<p>So many people from others states and even from New Jersey regard Rutgers as "one of the most mediocre schools" in the country.</p>
<p>What makes Rutgers so notorious of its failure to raise its name? Rutgers was established in 1766 along with other Ivy league schools, but it refused to become one of them just like William&Mary. But if you compare W&M with Rutgers, W&M is regarded as far more superior.</p>
<p>Also if you compare other state schoos like UCLA, UC Berkeley, UVA, UMich-AA, and UPenn to Rutgers, Rutgers is by FAR the worst school of all these.</p>
<p>Can someone tell me why Rutgers is considered such a mediocre school?</p>
<p>I can’t comment on the quality of the education because I’m not there yet, but it’s really easy for anyone from New Jersey to get in, as I understand. It looks bad for a college not to be selective in admitting students.</p>
<p>(not saying this is the reason–it may very well be that Rutgers really isn’t as good as those schools–but it’s almost certainly a reason people tend to look down on it)</p>
<p>We’re not underrated, we’re a mediocre school. Our average undergraduate isn’t particularly good. We accept like 60% of students the vast majority of which are from NJ. Don’t get me wrong it could be a hell of a lot worse, we could be penn state (or worse if thats even possible) but lets not make ourselves out to be something we’re not.</p>
<p>Side note: Don’t quote things without a source, <strong><em>. UPenn isn’t a state school and the other state schools you listed are the best in country, no *</em></strong> they’re better >.></p>
<p>I’m not sure I’d call Rutgers mediocre. It’s a good school. Some depts are very solid. It’s just that, like many state schools, it has its proportion of students who sleepwalk through. So, don’t be like them.</p>
<p>It’s not? I go there now it’s pretty good if you ask me. If anything people overrate it because they don’t know enough. All of my friends parents from California think its an amazing school. Though it’s not that great.</p>
<p>I would agree we aren’t that great but we are probably the best public school on the East Coast that I can think of besides penn state ranking wise. I would have much rather gone to a UC. I would also comment that the UCs get MUCH more money for everyone of their programs. For example, UCD’s endowments are higher than rutgers all together. UCD has 32k students rutgers has 56k. UCD doesn’t have a great football team that might or might not cost a university a lot of money. UCD is a far better school compared to Rutgers. I would argue more people know of Rutgers though. Those are the facts idk if they have any correlation but it seems to make great sense.</p>
<p>It’s not underrated for NJ students. Most people I talk to in NJ recognise Rutgers as a college that gives you a good education at a low price.
If you try hard in Rutgers and utilise the many things that it has to offer, you will be successful. A lot of career recruiters go to Rutgers to find interns too.</p>
<p>i’ve only met one graduate who considered Rutgers mediocore in comparison to NJIT, the school he transferred out of, and Penn State, the school he wanted to go to but couldn’t afford. i believe his biggest complaints were the quality of instruction and mediation from the staff and the courseload/graduation requirements of his school, School of Engineering, as reasons for his struggle to achieve high grades.</p>
<p>I asked the Dean of the Business school the same question and his response was that Rutgers does not want to spend the money to move higher in Ranking, instead they are spending the money on education, hiring better professors, better facilities and research opportunities. Most of the times it is not the school, but what the students make of their 4 years of college. Rutgers is a very fine institution and outside of NJ it is viewed as an elite school so I think it is underrated in NJ only. I have a friend who live in NY and was dying to come to Rutgers and did not get in. He was very upset and ended up going to Stoney Brook. </p>
<p>Don’t look too deep into the ranking because they are unfair. Many top elite schools have the money to spend on the rankings because of their huge endowments which Rutgers does not have.</p>
<p>Rutgers’s admissions office is too lenient toward its applicants. More than 50% of applicants admitted each year, which already gives off a bad vibe that the difficulty of the school isn’t at a collegiate level. Also, I assume you looked at the undergrad ranking from websites like US News. These rankings only show Liberal Arts school rating, so it really depends on the program.</p>
<p>Rutgers also spend WAY too much money on sports. Rutgers is like “AP Highschool” because it puts more emphasis on sports rather than academics. As a result, the standard is quite low.</p>
<p><em>UPenn is an Ivy League private school…I think you meant Penn State. And believe me, Penn State isn’t any better than Rutgers -_-</em></p>
<p>Rutgers’s quality of education is high compared to the price you pay. As a result, many students decide to go to Rutgers for its price. To give you a personal example, I got into Northwestern University, and was sure that I was going to go there after I graduated from high school. After carefully thinking about it, however, I thought maybe paying $60,000/yr wasn’t worth it especially for someone who’s planning to go to grad school.</p>
<p>I agree that Rutgers can be more academically challenging, but there is nothing Rutgers can do. It’s a state school of New Jersey, and so Rutgers has to admit certain number of students each year to meet the state requirement. You should ask this question to Chris Christie.</p>
<p>Rutgers reputation is really at three levels; public perception, business/industry perception, and academic perception. The public perspective, at least in-state, has been relatively low for years. Believe it or not RU was once invited to join the Ivy League (I believe in the early 1900’s) and declined the invitation. The business/industry and academic perceptions of RU are significantly better. RU is a major research university and is a member of the elite American Association of Universities (only 59 universities in the US have been invited to join-take a look at this list and it will amaze you). I believe this list is more indicative of RU’s national reputation, especially at a buisiness/industry level and academic level. Many of Rutgers Graduate level Programs are rated on par with many of the “elite” universities previously noted on this thread. Most people (and most college applicants) in the general public are not aware of these things.</p>
<p>IMO RU’s undergraduate reputation once again shot itself in the foot (RU has even screwed itself, not just its students) about 6 years ago when its immediate past President spearheaded a misguided reorganization the the college system that had been in place for many years. There were four primary colleges at RU-NB. These included Rutgers College, Douglass College, Cook College, and Livingston College. Applicants to RU had to apply for admission to one or more of these Colleges. Rutgers College was the original College dating back to the founding of the University in 1766. It remained the most prestigious College of the University and the stats of the students admitted to it were overall much higher than the other three colleges (i.e. average SAT Scores 100-150 points higher than the other three), as well as being on a par with any major state university in the country. The academic standards/requirements at Rutgers College also tended to exceed that of the other three (i.e. students were required to complete both a major and a minor). Many top level applicants would not attend Rutgers unless they were accepted into Rutgers College due to its perceived academic excellence. In an attempt to address this apparent academic disparity the University dismantled this College system, hoping this would elevate the status of the University as a whole as most students would then be applying to a single School of Arts and Sciences. Unfortunately the opposite effect has probably occurred. Many top level HS applicants (whether rightly or wrongly depending on your point of view) have the perception that the academic standards of the University (and applicant pool) are not on a par with other prestigious universities and therefore have elected not even to apply to RU at all. This is unfortunate as Rutgers does provide an education on par with any university in the US (as long as you apply yourself). Its looks like RU has never recovered (or learned) from its original decision not to join the Ivy League.</p>
<p>rutgers is ranked 68th in the country out thousands of national universities. How can it be a “mediocre” school?</p>
<p>Also Rutgers’ admission rate is high because it is a STATE school. If you look around, most of them have pretty high admission rate.</p>
<p>I agree with six flag as well. I transferred from cc to rutgers with 8k/year scholarship for 2 years and I am a NJ resident. I am basically paying the same amount like I did at CC LOL.</p>
<p>It’s really a matter of perspective; [many</a> of the people who frequent this site](<a href=“http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=college+confidential]many”>Urban Dictionary: College Confidential) are high-achievers with eyes set on the most selective schools in the nation, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Rutgers, a school with a high admission rate, is crap here.</p>
<p>Also, the higher ranked state schools tend to have lower admission rates. UC Berkeley and UCLA are at 22%. UNC - Chapel Hill is at 32%. UVA is at 33%. Rutgers is at 59%. (These numbers are from a website whose name is apparently censored here; not sure how reliable they are, but you get the point.)</p>
<p>Just passing through and was curious to read what others had written. I think that students who have a higher GPA in NJ often apply and go to TCNJ which is more selective though it is probably less well known that Rutgers.</p>
<p>No, not really. There’s an interesting upper-middle area of students who don’t do well enough to get any significant scholarship money from Rutgers but still well enough to get into TCNJ. These are the types of students TCNJ pulls (since TCNJ caps its in state scholarship), above them are the kids who get good money; they go off to Rutgers. Above that is Princeton. Obviously this is an oversimplification, there are lots of other reasons to go to either school but its good to keep this in mind.</p>
<p>I agree with needsmorsleep. Both RU and TCNJ are fine academic institutions but are different for many reasons (so students might prefer one over the over for a variety of reasons). TCNJ has been playing the “Stats” game for a number of years in its competition with RU. RU admits over 8,000 students, TCNJ less than 2,000. I would suspect if you look at the Stats of the top 2000 students admitted to RU that they would be at least as good as TCNJ, possibly even higher on average. So IMO using the Stats as a primary facter in deciding between the two schools is misleading. There are a number of other factors that are much more important in deciding between the two schools. Again they are both excellent educational institutions.</p>
<p>I am a pharmacy major and currently attend Rutgers. From my experience as a Rutgers student, I can say that Rutgers is one of the finest institution in the country. Rutgers is what you make out of it. There are extensive research opportunities, breath of majors, and devoted faculty members. At Rutgers, you will NOT be baby-sited (as is true in the real world and hopefully at other colleges). There are substantial opportunities in the University if you decide to seek out and be proactive.
Now, on the the question about “under-over” rated and rankings. If you base your decision on rankings without practical considerations, good luck to you. Instead of looking at the rankings, check out the faculty pages, look at the opportunities in the university for your major, and see where recent graduates go. </p>
<p>Two good news to look forward to:
Rutgers is probably going to take over the medical school of UMDNJ which can only increase opportunities for students, at least for the ones in health sciences. </p>
<p>And the new President of Rutgers Dr. Barchi will probably cut substantial budget of the football program (for good).</p>
<p>Part of it definitely has to do with the high acceptance rate, which as said previously, must have to do with it being a state school. Many of those students who aren’t motivated get weeded out anyways, at least in the School of Engineering.</p>
<p>I think a lot of people in New Jersey feel like it is too close to home; many people like to go to school far away. They automatically rule out Rutgers because they overlook the good things about it. That was many people’s excuse in my high school for not considering Rutgers. Power to them, especially when their debt becomes higher than mine.</p>
<p>I have a much different perspective on Rutgers since I’m an out of state student who really needed to be at a reputable university close to New York City and the Tri-State Area since I want to work there for a living as part of my career. All of my friends respect the fact that I’m going to Rutgers and many of the adults I’ve told about the school get all excited when they hear the name. I even met someone at the doctors office who went to Rutgers for premed and was all surprised when she saw I was going to send my immunization forms there. Another friend I have all the way out in California even recognized the RU name and told me, “Rutgers? Not bad!”</p>
<p>I’ve seen other major flagship state schools who have much higher admissions rates than Rutgers and some with slightly lower admissions rate and don’t see why anyone isn’t badmouthing or criticizing those schools. A 53% graduation rate for four years and a 77% graduation rate for six years is pretty good in my opinion especially for a school with a “high” admissions rate. At the end of the day, getting all the networking and educational opportunities I need at an affordable price that won’t land me into thousands of dollars of debt is more important than worrying about arbitrary rankings that have little relevance in the workplace. Besides, I was already thinking about attending an “elite” school like NYU, UCLA, or Columbia University for grad school to get an MFA in cinema and film studies and going to a really expensive, “prestigious” school like BU for undergrad is not worth it if I need to have money left over for grad school.</p>
<p>I’ve seen Georgia schools with high admissions rates in the 60s and 70s with four year graduation rates as low as 10%-20% and six year graduation rates ranging from 30%-50%, so I feel very fortunate that I chose a school with actual proven success among the students and it was exactly what I wanted all along no matter what other people have to tell me.</p>
<p>I agree with collegebiomed – What you put into Rutgers will determine what you get out of it. For one of my majors, it is ranked #2 in the country. With my Honors Thesis in it, I have a great advantage from Rutgers that I wouldn’t necessarily get elsewhere (and personally, I love the people I’m friends with there and the people I live with). At times, it will surprise me to see certain people gain acceptance, but regardless, their lack of attentiveness and grades only help my curve and GPA in the end. But the new President of Rutgers and the merger with UMDNJ are only going to help RU gain more respect and, quite possibly, a higher ranking.</p>
<p>How does Rutgers compare to UMD on the whole and specifically for engineering?</p>