numbers for selectivity and co-op participation are not current for the 2016 year. They are 38% and 65% respectively. Graduation rate by itself means little. It’s the accomplishments of the graduates as a result of having attended the institution that matter. Tell me, how many Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of major corporations, Nobel laureates, head of state, directors of NASA, directors of DARPA, and graduates of comparable stature does CNJ (Trenton State by any other name) have? Stevens has in all of those categories.
Four year graduation rate aside, Stevens still has a lower five year and six year graduation rate than Princeton and TCNJ. Stevens is also far from the only college to have a co-op program and if a standard engineering degree really does require 143-150 credits, that’s not a good thing. It’s not a good thing to have to spend more money and time at school to get an undergraduate degree, especially when other colleges, like Rochester Institute of Technology, offer dual undergraduate and graduate degrees for the same amount of credits. Again, where is the 65% statistic coming from? Stevens’ own website gives the 30% number.
These claims about the credentials and abilities of Stevens students are subjective. There is no concrete evidence to prove the average students at Stevens have the “focused and goal driven” mindset described here (which isn’t helped by the five and six year graduation rates being lower than TCNJ’s). More importantly, even if they do have that mindset, that doesn’t mean they got it from attending Stevens. Students have that determined mindset before they apply to colleges, which is how they’re able to get into good schools in the first place.
I never said the science and engineering at “small liberal arts colleges” have the same opportunities that students at research universities have. In fact, I flat-out said Stevens was better at providing a STEM education than TCNJ. However, as I emphasized my previous post, not everyone is a STEM student. Not everyone’s strengths are in STEM. And just because their strengths lie different fields of study does not make them any less hard-working and dedicated than STEM students. They’re also trying to find a future in what they do best in.
Since you have no evidence to support your claims, I take what you say about your work experiences and the value Stevens has to those places with a grain of salt. And even if that is all true, so what? You’re not automatically employed just because you have a degree from a certain school. Determination, experience, work ethic, and timing are the key factors in employment. An applicant with a degree from TCNJ and past work experience related to the open position is more appealing to employers than applicant with a degree from Stevens and no prior work experience. Also, so what if TCNJ is virtually unknown outside of New Jersey? That doesn’t invalidate the degree the graduates received, nor does it invalidate the education they received. And again, employers are more concerned with the work experience of applicants than the college they graduated from.
I used Princeton Review for the selectivity number, not co-op participation, and that 44% number is current. That number appears in their 2017 college ranking they published just a few weeks ago. Where are you getting the 38% number from? I see the 38% number on Google, but Google also says that number is from 2013. The 30% co-op participation number is coming from Stevens’ own website and I still don’t see where you’re getting the 65% number from. Graduation rate isn’t a be-all, end-all factor, but it is a factor. It is a sign of the students’ work ethic and a sign of a school’s competence. Plus, it’s usually better to get out of college as soon as possible so you can work towards professional success - the main point of having a degree.
Yes, post-graduation accomplishments are what matter the most. But the college an individual attended is not the key factor in his or her accomplishments. No matter how many successful alumni of Stevens you list off, that doesn’t change the fact that graduates of “lesser” schools proved to be successful in their own right. A degree from a certain school alone does not make you a success story. It is ultimately you alone who determines how accomplished you become. Steve Jobs attended a “small liberal arts college”, which he wasn’t even able to graduate from due to financial problems, and he became a household name. Eureka College is a “small liberal arts college” that’s virtually unknown outside of California and it has a president of the United States as an alumnus.
In the end, trying to argue the superiority of your college over other colleges is an exercise in futility. All of the statistics and successful graduates you list off won’t change the fact that people graduated from different schools, were happy with the schools they attended, and were still successful after they graduated. You could argue you found more success than they did - but then I’d have to question how successful you really are if you feel the need to assert your accomplishments over the alumnus of other colleges.
Princeton review’s numbers are from 2015. The numbers I quoted are from the admissions office for the incoming class for this year. I suspect next year’s Princeton Review will reflect those numbers. Engineering requires a great deal of supporting basic science and design courses, and 130-138 credits is the norm for engineering schools. Stevens is unique in that it requires a large number of technical courses outside of one’s specific concentration in order to produce a well-rounded graduate. Many schools today have became specialized, Stevens graduates are superior interdisciplinary problem solvers compared to many from other schools and that trait had been highly prized by industry. A Stevens degree is among the most valuable in the US, for example Stevens consistently ranks in the top 20 or so for salary and ROI in Payscale’s survey work experience or no (varies year to year but in the top 2-3% of that survey nonetheless). CNJ and Rutgers for example are somewhere in the 150s on that list I believe. That is the proof of the pudding, graduation rates aside.
Graduation rate by the way isn’t by itself a measure of quality. Some students decide science or engineering aren’t for them and transfer. Some may decide they want to attend a larger school (though the small size of Stevens is an advantage having a student to faculty ratio of 9-10). In engineering in any school you have to know from day 1 that you want to study engineering, since the many required courses that are usually given in lock step due to a specific sequence of prerequisites (mandated by ABET accreditation requirements and industry/graduate school demand) have to be taken at specific times and in speciic order. The student cannot study liberal arts for example for 2 years then decide they want engineering, since the “first professional” program has its speciic curriculum. You have to be focused and have the work ethic to survive in that level of rigor. Few college students do which is why among all schools in the US the attrition rate in engineering is almost 50%. Of course, schools with high standards of admission the attrition will be less, but it’s still higher than for other majors in general. At Stevens you have to know which of the four major areas of study you want when you enter, since changing majors after the first year gets more difficult (that’s the case for transferring into engineering in any school). I would agree with you that if you want to major in English or history for example (though Stevens has an excellent College of Arts/Letters and was in fact the first technological university in America with a Humanities department, reflecting the well-rounded philosophy of the school’s founder) or if you are not certain you want a STEM major you’re probably better off going to CNJ or another “general” type of school.