Is Rutgers University a very respected school?

zapfino
Sun, 27 Nov 2011 21:26:19 +0000

OP, there really is no such thing as a pre-med major. You can major in any field (typically, an arts & sciences or engineering field) as long as you complete the pre-med requirements (2 semesters each f general biology, general chemistry, calculus, organic chemistry, and general physics). Some med schools require or recommend some additional courses, e.g., biochemistry or genetics. Most pre-med students major in biology or chemistry, but a significant number major in humanities or social science fields.

So, yes, you can complete your pre-med studies at Rutgers. It won’t make a huge difference where you complete the basic science courses that make up the pre-med requirements. Rutgers can provide you with these courses as well as many other schools. Your GPA and MCAT scores are major factors in med school admission. If Rutgers is your least expensive option (as an in-state public university), then go for it; you want as little debt as possible going into medical school, which is expensive.

The reputation of the school won’t count so much for med school admission. Your GPA, MCATs, letters of rec, and interviews will count much more. Now is Rutgers a good school? It’s great in some fields. It’s uneven across the board though and lags in some key disciplines where it should be stronger. This is especially the case since public universities in neighboring states and even in many states that lag behind NJ in overall educational attainments manage to make a better showing with their flagship public universities. IMO, A big part of the problem is the bias against public universities in the northeast generally, and especially in NJ. With its population base and resources (historical), there’s no good reason NJ shouldn’t have a top-notch public flagship, except for that reason. With the economy the way it is, I don’t except NJ will have the resources to catch up now.

I think a lot of people outside NJ in other parts of the country might recognize the name “Rutgers”, but really don’t know anything about it and have no opinion one way or the other.

Rutgers ranks very well in several fields: Philosophy (#2), Nutrition (#6), History (#9), Food Science (#12), Entomology (#11), Microbiology (#12), Math (#15), Physiology (#17). It’s respectable in several others: English (#24), Statistics (#23), Sociology (#28), Industrial Engineering (#22). It’s OK in others: Art History (#35), Biochemistry (#30), Earh Sciences (#34), Physics (#38), Linguistics (#32). But it really lags relative to other schools in several other key fields: Chemistry (#65), Computer Science (#60), most engineering fields (#50s-80s), Economics (#63), Evolution & Ecology (#50), Cell & Developmental Biology (#50), Anthropology (#46), Political Science (#50), Psychology (#52).

These are the NRC graduate rankings so they don’t tell you much about the quality of undergrad programs in those fields, but they do give some indication of areas of faculty strength.
You might check some of these links for additional information on doing pre-med studies at Rutgers:
[Rutgers Premedical Society](http://rupremedsociety.webs.com/)
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