Getting to Know Rutgers

A Rutgers Overview
Colleges & Schools
Douglass Residential College
Student Body
Value
Faculty
Rutgers is Very Young and Very Old
Reputation

A Rutgers Overview

• Rutgers offers more than 100 majors and 4,000 courses, and more than 100 bachelor’s, 100 master’s, and 70 doctoral and professional degree programs

• On campus there are more than 400 clubs, nearly 50 NCAA Division I (Big East) and III teams, extensive recreational facilities, and a wide array of cultural events. Off campus, everything is close by—the Jersey shore, the mountains, the Meadowlands Sports Complex, New York City, Philadelphia and much, much, more.

• Academic resources include state-of-the-art laboratories, a 26-branch university research library, and the nation’s ninth-ranked university supercomputing system.

• Despite Rutgers’ impressive size, students don’t get lost in the crowd. Undergraduates enroll in 13 small- to medium-sized colleges on three regional campuses in Camden, Newark, and New Brunswick that offer friendly campus communities.

• The student-to-faculty ratio is 14-to-1, comparable to that of many small liberal arts schools, and 63 percent of classes have 30 or fewer students.

• Rutgers has more than 130 specialized research centers, bureaus, and institutes that bring in more than $290 million in research grants annually. Attending a research university means that students share in the challenge and excitement of discovery along with their professors; approximately 60 percent of our undergraduates conduct original research.

Student Body

• Rutgers’ student body is highly diverse, coming from almost every state in the nation and more than 130 foreign countries.

• Rutgers attracts high-achieving students, offering challenging honors programs. 36 percent of entering students rank in the top 10 percent of their high school class.

• Rutgers students are civic-minded, donating more than 100,000 hours of community service each year.

• More than 335,000 alumni have benefited from a Rutgers education. Alumni include winner of Donald Trump's The Apprentice, Randall Pinkett; Nobel laureate and economist Milton Friedman; actor, singer, and social activist Paul Robeson; former U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky; astronaut Terry Hart; NBA commissioner David Stern; actors James Gandolfini and Avery Brooks; actresses Calista Flockhart and Kristin Davis.

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Value

• Rutgers tuition is significantly lower than other AAU research institutions, such as Columbia, Harvard, NYU, Princeton , and Yale.

• Prestigious scholarships are available for both New Jersey and out-of-state high-achieving students.

• More than half of Rutgers students receive financial assistance, maintaining an historic commitment to access and affordability.

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Faculty

• Ninety-nine percent of Rutgers faculty hold a Ph.D. or an equivalent.

• Rutgers faculty hold 51

memberships in the prestigious National Academy of Sciences and its affiliates.

• Rutgers faculty include MacArthur ‘Genius’ Fellows, National Medal of Science and National Medal of Technology recipients, Fulbright Scholars, Guggenheim Fellows, members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and winners of many other prestigious awards and grants. Rutgers professors have been honored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching for their excellence in classroom instruction.

• Senior faculty regularly teach undergraduate courses and include undergraduates in their research projects.

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Rutgers is Very Old and Very Young

• Founded in 1766, Rutgers is the nation’s eighth oldest institution of higher learning. Other schools among the 10 oldest include Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Dartmouth.

• In 1864, Rutgers was designated the land-grant college of New Jersey, narrowly beating out Princeton and launching a distinguished history in agricultural and engineering research and outreach.

• In 1869, Princeton and Rutgers competed again, this time in the first-ever intercollegiate football game, with Rutgers winning 6–4.

• During the first half of the 20th century, several distinguished New Jersey schools, including law and business schools, merged with Rutgers to establish a strong Rutgers presence in Camden and Newark, as well as in New Brunswick.

• Through legislative acts in 1945 and 1956, Rutgers became “The State University of New Jersey,” making it the nation’s youngest comprehensive public university.

• A brief 40 years later, Rutgers emerged as a premier public research institution.

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Reputation

• Rutgers belongs to the prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU)—the 62 leading North American institutions recognized for the quality and scope of their research and educational programs. Fellow AAU members include Harvard, Yale, Duke, Cornell, and the universities of Michigan and California. The only other New Jersey member is Princeton.

• A Rutgers Degree Has International Name Recognition. Our graduates can be found at top graduate schools and corporations, such as Accenture • Albert Einstein School of Medicine • AT&T • BloombergCitigroup • Cornell University • Deloitte & Touche • Deutsche Bank • Duke University • Ernst & Young • GE • Goldman Sachs • Harvard University Law School • Hewlett Packard • Howard University • IBM • Johns Hopkins University Medical School • Johnson & Johnson • JP Morgan Chase • KPMG Peat Marwick • Lockheed Martin • Lord & Taylor • L ’Oreal USA • Macy's • Merck • Merrill Lynch • Met Life • Microsoft • PricewaterhouseCoopers • Prudential • Stanford University • UBS Paine Webber • University of Pennsylvania • Verizon • Yale University