8 Percent of alumni give to Rutgers

[RUsojo]

No one in this thread is making excuses. This board is not a good representation of the Rutgers population. Any "excuses" in this thread are coming from people who do donate, trying to think from a average Rutgers grad perspective, in order to solve the problem.

Unfortunately, I think the simple answer for donation woes is that the concept of giving back is something you are taught growing up. By "you" I mean the board members. Most of Rutgers population is not brought up that way.

 

[mikebal9]

I don't donate. I probably won't for many years. I got some financial aid, too. Guess I suck. Or I have a family and they're my number one priority. Every dollar I earn goes to groceries, mortgage, college savings, or family-related expenditures. I don't have money left at the end of the month. I put my family ahead of Rutgers. If that's an excuse, your priorities are way out of line.

 

[rutgersguy1]

The president of the RUF is quoted in Rutgers Magazine citing these as reasons for low donation rates and I think we can believe he has access to research and data, not merely opinion, that support his claim. Whether or not they are unique to RU is irrelevant.

Well I don't know if I'd call it irrelevant. If it's unique to us then you can say hey that's a possible or probable reason for the lower giving rate. However, if it happens everywhere then I don't think you can say that's the reason our rate is low while similar large state institutions are higher. If other schools have these same bureaucratic issues but their giving rates are higher it's gotta be something else or their giving rates should be low as well right? Unless you think the "bureaucratic mess" of RU is much much worse than your average large state institution. I tend to think not though.

Like I was saying above the only thing I can think of that is fairly unique to us is the larger spread out nature of our campus and the necessity of a large bus transit system to go from place to place. Now I do think that affects experience while being a student but to the point of being so pissed at the school? Eh, I don't know. Me personally, I wouldn't think of my RU experience glowingly but at the same time I didn't see it as some hell hole that I wouldn't give money towards. Being packed like sardines on the buses, occasionally w/o AC, is probably the worst thing I can recall. It was uncomfortable but you get over it and used to it frankly. Woke up around 6 am to register for classes on the phone system and never had an issue getting the classes I wanted. I think I may have needed a special permission number once and got it from the professor. I don't think I ever talked to an academic adviser once to figure out what classes I needed. I knew what my majors were and knew what the requirements were and took the classes and then graduated.

Like I said though, I can't comment on other schools but just common sense thinking with regards to the large nature of these institutions, and any large organization for that matter, makes me think problems can arise for some people anywhere you go. Personally, I just think it's the way too many of the residents, the media and frankly the state government view the state university. If you look down your nose on something, how willing are you willing to open up your wallet for that something. I don't think other state governments and residents view their state schools with such disdain that the people here do. Always looking to find fault and criticize anything from the big to the small. Could you imagine a PSU like or UNC like scandal here. No one looks at RU as an asset to the state of NJ, more like something to piss on any chance they get. Just on a superficial level, I actually do think if we were to win big in the major sports or finagle our way up the US News rankings, regardless of the ranking's substance, perception might shift. Other than that I don't know. You're never gonna get rid of the things inherent to a large institution/organization. You can always look to improve but you'll never eliminate those issues.

 

[rutgersguy1]

I don't donate. I probably won't for many years. I got some financial aid, too. Guess I suck. Or I have a family and they're my number one priority. Every dollar I earn goes to groceries, mortgage, college savings, or family-related expenditures. I don't have money left at the end of the month. I put my family ahead of Rutgers. If that's an excuse, your priorities are way out of line.

I don' think you suck. Everyone has their financial responsibilities/priorities/capabilities and shouldn't feel ashamed doing what they feel is necessary in their own lives. I don't believe in shaming others for this stuff and frankly the majority of this board probably does donate something so it's not even the right place to think of shaming someone considering it's probably skewed higher as a pool of people who donate.

I'm not an expert on it but just looking around on what's posted from time to time and what I've read, on the high end you get about 20-25% range. So that means even on the high end 75-80% don't donate even at the best schools. It's just what makes us lower than the average, if that 8% figure is true, IMO it's just the perception of the school. That's something that I think is probably unique to us which I think could explain it. It's something looked down upon and not worthy rather than something viewed as an asset. I do think that perception is changing slowly considering our 1B campaign and I think some of the campus improvements and the business school will also help down the line. So I think the future looks a little better. If we could actually be very successful in the major sports or move up the US News rankings, I think that could help further.

 

[Scarlet16E]

I don't donate. I probably won't for many years. I got some financial aid, too. Guess I suck. Or I have a family and they're my number one priority. Every dollar I earn goes to groceries, mortgage, college savings, or family-related expenditures. I don't have money left at the end of the month. I put my family ahead of Rutgers. If that's an excuse, your priorities are way out of line.

You have to do what's right for your family.
I think your example is probably pretty typical of those that don't donate. What would be nice is if Rutgers could find a way to motivate you and those like you to give just a little ($25 a year). If just 10% of our living alumni who currently don't donate gave just $25 a year RU would have another million dollars to improve the university. It would also improve our US News rankings, which do matter. Rutgers may be where your kids get their education in the future. That's one reason to give even just a little.

 

[Scarlet_Scourge]

I don't donate. I probably won't for many years. I got some financial aid, too. Guess I suck. Or I have a family and they're my number one priority. Every dollar I earn goes to groceries, mortgage, college savings, or family-related expenditures. I don't have money left at the end of the month. I put my family ahead of Rutgers. If that's an excuse, your priorities are way out of line.

$25 year is just $2 a month or about 2 quarters a week. You don't really need to give more than that if you can't afford it. No one would except you to put Rutgers above family or paying the bills. But everyone should be able to afford 50 cents a week. That is not asking for too much right?

 

[mikebal9]

I give my mandatory seat donation. I pay my student loan bills. I buy RU clothes for my son.
I guess what I struggle with, which I'll get slammed for, is why do I owe Rutgers anything more? Why should they get my donations but other charities shouldn't? Do I give $25 per year to every charity on earth?

 

[mal359]

Oh...and without smart phones or wi fi too.

Can you imagine today's ADHD students standing in long lines for seemingly hours with no cell phone, no internet, all to change their class schedule?

I laugh at any complaint from those that make their schedules today via computer (which is 99% of all college students at every Univ).

Did you also have to ski to classes when the busses broke down in the 4 feet of snow that New Brunswick got every day, also?

Give me a break.

 

[Scarlet_Scourge]

I give my mandatory seat donation. I pay my student loan bills. I buy RU clothes for my son.
I guess what I struggle with, which I'll get slammed for, is why do I owe Rutgers anything more? Why should they get my donations but other charities shouldn't? Do I give $25 per year to every charity on earth?

You give to what is important to you. To be honest, a seat donation is better than most. You do not have to give more if you don't want to, but I was just pointing out that "I can't afford $25 a year" excuse is rather false.

 

[RaySt]

Wouldn't it be great if more gave even just the $25 per year. Then the school would have all this extra money, would actually improve in key areas, the perception and school would improve and then alumni school pride might increase as well...then maybe those alumni donate more as a result, or other alumni see good things and donate for the first time..and so the path to better things begins. We just need people to stop thinking about the one administrative hurdle they had to overcome during their time at RU (and wasn't that really good training for the real world anyway?) and remember all of the positivite experiences they had at RU. Because once the cycle starts....it all gets better from there. For the price of a pair of movie tickets, folks help make a difference.

 

[RaySt]

Another thing I can think of is that Rutgers does a poor job of instilling pride in Rutgers as an institution. When I was a student I really didn't know anything about the history of Rutgers. I had no idea it was a colonial college. I didn't know anything about the Queens campus. I didn't even know what Old Queens was. When I saw a picture of Old Queens on some Rutgers pamphlet I was like "where the hell is that?" because I never stepped foot on Queens campus as I had no reason to. And this is common among students.

I think there should be a mandatory seminar for all freshman that promote Rutgers' history and teaches students everything about Rutgers.

The one thing Rutgers did really well was the "Freshman Throw Down". Basically it was a competition between freshman dorms on who could show the most school spirit. There were all different events including tug of war etc. And during this event we learned the football cheers and the Alma Mater. It was very well done. I think they should expand this and make it university wide.

Right on sct!

It appears leadership and pride are things lacking and I suspect may be one of the root causes we are all searching for. For example, my company has 30 million customers and processes billions of transactions. I can't go to a non-work party that someone when they hear where I work doesn't either say wow, they are great, I'm a customer or tell me how my company did them wrong. Regarding the latter, sometimes we goofed, sometimes people just want to complain. I hear them out, however for me and many others it doesn't cloud our impression of our company, its products or what we do for our customers. And that doesn't mean we don't care about individual customer issuess...we give them a lot of attention. But we also understand the big picture. We are very knowledgeable thanks to our leadership and the many forums they provide where they inform us frequently about our company history, current happenings, what is going well, what isn't, where we have come through for customers, where we need to improve, etc. Basically, thanks to leadership we are informed and we know what is going on and we can put any one issue into proper context. If RU isn't teaching its history to its students, telling them why this place is special and how they are part of it, then administrative hurdles or temporary inconveniences paint too much of the student's experience. Athetic success can help but should not be relied upon alone. RU needs to sell itself to itself. Some programs and a few dynamic leaders can change this relatively quickly. It just needs more attention.

 

[CuredbywinningRU]

Yeah and a lot of them are from North Edison, East and South Brunswick, Marlboro, Holmdel, Princeton, West Windsor, Fort Lee and the surrounding heavily Korean towns...are those places disadvantaged?

RU also has the second largest Jewish population in the country too, and one of the largest Muslim populations. I'm guessing you're going to tell me that despite those groups, like Asians, having higher than average incomes overall nationally, the RU ones are the poor ones, right?

What I'm saying is that RU's demographic historically is far lower income-wise than PSU and other major state Us which lack easily commutable heavily populated areas in the vicinity. That geography allows kids from non-affluent families to go to RU more than the geographies of the PSU allows. And if you think RU does not have a disproportionately small group of affluent kids for a flagship state U, why don't you take a survey on this board of Alums and ask where they're from - my guess is that Summit, Bernardsville, Chatham, Rumson, Short Hills, Alpine, Saddle River, etc. are very underrepresented. Or just walk around the campus and look at the cars and compare them to those at PSU, MD, Delaware etc. RU attracts a different crowd than most flagship State s and it's more than obvious in every way from the moment you step on campus. You can even compare RU cars to those from a place like Florida State (let alone UF) - absolutely different demographic. Maybe you need to look at other campuses and states before you criticize what I'm saying. Have you ever lived anywhere other than NJ?

 

[Scarlet16E]

What I'm saying is that RU's demographic historically is far lower income-wise than PSU and other major state Us which lack easily commutable heavily populated areas in the vicinity. That geography allows kids from non-affluent families to go to RU more than the geographies of the PSU allows. And if you think RU does not have a disproportionately small group of affluent kids for a flagship state U, why don't you take a survey on this board of Alums and ask where they're from - my guess is that Summit, Bernardsville, Chatham, Rumson, Short Hills, Alpine, Saddle River, etc. are very underrepresented. Or just walk around the campus and look at the cars and compare them to those at PSU, MD, Delaware etc. RU attracts a different crowd than most flagship State s and it's more than obvious in every way from the moment you step on campus. You can even compare RU cars to those from a place like Florida State (let alone UF) - absolutely different demographic. Maybe you need to look at other campuses and states before you criticize what I'm saying. Have you ever lived anywhere other than NJ?

You are off your rocker.

 

[mdk01]

What I'm saying is that RU's demographic historically is far lower income-wise than PSU and other major state Us which lack easily commutable heavily populated areas in the vicinity. That geography allows kids from non-affluent families to go to RU more than the geographies of the PSU allows. And if you think RU does not have a disproportionately small group of affluent kids for a flagship state U, why don't you take a survey on this board of Alums and ask where they're from - my guess is that Summit, Bernardsville, Chatham, Rumson, Short Hills, Alpine, Saddle River, etc. are very underrepresented. Or just walk around the campus and look at the cars and compare them to those at PSU, MD, Delaware etc. RU attracts a different crowd than most flagship State s and it's more than obvious in every way from the moment you step on campus. You can even compare RU cars to those from a place like Florida State (let alone UF) - absolutely different demographic. Maybe you need to look at other campuses and states before you criticize what I'm saying. Have you ever lived anywhere other than NJ?

I'm not sure cars is as telling a metric as you think it is. I went Ivy in the 70's and less than 10% of undergrads even HAD cars.

 

[Scarlet_Scourge]

You are off your rocker.

I don't know.

I see a lot of Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, BMW, Acura, Audi, etc.

But no Bentley, Lamborghini and Ducati however, so clearly lower class people.

 

[NotInRHouse]

What I'm saying is that RU's demographic historically is far lower income-wise than PSU and other major state Us which lack easily commutable heavily populated areas in the vicinity. That geography allows kids from non-affluent families to go to RU more than the geographies of the PSU allows. And if you think RU does not have a disproportionately small group of affluent kids for a flagship state U, why don't you take a survey on this board of Alums and ask where they're from - my guess is that Summit, Bernardsville, Chatham, Rumson, Short Hills, Alpine, Saddle River, etc. are very underrepresented. Or just walk around the campus and look at the cars and compare them to those at PSU, MD, Delaware etc. RU attracts a different crowd than most flagship State s and it's more than obvious in every way from the moment you step on campus. You can even compare RU cars to those from a place like Florida State (let alone UF) - absolutely different demographic. Maybe you need to look at other campuses and states before you criticize what I'm saying. Have you ever lived anywhere other than NJ?

Yes I lived more than a 1/3 of my life outside of NJ including going to a private law school and you are completely off your rocker.

Taking your list, there are few towns in PA that have that level of wealth and those that do don't send their students to TTFP or Pitt.

I have seen signatures on this board from Summit and my freshman year roommate was from Chatham as where 2 other people in my dorm. I guess it was the rich dorm.

And just repeating "RU is a commuter school" shows how wrong you are, we have the second largest on campus population of any school in the country...

That said, let's even assume what you said was true. Bordering NB is East Brunswick and Edison and both have very wealthy areas, in fact JP Stevens and East Brunswick are two of the best high schools in NJ.

Compared to Central PA and most of Florida, Piscataway and Somerset are beacons of wealth.

You have nothing but anecdotes. Your deliberate demeaning has horrific undertones of classism and racism. I'm the first person in my family to graduate, and guess what, I donate to RU, my building has doorman but it's Jersey City so what does that count for in imagination land? Not fitting into your ridiculous anecdotes and stereotypes...

 

[RUsojo]

You give to what is important to you. To be honest, a seat donation is better than most. You do not have to give more if you don't want to, but I was just pointing out that "I can't afford $25 a year" excuse is rather false.

Agree with all of the above. No one expects a graduate to put the university above their family. You don't "owe" Rutgers anything.

When most people graduate undergrad, you finish doing so by spending 20% of your life on the banks. Sometimes more. Rutgers is the place you earn your degree, develop as an adult mentally, emotionally, and even physically. The concept of giving back to a place that fostered that growth in order to help the students who come after you and yourself by way of improving you alma mater's reputation and credentials, imo is an easy notion to develop on your own without the influence of Rutgers to suggest it. People who grow up In an environment where giving back is a strong value can easily get on board while still doing right by their families. Others need to be cultivated. Rutgers is attempting to cultivate and the first thing they must is outline their situation and solicit your help. If you still don't want to donate after all is said and done that is your decision and I nor anyone else will judge you....maybe just a little ;)

 

[CuredbywinningRU]

I'm not sure cars is as telling a metric as you think it is. I went Ivy in the 70's and less than 10% of undergrads even HAD cars.

Car actually are a very good indicator (and yes, I know, many students don't have them). But looking at college stickers on the cars of parents and alums and looking at the cars themselves of undergrads is a somewhat anecdotal but ultimately telling indicator of school demographics. In South Florida, you see many many very high end vehicles with UF and even FSU stickers. In contrast, in NJ, only a very small % of RU stickered cars - on the roads and at football games are high end cars and, conversely, but also true, in NJ only a small % of high end cars that sport school stickers have RU stickers on them.

 

[CuredbywinningRU]

Yes I lived more than a 1/3 of my life outside of NJ including going to a private law school and you are completely off your rocker.

Taking your list, there are few towns in PA that have that level of wealth and those that do don't send their students to TTFP or Pitt.

I have seen signatures on this board from Summit and my freshman year roommate was from Chatham as where 2 other people in my dorm. I guess it was the rich dorm.

And just repeating "RU is a commuter school" shows how wrong you are, we have the second largest on campus population of any school in the country...

That said, let's even assume what you said was true. Bordering NB is East Brunswick and Edison and both have very wealthy areas, in fact JP Stevens and East Brunswick are two of the best high schools in NJ.

Compared to Central PA and most of Florida, Piscataway and Somerset are beacons of wealth.

You have nothing but anecdotes. Your deliberate demeaning has horrific undertones of classism and racism. I'm the first person in my family to graduate, and guess what, I donate to RU, my building has doorman but it's Jersey City so what does that count for in imagination land? Not fitting into your ridiculous anecdotes and stereotypes...

I stand on my statements and just walking around RU proves their veracity.

 

[RUforester72]

I feel compelled to mention that I meet Rutgers alumni periodically in the business world. Both young and old and almost all speak highly and with pride about their time at RU. Im not sure what exactly drives down donations and I suspect it is a number of things but this 3 page thread that follows years of similar threads describing why our school sucks and what it doesn't do well certainly doesn't engender good feelings that make people want to grab their checkbooks. It is part the RU screw, part lack of athletic success, etc., etc. but I think a big factor is this "we suck" attitude. I don't see it in the eyes of our graduates but I do think the undercurrent in posts, discussions and Ledger articles suppress alumni desire to give back. Why donate to something that appears to be so poorly run? But in fact Rutgers has great accomplishments every day. It is a huge school with so much going on. Some could be done better but so much great work is going on too. If the good stuff were better celebrated the narrative would change and people would lean in more.

Well said. Write the check.

 

[FanuSanu52]

Are you standing on your statements to make sure they don't blow away with the rest of the wind?

 

[PoorTailor]

Ugh. I can't fathom this type of anecdote being anything more than whiny parents making excused for their childrens' f-ups. The student is responsible for their schedule. It is possible to graduate in four years. Most of us have done it. If you want to do it, and you're committed to making it happen, it can happen. This is college -- the student is responsible. Maybe that means you have to take a Friday class. Or an 8am class at some point. But it's doable. My parents would have laughed in my face if I told them "RU duped me into a fifth year...blame them."

I second this thought. I myself actually looked ahead at the schedule and was able to graduate in 3 1/2 years and save a semester of tuition for my parents.

 

[jtung230]

Car actually are a very good indicator (and yes, I know, many students don't have them). But looking at college stickers on the cars of parents and alums and looking at the cars themselves of undergrads is a somewhat anecdotal but ultimately telling indicator of school demographics. In South Florida, you see many many very high end vehicles with UF and even FSU stickers. In contrast, in NJ, only a very small % of RU stickered cars - on the roads and at football games are high end cars and, conversely, but also true, in NJ only a small % of high end cars that sport school stickers have RU stickers on them.

Cars are not good indicator of wealth. It's a good indicator of how many people want to look like they are wealthy. I know guys that make 7 figures that drive a 5 series and guys that are just over 6 figures driving the same car. It was a good indicator until leasing plans.

 

[golconda]

Stop making excuses, whining and crying about being upset at how some professor, student or lunch lady treated you during your college stay and send the damn $25.00. Three whole pages of bitching to squeeze a few dollars out of people who spend twice as much on daily Starbucks and Whole Foods! SAD!

 

[rutgersdave]

Car actually are a very good indicator (and yes, I know, many students don't have them). But looking at college stickers on the cars of parents and alums and looking at the cars themselves of undergrads is a somewhat anecdotal but ultimately telling indicator of school demographics. In South Florida, you see many many very high end vehicles with UF and even FSU stickers. In contrast, in NJ, only a very small % of RU stickered cars - on the roads and at football games are high end cars and, conversely, but also true, in NJ only a small % of high end cars that sport school stickers have RU stickers on them.

I lived in several states outside of NJ and noticed many more fancy cars and wondered why? The income is much lower in those states and they aren't rich. They don't have to pay $400k plus for their homes, more like $200k so they are rich with expensive cars and that's about it.

 

[Scarlet_Scourge]

not to mention millionaires who drives toyota prius

 

[RU85inFla]

Its very hard to be as big as Rutgers and have a population that is very different from the state distribution. Very hard. And we all know NJ is the most affluent state in the country!!!!

 

[lyndj]

FYI, per Rutgers Financial Aid Website, approx 80% of RU students receive some type of financial aid (either from the school, state, public and private scholarships, federals grants, etc...).

Yes I lived more than a 1/3 of my life outside of NJ including going to a private law school and you are completely off your rocker.

Taking your list, there are few towns in PA that have that level of wealth and those that do don't send their students to TTFP or Pitt.

I have seen signatures on this board from Summit and my freshman year roommate was from Chatham as where 2 other people in my dorm. I guess it was the rich dorm.

And just repeating "RU is a commuter school" shows how wrong you are, we have the second largest on campus population of any school in the country...

That said, let's even assume what you said was true. Bordering NB is East Brunswick and Edison and both have very wealthy areas, in fact JP Stevens and East Brunswick are two of the best high schools in NJ.

Compared to Central PA and most of Florida, Piscataway and Somerset are beacons of wealth.

You have nothing but anecdotes. Your deliberate demeaning has horrific undertones of classism and racism. I'm the first person in my family to graduate, and guess what, I donate to RU, my building has doorman but it's Jersey City so what does that count for in imagination land? Not fitting into your ridiculous anecdotes and stereotypes...

I second this thought. I myself actually looked ahead at the schedule and was able to graduate in 3 1/2 years and save a semester of tuition for my parents.

Well bless your heart but you don't speak for the entire student body at RU and people sometimes have different experiences.

 

[lyndj]

Stop making excuses, whining and crying about being upset at how some professor, student or lunch lady treated you during your college stay and send the damn $25.00. Three whole pages of bitching to squeeze a few dollars out of people who spend twice as much on daily Starbucks and Whole Foods! SAD!

Oh that'll do it. Who would read your post and even want to listen to you? The one thing you can't shame people into is donating their hard earned money. You keep them involved and continue to make them feel part of all the great things happening at your alma mater, eventually you'll get some of them to come onboard. Most adults don't respond well to posts like yours. #justsayin'

 

[rutgersdave]

Well bless your heart but you don't speak for the entire student body at RU and people sometimes have different experiences.

No, but you speak for the entire Rutgers body with your one story from a friend. 1 out of 40,000 a year.

 

[rutgersdave]

All my friends that I hung out at Rutgers became millionaires by starting their own companies. Rutgers give you the opportunity to get rich but whether they donate is a question mark.

 

[SanFranRutgers]

Simple solution: don't piss off the alumni.

50,000 students and, like, 30,000 faculty, staff and administrators. The prevailing mentality is that if anyone of those 80,000 people do something that you find objectionable in any way, you'll misappropriate it in order to rationalize withholding support for higher ed. Rutgers people and New Jerseyans have to get past their provincialism and understand that the school and its mission are bigger than one person -- whether its Ray Rice or Mike Rice or Condelezza Rice -- and plays out over a period much longer than one year.

All it takes is 11 bucks a month. Set it up in your online banking account and forget about it. You will never miss the money, and Rutgers can stop being in last place in yet another Big Ten category.

 

[lyndj]

No, but you speak for the entire Rutgers body with your one story from a friend. 1 out of 40,000 a year.

Don't be ridiculous, I don't speak for RU at all since it wasn't my experience but why try to invalidate someone else's experience because his was different? How you derived at me speaking for anyone other than the friend who relayed this story is beyond me.

 

[lyndj]

All my friends that I hung out at Rutgers became millionaires by starting their own companies. Rutgers give you the opportunity to get rich but whether they donate is a question mark.

impressive.

 

[NotInRHouse]

No, but you speak for the entire Rutgers body with your one story from a friend. 1 out of 40,000 a year.

I literally know one person who did not graduate from RU in 4 years who did not transfer in, and I know more than one person who transferred in and graduated in 4 years.

I also know two people who graduated in 4 years with 150 credits so they could sit for the CPA exam.

It's fairly safe to say the people with problems are the outliers.

 

[NotInRHouse]

I stand on my statements and just walking around RU proves their veracity.

Who needs numbers when you have nonsense. I actuallylive in NJ and attend every home game on top of other visiots and graduated more recently so there goes that argument too.

 

[rutgersdave]

I don't really care if people don't donate. If the school doesn't get donations, they will just have to raise tuition since they won't get the funding from the state. My six relatives who attended Rutgers paid full price or received no financial aid. If all these rich people are going to out of state schools that are at least 20-30k more then Rutgers is still a bargain. If they have the right major, they will have the salary to pay off an extra $20k. It's not the school, it's really the major that's important, yet everyone is worried about the school.

 

[retired711]

I am amazed that NB does class registration on a first-come, first-serve basis. The law school in Camden has never done this. Instead, there is a lottery if a class is over-enrolled, and students get priority for being seniors. In addition, one loses his or her place if he or she does not show up for the first class. Maybe NB should copy us.

 

[GoodOl'Rutgers]

As for not getting into required classes. to "advance"... is this a question of certain majors being highly competitve or is it a question of not getting lucky during registration.. which I assume is done online.

And what about the recent DDoS attacks of Rutgers computers.. this was during midterms or finals.. but what if it happens during registration?

Now the following is ancient stuff..

I never had a problem getting into required classes. But I was very flexible.. taking some classes at night, over on other campuses.. sometimes just for choice and variety. The one time I had a problem was trying to force my way into a higher level class in a competitive major that I just wanted to take. I just talked to the prof and he let me in... despite not having any of the pre-reqs. It was a philosophy dept class. With another class in communications, I had ZERO luck talking my way in... but I did not "need" that class. It was a class I thought I might like to take to consider changing a major or minor.

I wonder how may of the people who could not get the classes they were "required" to take just couldn't beat out other students for those spots. People flunk out of majors all the time... and pick something else. People cannot get into certain majors from the start and try to switch into them later. I wonder how much of this "forced" to take 5 years was part of that. heck.. I knew any people that double-majored in 4 years.

 

[Knight_Light]

I don't donate. I probably won't for many years. I got some financial aid, too. Guess I suck. Or I have a family and they're my number one priority. Every dollar I earn goes to groceries, mortgage, college savings, or family-related expenditures. I don't have money left at the end of the month. I put my family ahead of Rutgers. If that's an excuse, your priorities are way out of line.

It only takes $25 a YEAR to be counted as a donor. Millions of people (not saying you) spend that on a monthly basis at Starbucks (heck, a lot spend that in a week).

You are correct...everyone has priorities...and for 50 cents per week (7 cents per day), one can be a donor.

RU should start a campaign: "Got 7 cents in couch, big chair or in a cup holder in your car? Become a RU Donor today"..