Villanova mis-reported its numbers some years ago. We probably compete less with Villanova than with Temple. Villanova is for people who want a suburban environment, and I think the Catholic connection helps it with students who went through the parochial school system.
Rutgers Law reported at #62 in USNWR -- a jump of 30
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Yeah- I kind of don't get the "raison d'etre" for Nova when you consider that if you live in NJ, RU is cheaper and comparable, and same for PA and Temple. Maybe Delaware or people just looking to throw around their money.
I guess it is a Catholic thing also- definitely knew a bunch of people at Fordham that went to Catholic school K-3L. (LLM in tax at GTown if needed haha).
As I mentioned above, I think it is the "nice safe suburb" factor as well as the Catholic factor. Neither Temple nor the Rutgers law school campuses qualify as suburban by any stretch of the imagination.
True. Not worth the extra money to me, but I guess it's relative. All the top 100 NYC area schools are in NYC or Newark, SJU being the most suburban if you could call it that.
I am sure there are suburban parents -- and their children -- who prefer suburbia and are willing to pay for it. This has long been thought to be an issue for the New Brunswick/Piscataway campus in competing for undergrads, and it's no surprise that it's also an issue for the law schools.
I couldn't agree more. When I was there in the late '70's early '80's the first USNWR rankings came out and IIRC we were either in the upper 30's or low 40's and ahead of UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, UC Davis and Irvine, Maryland, Boston College, etc. And I believe we were ranked around 12 for public universities. A far cry from where we are today.
Wow I did not know that. And as a current student I can tell you some kids do take these rankings seriously. I know I have looked at undergrad business school rankings myself
My understanding is that US News misunderstood the system here, and got GPA/LSATs for Rutgers College only.
In connection with the merger, didn't they ditch the ridiculous admission standards that were being used at Newark? It i my understanding that the "non-numerical" admissions was killing NLAW in the rankings.
Prior to the 1990's the New Brunswick undergrad colleges were each ranked separately. Rutgers College was the ranking you recall. Cook, Livingston, and Douglass were ranked separately.
That's the reason for the change (mostly).
I think you may be right on this. Some here don't realize that if you didn't get into Rutgers College, Douglas College (for women) or even Cook College, your only hope to get into Rutgers University-New Brunswick was through Livingston College. Livingston College was was the easiest of the schools to get into. But now as you know, they've done away with this and it's Rutgers University with different departments within the university like arts and sciences and schools of business, engineering and pharmacy. I had gotten into Rutgers College and Mason Gross School of the Arts back then.
Rutgers College and Mason Gross were considered "most difficult" schools to get into back then similarly to the top rated private colleges around the nation. Mason Gross still exists today and I believe is the hardest school to get into at Rutgers especially the acting/directing and design programs where they accept less than 20% of the applications.
Even if Rutgers College was taken into consideration back then for rankings, it still IMO shows how far we have fallen. Rutgers back then was always considered better than the schools I mentioned in an above post as well as Penn State, and especially schools like Villanova, Northeastern and UCONN. Those three schools were not even on the radar back then and Villanova was up until about two years ago ranked as a regional university and not a national university.
One way for Rutgers to get back its prestige, would be to up their admissions standards and instead of admitting 58% of students to New Brunswick, follow the model of UC Santa Barbara, San Diego, and Davis, where they admit less than 40%. That's where Rutgers-New Brunswick should be. The other Rutgers in Newark, Camden and schools like Rowan and Montclair St. should be the alternative schools for those who do not get in.
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I agree with the above poster. NB needs to be much harder to get into. I was shocked at some of the students from high school who were accepted. It seemed as if they accepted anyone who applied. We will gain more respect that way.
And I think that is how Villanova has rose past RU I can only name 2 people from my high school who were accepted there and at least 40+ applied. My solutatorian was actually rejected from there
No, this was in regard to the person claiming (if I recall right) that RU overall used to be substantially higher rated than it is now. But the same point applies to RU Newark law's formerly high ranking. They just tried to take care of a technicality in the rules and claimed that their minority students were not being "fully" admitted.
Interestingly enough, by the end, the credentials of Livingston students were better than those of Douglas students. Not that many white women wanted the all-female campus experience (except, of course, classes were dual-sex because Douglas's separate faculty was ended in 1982 or so.)
This is a complicated story. The bottom line is that there is much more emphasis on standard credentials than there used to be at Newark. But the overall law school still makes plain its eagerness to attract diversity students.
Our average SAT and GPA is higher than Ped, not sure about the others. Today is much harder to get into RU than a few years ago and even harder for business (must apply in HS now), Pharma and Engineering.
The thing is that RU doesn't get as many OOS applications which deflates our acceptance numbers- but our students are just as qualified if not moreso.
The difference in CA is that it is a goal to go to a UC school versus in NJ there is more of a mentality that private colleges are superior, many people insist upon Catholic college, and of course the idea that if you pay more for UDel it must be better. Whenever I am in CA I always get the impression that going to UA or UO is an admission you did not get into a decent UC school.
One of your points is actually inaccurate. It isn't mandatory to get into the business school from high school. I was accepted out of high school but I know many who transferred from SAS into the business school
Yes transfers happen but those are not counted in the USNWR.
All good points. Having lived now in California for nearly 33 years, what you stated at the end is true. For those who were rejected at the really good UC schools but don't want to go to a Cal State school the option is to go out of state to Arizona, Oregon, Washington, and Colorado.
Interesting. That's when I graduated btw, in 1982. what some kids did back then was to get into Livingston and then after a year transfer into Cook, Douglas (if you're a girl) or Rutgers College. My sister, who graduated from U of Michigan, first wanted to go to Rutgers College but was rejected back in the mid-eighties. It still bothers her to this day, even though she had a great experience in Ann Arbor.
Yep. Thirty-two years later, she's still pissed at that--LOL! But you have to remember, Rutgers College was considered on par back then with many top private schools such as Tufts, Emory, Carnegie Mellon, Wake Forest, Brandeis and NYU. Rutgers College was "the" school that in-state kids DID want to attend. You also have to understand that back then the College of NJ was NOT prestigious at all. It was Trenton State and was primarily a school for teacher education.
That's crazy to think about. I hope we can get back to that level. Hell I'd gladly take Michigan level.
It's sad isn't it? Rutgers-New Brunswick can start helping themselves by admitting 40% instead of 58%. That's where they went wrong. Where Rutgers College was super selective, once Rutgers did away with the individual colleges, they were lax in their admission standards. I think it coincided with the lack of funding from the state.
But yes, I would love to get to the Michigan level. Heck I would love to get to the Wisconsin level. There is no reason why Rutgers should be ranked 70. And what's sad, is the Penn State was NEVER ranked higher than us until we changed the admission standards.
Yes. That hadn't been true for years and years -- in part because Villanova lied about their numbers. But I'm sure there will always be students who are happiest at a Catholic suburban school.
RU MAN, what was the gender ratio like at Rutgers College when you were there? I wonder whether, because Douglass existed, RC was tougher on female than male applicants then.
I don't think they were necessarily tougher on women. My sister was accepted to Douglas, but she didn't want to go there. She wanted to go to Rutgers College. I think the ratio was more men to women like you stated, but I don't think it was more than 55 to 45% ratio of men to women. I'm only guessing, but I think you're right. Regardless, my sister had the grades but she was rejected.
Write a letter to Barchi and tell him the university ought to be more funding into the law school. Instead, the master plan makes no mention of any step contemplated to improve the school.
62 let alone 92 is nothing to be proud about. There are high viability areas of study that RU should be great in.
Medical School
Law School
Engineering School
To name a few should be top notch.
Yes I know state funding is a huge issue. BTW my major was not in any of those schools.
completely agree with you. Yes, state funding is a huge issue. So too is internal allocation of funds within Rutgers. Legal education just doesn't seem to be a big priority. Part of the problem, if I may wax philosophical, is that Rutgers traditionally was not heavily involved in professional education of any kind. For some in liberal arts and the sciences, devoting substantial resources to professional education is contrary to Rutgers' small-college past. (Believe it or not, there are those at Rutgers who still pine for those days; this was part of the issue with Dowling.) But I agree with you that professional education is important to the university's quality and reputation.
Yes, I think we can expect some private law schools with poor reputations to close. We'll have to see whether it makes sense for Rutgers to continue a two-campus law school.
