<p>A few years ago former Governor James McGreevey floated the idea merging Rutgers with the quite reputable U of Medicine and Dentistry NJ to create “The University of New Jersey.” That idea never got much traction and of course the leadership of the various Rutgers campuses loved it like a lead balloon. The only state in the northeast who seems to get it right with its public universities and colleges in terms of quality, access and affordability is New York.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus, Virginia Tech does get kids from New Jersey. For the class of 2015, the top states represented in the class (outside of Virginia of course) were 1.Maryland 2. New Jersey 3. Pennsylvania 4. North Carolina and 5. New York</p>
<p>It is a state school in Jersey.</p>
<p>The NJ state med school is now part of Rutgers. Christie got it done.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.northjersey.com/news/christie_signs_bill_merging_UMDNJ_into_Rutgers.html[/url]”>http://www.northjersey.com/news/christie_signs_bill_merging_UMDNJ_into_Rutgers.html</a></p>
<p>On a serious note, the lack of positive recognition has everything to do with the availability of superior choices in the extended region. In other places, the lack of better choices in-state or close-by makes the state school the absolute favorite. As an example, what are the choices in Texas? UT and TAMU are the perennial choices while privates such as SMU or TCU are viewed as second choices for lower ranked students. Probably the same story in Arizona with ASU and UofA. In Michigan with it’s state universities. </p>
<p>The northeast has different dynamics.</p>
<p>Or the state schools are just very popular and preferred–not by default as much as they created a very attractive package. So much so that they compete well for out of state students who could choose from many very good privates.</p>
<p>"On a serious note, the lack of positive recognition has everything to do with the availability of superior choices in the extended region. In other places, the lack of better choices in-state or close-by makes the state school the absolute favorite. As an example, what are the choices in Texas? UT and TAMU are the perennial choices while privates such as SMU or TCU are viewed as second choices for lower ranked students. Probably the same story in Arizona with ASU and UofA. In Michigan with it’s state universities.</p>
<p>The northeast has different dynamics." </p>
<p>This is probably one of the better explanations.</p>
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I’ll restore UCSF back under the rightful umbrella as Berkeley’s medical school when I’m governor. UCBChemEGrad got it done. :)</p>
<p>I’m a Rutgers Alum (Cook '86), along with my wife (Douglass), brother ('Pharm '83) and my father (CCAS '50). Long family tradition. </p>
<p>The RU Screw existed when dad was there; in fact it may have been invented by Henry Rutgers himself. It’s a school tradition much like the green guy @ Norte Dame, the cadet corps @ Army, the guy on the horse at USC; you don’t graduate from The Banks without experiencing it once - in fact it’s a great life lesson.</p>
<p>The university is spread out geographically, so the bus system is necessary for inter-campus transport. A necessary evil but lousy in the winter with ice, snow, etc.</p>
<p>The sports programs @ RU have been improving. Frankly RU had two options open to it which should have been further explored for the school to be considered, by the general public, academically superior:
- keep athleteics at the level it was in the 1980’s & join the Patriot League
- really step up and join the Big 10 - RU came close twice but could never pull it off.</p>
<p>My overall experience at RU was good; I donate annually to the school. My brother just hated his expereince in Pharmacy school and will never send them a dime; his donations annually go to his grad school where he received his Pharm.D. Dad donated annually to the school,; not in large amounts, but annaully.</p>
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<p>Ah the beauty of the iPad spellchecker. Could Apple not find a genius in Cupertino who can stop the stupid autocorrecting of its as it’s?</p>
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<p>We (tOSU) get about “500” top NJ kids (ACT score > 28) every year who take advantage of National Buckeye Scholarshipfor OOS students offered by Ohio State. I may be biased, but it really is difficult if not impossible to beat the values of tOSU in terms of best combination in academics + savings!! Above all, it’s only a 7 hours drive from New Jersey to Columbus, OH! :)</p>
<p>Btw, has anyone heard of Rutger’s Mason Gross School of the Art? I happen to know someone who goes there, and while it is certainly no Julliard, I wonder about its reputation? Is it also one of the top in the nation in terms of its String Program (Violin in particular)? Just wondering…</p>
<p>To look at this from a practical angle, I read somewhere that Rutgers graduates enjoy starting salaries higher than UVa, Michigan, and the like. Maybe because it is NJ. So I don’t think it makes much sense to go to another state to attend a public school.</p>
<p>I grew up in NJ and lived in Boston for many years…Now, I reside in NJ with 4 kids and here is my take: Walk into any school in NJ (elementary, middle or hs) and if you’re lucky, maybe 1-2 kids are wearing any Rutgers Sports stuff…It just isn’t cool/popular to wear the “R” logo, so these kids are raised/conditioned with this lower than great school feeling at a very young age. I believe that issue coupled with the obvious other factors everyone already stated keeps that image intact. Now, on the bright side people in Massachusetts and other areas I travel to for business all view Rutgers in a VERY positive light.</p>
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<p>No, I think “anywhere but Rutgers” is the more accurate view. In enormous numbers, New Jersey kids of all ability levels will go just about anywhere to avoid going to Rutgers. </p>
<p>In the Fall of 2010, 234 New Jerseyans enrolled as freshmen at the University of Michigan; 80 enrolled at UVA; 257 at VaTech; 69 at William & Mary; 335 at James Madison U (VA); 70 at George Mason; 25 at Old Dominion; 21 at Mary Washington; 50 at UNC Chapel Hill; 24 at NC State; 74 at East Carolina; 27 at UNC Charlotte; 21 at UNC Greensboro; 33 at UNC Wilmington; 576 at UDelaware; 393 at U Maryland; 386 at West Virginia; 792 at Penn State; 188 at Pitt; 404 at Temple; 52 at Indiana U of Pennsylvania; 269 at West Chester U of Pennsylvania; 239 at Bloomsburg U of Pennsylvania; 225 at Kutztown U of Pennsylvania; 33 at Shippensburg U of Pennsylvania; 140 at UConn; 237 at UMass-Amherst; 149 at U Vermont; 32 at UNH; 145 at SUNY Binghamton; 43 at SUNY Buffalo; 64 at SUNY Stony Brook; 60 at Ohio State; 47 at Miami U (OH); 24 at Ohio U; 40 at Michigan State; 70 at Purdue; 79 at Indiana; 37 at Illinois; 59 at Wisconsin; 85 at Clemson; 128 at the University of South Carolina; 43 at Georgia Tech; 46 at Alabama; 20 at Auburn; 26 at Florida State; 33 at U Central Florida; 25 at U South Florida; 28 at Texas; 16 at UCLA; 33 at UC Berkeley; 93 at Colorado. Those are just jaw-dropping numbers.</p>
<p>At that’s just the publics. Another 1,265 New Jerseyans enrolled as freshmen at Ivy League schools (well, why not?). But on top of that, 67 went out-of-region to enroll at Chicago; 74 at Northwestern, 85 at Notre Dame; 26 at Case Western; 23 at U Dayton; 73 at WUSTL; 92 at Duke, 54 at Vanderbilt; 85 at Emory; 37 at Stanford; 46 at USC; 24 at Rice; 57 at Wake Forest; 94 at Tulane. In-region, New Jersey was the second-largest source of freshmen (after New York) at Johns Hopkins (158), Georgetown (149), and George Washington (298), and third-largest (after PA & NY) at Carnegie Mellon (127). New Jersey was the largest source of freshmen at Villanova (347), Lafayette (183), Lehigh (271), and American (198), and the second-largest (after MD) at Catholic University (152). New Jersey was the third-largest source of students (after NC & MA) at Elon (110), and (after FL and NY) at Miami U (152), and (after MA & NY) at Boston U (419), Boston College (254), and Northeastern (237). Another 102 New Jerseyans enrolled as freshmen at Providence; 296 at Fordham; 237 at St. John’s (NY); 607 at NYU; 100 at RPI; 57 at U Rochester; 126 at RIT; 394 at Syracuse; 611 at Drexel; 43 at Duquesne; 389 at St. Joeph’s ¶; 230 at La Salle; 272 at Quinnipiac; 156 at University of New Haven; 144 at Fairfield U; 238 at Pace; 103 at High Point U. Not surprisingly, hundreds more New Jerseyans attend LACs, both in-region (e.g., 143 at Bucknell, 125 at Gettysburg, 101 at Franklin & Marshall, 87 at Ursinus, 197 at Ithaca College, 108 at Manhattan, 191 at Marist, 36 at Williams, 39 at Bowdoin, 29 each at Swat and Middlebury, 40 at Wesleyan, 52 at Vassar, 48 at Hamilton, 93 at Colgate) and out-of-region (48 at Oberlin, 25 at Kenyon, 88 at U Richmond, 27 at Washington & Lee).</p>
<p>Now many of these are fine schools; others are no better than Rutgers, or in some cases not as good. Many are in-region; many clearly are not. Many are private, but many are also public. I think it’s too charitable, as well as misleading, to say that it’s only the top New Jersey students who avoid Rutgers in favor of more attractive private options in the region, or the “expanded region,” because these numbers suggest very large numbers of New Jersey students of widely varying abilities avoiding Rutgers in enormous numbers in favor of public as well as private alternatives, in-region and far afield. If Rutgers could find a way to capture even a fraction of the talent that it’s presently losing to out-of-state competition, its selectivity would soar and its student body would be much stronger. It become a vicious cycle when year after year most of the top talent leaves the state, leaving the public flagship with its reputation in the dumps and an unattractive option for the next round of applicants.</p>
<p>Here are some eye-popping figures on how many freshmen New Jersey exported in 2010 to OOS flagships in 15 states, and how many freshmen Rutgers imported from those same states. (In a few cases I combined flagships and quasi-flagships, e.g., Indiana & Purdue, Clemson & South Carolina, UVa-VaTech-William & Mary, SUNY Binghamton-Buffalo-Stony Brook; in most cases, just the state’s top flagship is listed).</p>
<p>Michigan freshmen from New Jersey: 234
Rutgers freshmen from Michigan: 0</p>
<p>UMass-Amherst freshmen from NJ: 237
Rutgers freshmen from MA: 21</p>
<p>UConn freshmen from NJ: 140
Rutgers freshmen from CT: 25</p>
<p>U Vermont freshmen from NJ: 149
Rutgers freshmen from VT: 2</p>
<p>SUNY Binghamton/Buffalo/Stony Brook freshmen from NJ: 252
Rutgers freshmen from NY: 146</p>
<p>Penn State freshmen from NJ: 792
Rutgers freshmen from PA: 67</p>
<p>UDel freshmen from NJ: 576
Rutgers freshmen from DE: 5</p>
<p>U Maryland freshmen from NJ: 393
Rutgers freshmen from MD: 32</p>
<p>UVA/VaTech/William & Mary freshmen from NJ: 406
Rutgers freshmen from VA: 17</p>
<p>UNC Chapel Hill freshmen from NJ: 50
Rutgers freshmen from NC: 4</p>
<p>South Carolina/Clemson freshmen from NJ: 213
Rutgers freshmen from SC: 2</p>
<p>Ohio State freshmen from NJ: 60
Rutgers freshmen from OH: 6</p>
<p>Indiana/Purdue freshmen from NJ: 149
Rutgers freshmen from IN: 2</p>
<p>Illinois freshmen from NJ: 37
Rutgers freshmen from IL: 4</p>
<p>Wisconsin freshmen from NJ: 59
Rutgers freshmen from WI: 0</p>
<p>Total NJ exports to 15 states: 3,999
Total NJ imports from 15 states: 333 (of which nearly half were from a single state, New York)</p>
<p>That’s just a staggering trade deficit, or brain drain, if you will. The odd thing is that brain drains usually occur in economically depressed or declining regions, but New Jersey is one of our most prosperous states. Yet somehow it’s managed to make its public higher education so unattractive to its own residents that most who can leave do so. And this doesn’t begin to count the additional thousands who are leaving for private colleges and universities at all levels of selectivity and quality, or the thousands more who are departing for lower-tier OOS public institutions.</p>
<p>You could call it the Snookie Effect.</p>
<p>PS Are those two statements really contradictory? To me, they qualify the same outcome from two different angles. I don’t eat McDonald’s because there are plenty of better choices versus I will eat anything but McDonald’s sounds the same to me. :)</p>
<p>Xig’s “On a serious note, the lack of positive recognition has everything to do with the availability of superior choices in the extended region.” </p>
<p>BClinton’s “No, I think “anywhere but Rutgers” is the more accurate view. In enormous numbers, New Jersey kids of all ability levels will go just about anywhere to avoid going to Rutgers.”</p>
<p>The numbers are definitely interesting. Rutgers seems to need some kind of campaign to increase its’ attractiveness to applicants, particularly its’ instate ones. In Virginia, many kids relate to UVa and VT (and to a lesser extent W & M -probably due to smaller size and less of a sports focus) and wear t shirts with pride from an early age. And many kids have those schools as top choices. I’m sure that is seen in many other states as well-Michigan,Ohio, NC, etc. Loyal alumni also seem to make a difference. Rutgers may need an infusion of effort by loyal alumni and a good PR campaign. It is a very good school and it’s a shame that it does not seem to be held in higher regard by many of the citizens of New Jersey.</p>
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<p>I don’t think even half of the choices listed were superior to Rutgers, which is really a strong public university.</p>
<p>RU cannot admit many OOS students by state law. If they go over the cap (10% I think) they lose that tuition money $ for $.</p>
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<p>Well, that’s a good point. In 2010, 91.1% of Rutgers’ freshman class was from New Jersey, so they wouldn’t have had much margin for error to admit more OOS applicants. But I don’t think the OOS applicants were exactly clamoring to get in, either, and it’s still the case that New Jersey exports college students by the boatload to all manner of out-of-state schools, public and private, selective and less so.</p>
<p>Just compare New Jersey’s student exports to Michigan’s. New Jersey’s largest export destination in 2010 was Penn State, which had a whopping 792 New Jersey residents in its freshman class in 2010, followed by Drexel (611), NYU (607), UDel (576), Boston U (419), Temple (404), Syracuse (394), and U Maryland (393). Michigan’s largest export destination (at least among top-75ish schools) was Notre Dame, with 92 Michigan residents in its 2010 freshman class, followed by Northwestern (81), Purdue (69), Indiana (59), Ohio State (46), Penn (34), Cornell (32), and Chicago (31). We’re looking at roughly an order of magnitude difference here. And Michigan is the bigger state in population, by about 11%.</p>
<p>I believe Wisconsin’s pattern is similar to Michigan’s, except for Wisconsin’s tuition reciprocity arrangement with Minnesota which allows large numbers of Wisconsin residents to attend Minnesota public colleges and universities (and vice versa) at in-state rates.</p>
<p>I’m still not sure, though, how much it’s Rutgers all those New Jerseyans are fleeing, or how much it’s New Jersey itself.</p>