My recent change of major has made me take a good look at both SAS and SEBS. I learned a lot about the requirements and talked to people in both schools. Here is what I found out:
SEBS is a great school for science majors (or oddly enough journalism majors, I don't really understand why). It used to be Cook College, but now stands for School for Environmental and Biological Sciences It very science based and pretty small; my roommate just declared herself and Agriculture Major and she is one of only 21 people in the entirety of Rutgers to have that major! I was speaking to Dr. Sharma (if there are any animal science people out there,talk to her, she's wonderful! ) about the program and she mentioned that there are about 65 graduates with an Animal Science degree at rutgers each year. This is much smaller in comparison to the (estimated) 1,000's of psychology and biology majors in SAS. I have found the people at SEBS to be very helpful when it comes to discussing academic information, that is not to say that the people at SAS aren't, but because it is such a big school you really have to fight to secure your place in the hearts of academic advisors, which you definitely need to do in order to get good letters of recommendation for summer research, and graduate schools. Some downsides to SEBS is that it costs more than SAS does, about $500 more, which isn't really significant in the whole scheme of things but it's still something to consider. My Douglass advisor told me that SEBS is considered a professional school, much like the pharmacy school and that's why it costs more. It also requires a bit of hands on training within your major. An animal science major needs 9 credits of hands on experiences which means internships, research and time spent on the farm. This is really helpful when you are looking for jobs - the ability to say "I've already done that" is huge.
SAS is the heart and soul of Rutgers University. It has over 16,000 students and 70+ majors. Most of the Rutgers student body is a part of SAS and because of that you'll never feel alone. There is definitely someone else you can talk to who has taken that class you are trudging through in order to fill a GEN-ED requirement. It is really good for people (like myself) who were not quite sure what they wanted to do with their lives. There is a little bit of everything at SAS ranging from Anthropology, to Neuroscience, to Music, to Women and Gender Studies. At SAS you'll get more of a liberal arts education. There are less science requirements (because lots of people who go there are not the science type) and more humanities. It lets you try out a little bit of everything before you have to decide where you want to settle down and what you want to major in.
You can't really double major in both schools - the requirements would be way to long to complete BUT you can major in one school and minor in the other school without having to worry about an extraneous number of requirements.
Here are the requirements for both schools:
SAS
2 Writing Courses
2 Math Courses
2 Natural Science Courses
4 Social Science, Humanities and Interdisciplinary Courses (1 of each and then 1 extra)
1 Diversity Course
1 Global Awareness Course
SEBS
1 Junior/Senior Colloquium
2 Life Science Courses
1 Physical Science Course
2 Humanities Courses
2 Multicultural Courses
1 Human Behavior Course
1 Economic Course
1 Political Course
2 Writing courses
I hope that helps your decision making process! Good luck and if you have any more questions feel free to comment! I'll answer as quickly as I can =]
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