<p>When I was in HS, I actually thought RU was an Ivy League school. But later, I realized, having visited several times, that it's a really fine state U with a ton of private-school history... Other schools with so much history -- W&M, UVa, seem to dote on this kind of history. And yet, Rutgers seems like it's always trying to 'catch up' with the major state Us... and in light of RU's bowl, last year, and success so far this year, I was stunned that the college that played in the 1st coll football game ever (in 1969 with Princeton) that Rutgers has only made ONE OTHER BOWL IN ITS HISTORY... Somebody who knows RU better, please explain to me... what happened????</p>
<p>You also have to consider the fact that when Rutgers became the state school of new jersey that it counts on the states budget for funds. Unfortunately when your states budget is cut it impacts the amount of money that they university receives and therefore the standings and rankings are lowered because of the amount of money they have coming in. Rutgers is still a very prestigious school and is not the easiest to get into.</p>
<p>I am a Rutgers graduate. I had a fine education, and consider myself successful.</p>
<p>The biggest issue I think Rutgers has is its location. New Brunswick will never be considered the ideal college town. The College Ave campus is nice, but small. Going from campus to campus through town was always depressing, and some off capus locations were unsafe. My bike did not last 24 hours, and it was locked up on my porch with people home and the doors and windows open.</p>
<p>Some of the other publics you compare RU to have beautiful campuses in picturesque towns.</p>
<p>On the plus side, RU football is top 25 for the first time in 30 years!</p>
<p>For some reason, if you live in New Jersey, Rutgers is just not seen as a prestigious school. Given that there are IMO only two schools that can claim to have prestige (Princeton, Rutgers) it is looked down upon sometimes to go to the state school. I personally go to Tulane now and contribute to the brain drain from New jersey, but I loved my time while I was there during my Katrina semester.</p>
<p>You can not look at Rutgers sports as a major point of prestige as their football program has only very recently been somewhat decent. A lot of New Jersey talent just gets drained away to California or Florida or Georgia where there is already a lot of presige.</p>
<p>I don't know exactly how to say this but the perception of Rutgers, especially if you are from in-state and had a good app, is that the school is very much a safety school. If you couldn't get into one of the numerous high prestige, high cost universities in the area (Princeton, Columbia - and to an extent other schools like upenn, harvard, BU, MIT) you would go to Rutgers as your backup plan. When I did my college search I looked as far away as I could from New Jersey to find a school simply because I thought that Rutgers could not offer me what I wanted in a school. I feel as though there are a lot who share the same sentiment. I don't feel that way really anymore ever since I spent a semester there, but not everyone gets a chance for that.</p>
<p>To summarize, Rutgers is not prestigious because a) it has not excelled in the big name sports and b) even it's own state students haven't wanted to go there.</p>
<p>Vinin, I agree with everything you say: in short, Rutgers is a really fine school with an unfortunate lousy (compared to be what it should be) reputation, esp in state (which, after all, every prestigious state school must first draw its psychological strength from)... my question still remains: why? how did it get this way?</p>
<p>I think Rutgers made quite a few mistakes when it exploded in size in the 60s and 70s. I'm no Rutgers historian, but I think that the school was poorly planned when it received such a huge influx of state money (and enrollment) when it became the state U. Busch and Livingston were built up then, with the result being isolated, pretty ugly campuses. What M&Sdad said also contributes-- back in the day New Brunswick used to be really violent and unsafe, which isn't really the case anymore. If you stay in the campus-friendly areas of the city, which are expanding more and more (with the construction of Rockoff Hall and the new hotel in downtown NB) NB is a nice town.</p>
<p>Hmmm but other than that I don't really know. NJ kids want to get out of NJ for some reason, which doesn't really have anything to do with Rutgers. I feel like Rutgers is getting better and better, but I don't know if that's just how I feel because I live here. NB keeps on growing and getting new restaurants and things and the "transforming undergrad education" plan is a good one, imo. The football team is getting better too, lol. There are also the talks of revamping College Ave and Livingston. (IMO Livingston really really really should take priority, but we'll see what happens...)</p>
<p>This past year too many kids enrolled in Rutgers College than Housing was able to handle. I don't know if too many will enroll also next year with the cosolidation of the colleges into SAS. This might translate to higher selectivity in the next few years.</p>
<p>Really the only thing that is holding Rutgers back is the state budget cuts, which were pretty bad. I really have no idea how things will play out in the future, though... I think the administration is pointed in the right direction for the most part though.</p>
<p>To be honest, having 4 seperate campuses is also a major pain. To be honest, I think how Rutgers is arranged (physically) and also organizationally (the vaunted RU Screw) also holds it back. I hated having to go out of my dorm on Cook at 945 so that I could make an 11 on Livingston. That is absolutely ridiculous, and you only realize so once you don't have to do it. I can walk to a class on the other end of my campus in 8 minutes. This means I leave for that same 11 class at 1050.</p>
<p>Otherwise, there are other things that Rutgers could do to draw students (not to be a bigot) like me back to the school in-state. First would be to put a concerted effort to really boost it's sports teams up in prominence. While this may seem very very superficial, if Rutgers had always been huge in football/basketball I might have been going to these games since I was a kid and just planned to go there since I was a kid. I see this phenomenon at schools at or below Rutgers caliber such as Penn state, UConn, or Florida. Secondly, the school needs to seriously court top students in the state more. It seems almost as if Rutgers is almost content to let them the majority of us go as long as they keep enough to somewhat populate the honors program. The change from 4 different colleges to one is definetly going to help as it makes the whole process much much easier, but there are still large discrepancies across the different campuses in terms of food and dorming. It's been a year, but I doubt much has changed in that College Ave and Livingston dorms are still terrible, and their food is the same also. People live on CA because it is the most sociable. People live on Busch cuz it has the best dorms and best food. The fact that these differences are even here is not a terribly good sign. While I never took the tour of Rutgers, if you visited a friend there, and he happened to live on Livingston, your opinion would differ greatly than say visiting a friend living in McCormick on Busch.</p>
<p>Sorry if I sounded too much like a bigot, but I am just putting my opinions out there.</p>
<p>Vinin, seems like NJ people take what should be Rutgers advantages and turn them into negatives. </p>
<p>I would think breaking the college down into smaller, distinct residential colleges should be a plus not a minus. Most large state U's are developing small, residential colleges to give their students the illusion of a small liberal arts college at Rutgers, its not an illusion, its real. And College Avenue is a classic, redbrick campus (that probably could be enhanced by merging Old Queens into a quad with the Voorhees Mall by eliminating that stupid street that divides them). Then Douglas had until the merger -- a classic all women's college campus within the State U system (and yet, fully integrated with the coed campuses in terms of cross registration). I grant you, it might have been better if some of the sub-campuses were closer to College Ave, but still it's not a bad position to be in. Look at the U of Michigan, they have 3 different campuses with kids riding buses, and they haven't missed a beat.</p>
<p>Then there's the Amtrak/NJ Transit station right on campus. Many schools would spend that into an advantage marketing itself to the entire eastern seaboard and beyond. But at Rutgers, people complain it turns the campus into a 'suitcase' school... It just seems Rutgers/NJ people are predisposed to staring at the dark cloud and not appreciate its silver lining. Rutgers appears to me a gem that, yes, needs to polished, but really needs to be appreciated first.</p>
<p>Also, yes, people can live and the past and whine about how dangerous NB USED TO BE. But when I visited campus about a year and a half ago, I saw a neat small college town with old houses and buildings, a funky student-district with character, an office complex and medical center right across the street from the campus and aforementioned commuter rail station. I can tell you, while Rutgers people continue to find fault with this fine, historic, leading research public university, there are a lot of other wannabe Universities that would give their eye-teeth to have what Rutgers has.</p>
<p>Btw, have you guys looked to see how many prestigious alums have studied in New Brunswick?</p>
<p>I know that I have posted already but my kiddo was accepted to douglas, cook, livingston and mason at the nb campus however in the end the newark campus is what was chosen. we are from gulf coast in texas and kiddo is very happy to be up in nj and it is still considered a excellent choice from everyone that we know in the northeast and from everyone here in the state of texas. if you get a great education what difference does it make to you if you think it is not a prestige college or not is the question. You are the one that will have the final say in where you go. Again good luck</p>
<p>Quincy, I could almost say that those that go or went to Rutgers take what are actually faults of the University into benefits. </p>
<p>I am a large proponent of smaller distinct residential colleges. This however is not the case. The campuses need to interact if merely to attend classes. The thing that I didn't like was waiting 30 minutes or more in December after a 5pm College Ave class to catch a EE back to Cook where I lived. After that wait, it would still take 45 minutes or more to finally get there. I understand that a lot of these issues are not Rutger's fault, but rather the fault of the city. Does it really matter to a potential student who's fault it is? It affects you anyway.</p>
<p>I think it is an interesting thing that kids from Texas somehow know what and where Rutgers is. They also consider it very prestigious and hard to get into. I would imagine it is if you are out of state. One of my friends is on the softball team at Rutgers and she used to tell me stories about how everyone would exclaim whenever they found out that she was going to Rutgers. If only that same excitement were there for instate students.</p>
<p>It is a total myth that RU was ever invited by the Ivy League. </p>
<p>The other points about the terrible campus stucture and the city of NB are true and will be hard to fix now that so much is built on each campus. RU is trying to put together a plan to improve the campus but it has a long way to go and money is now an issue.</p>
<p>Does this really matter dont forget that the Ivy League is an athletic conference
here is site for some people to get a laugh out of
<a href="http://www.thehoot.net/?module=displaystory&story_id=832&format=html%5B/url%5D">http://www.thehoot.net/?module=displaystory&story_id=832&format=html</a></p>
<ol>
<li>We've Got Scarlet Knight Fever. Which member of the Big East Conference was established first? Pencils down; the answer of course is Rutgers, which opened its doors in 1766 as Queen's College, a Dutch Reformed Church-affiliated institution. You knew that? OK, then how about this: Rutgers is one of only two schools to have turned down an invitation to join the Ivy League. How much juice does Rutgers have in New Jersey? We'd say Tony Soprano-type juice. The university recently strong-armed the town of Piscataway into changing zoning laws to let coach Greg Schiano build a home. By the way, Rutgers is also the home of the one college football game we're likely to see in person this year: September 9, Illinois at Rutgers.</li>
</ol>
<p>Rutgers is the eighth-oldest institution of higher learning established in the United States, originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. While originally a Dutch Reformed Church-affiliated institution, it is now a nonsectarian public university and makes no religious demands on its students. Along with the College of William and Mary, Rutgers is one of two colonial colleges which later became public universities and though invited because of its antiquity, did not join the Ivy League athletic conference.</p>
<p>Just because it was invited to join the athletic conference does/did not make it a great/prestigious school. In any case, Rutgers refusing an invite to an athletic conference so many years ago does not affect how it is seen in the eyes of today's applicants. In any case there are many very prestigious schools NOT in the Ivy League. Why everyone bases prestige based on Ivy status is a mystery to me. In any case, barrons is right, unfortunetly.</p>
<p>It is amazing how everyone has Scarlet Knight Fever when the team is good. Where was it when the team was terrible or even just mediocre? Do not disillusion yourself with thinking that all of a sudden school spirit is back. Back in 1998 when Tulane went 11-0, the whole greater New Orleans area was in uproar and everyone was a Tulane fan. A scant 2 years later, Tulane wasn't that good and all of a sudden all of those Tulane fans were back to being LSU fans. In this regard, I will be very interested to see when the football program falls off again if interest wanes like it did here at Tulane. That is up to time to tell.</p>
<p>On another note, I hope Rutgers and WVU beat louisville and notre dame beats usc. I would absolutely love for the Rutgers - WVU game to decide who goes to the national championship game. That would be absolutely crazy.</p>
<p>IF they can keep the coach they will be good for years. The talent in NJ is very good and ready to stay home rather than going to UVa, The Big 10, etc.</p>
<p>i think Rutgers is up against some pretty tough competition. when people think of new jersey, from an academic perspective, they turn immediately to Princeton. and obviously its hard to compete against something like Princeton for prestige, so i guess thats why RU hasn't really gotten the reputation it deserves.</p>
<p>Rutgers is really really slipping right now. Besides the budget cuts, the mentality at the university is just wrong right now. Classes are huge(got bigger as I got into more "advanced" classes), professors for the most part don't seem to care, and the facilities are not in good shape.</p>
<p>I'm finishing my 3rd semester now here at Rutgers and actively seeking another school to transfer to(Emory or Wake Forest).</p>
<p>If anyone has any question or would like me to elaborate on why I think Rutgers is going downhill right now, just ask.</p>
<p>I'm in my 3rd semester too and I'd have to disagree. We can debate. ;-) I've had, on the whole, only good experiences here....</p>
<p>Sure, I've had some good experiences. I've made some great friends and have learned a lot about myself.</p>
<p>On the other end of the spectrum, however, is the fact(for me I guess) that the school has its priorities in the wrong places. </p>
<p>Why can the football stadium get renovations done on it within days notice yet academic buildings(at an academic institution no less!) can't get ceiling tiles replaced or broken toilets fixed? Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of the football team(I have gone to every home game and will be traveling to the bowl) but this is supposed to be an academic institution first and foremost. When all of our classrooms are in good working order, money may be put into athletic facilities.</p>
<p>Why at midnight are all of the athletic fields lit up like a parking lot yet the lights on campus by the classroom buildings are not all turned on? You can't see 10 feet in front of you at some points at night. We've had some problems earlier in the year with people getting robbed on campus, you figure that they would learn something and have them fixed/turned on. </p>
<p>Why does the chemistry lab in the basement of Beck Hall have a maximum of two scales for a section of about 25 kids? On top of this, the scales are old, rusty, and plain just don't work very well. </p>
<p>There's more but I think you get the idea. Perhaps I'm nitpicking a bit but this is an academic institution and if Rutgers ever wants to be mentioned in the same breath as schools like UC-Berkeley, UNC-Chapel Hill, and UMich-Ann Arbor, it has to be picky and precise about everything. All the public ivy stuff is worthless.</p>
<p>Rutgers does have its good features but after being here for 3 semesters my dissappointment has turned into frustration. I've been to many other schools and have sat in on classes at all of these places to see how other schools are like. Some of the schools I've been to: UNC-CH, Duke, Georgia Tech, Villanova, Emory, Wake Forest, UCB, UCSD, WUSTL, and USC. I've concluded that Rutgers needs to seriously get its act together before all the Jersey kids lose faith and go elsewhere.</p>
<p>How is the Honors Program? I see that it has changed - for the better?</p>