Update: Rutgers Honors College, New Brunswick, NJ

I have paid two visits to the Rutgers Honors College since it opened in 2015. It’s an impressive student-oriented public honors college facility, as you will from the pictures on my Pinterest page.

This year, like all academic and services programs at Rutgers, the Honors College went virtual. I invite you to listen to two assistant deans, Paul Gilmore and Nicole Baron, who will tell you how the virtual experience has worked to date.

It’s hard to sell a virtual experience, when the residential experience is so strong and so important those who say yes, and come. I wouldn’t mind living in the Rutgers Honors College freshman residence hall myself. Heck, I’d go back to school again and live there as a student if I could  be 18 again. Until COVID hit the globe,  500 fortunate Rutgers Honors College freshmen moved into their brand-new home in the fall, along with 30 upper-class Peer Mentors. Continuing students live in honors housing within the different campus neighborhoods at Rutgers, or move off campus.  Deans Gilmore and Baron, and the rest of the leadership, do much to follow every student. Graduates of the Rutgers Honors College receive the Honors designation on their diplomas and transcripts in their own ceremony. They also receive an Honors College medallion to recognize their achievements.

Rutgers has more than 1,000 freshmen in honors-level programs, some tied to housing in learning communities on campus. The average SAT for the students has exceeded 1500, though admissions to Rutgers are test optional for now.

Rutgers’  Honors College students could have become Ivy Leaguers had they made a different decision. Those who take advantage of the benefits of coming to the Rutgers Honors College receive the level of attention that they might receive at a smaller liberal arts school  But they also need the help to navigate the bureaucracy and rules common to life at the largest of schools. So they have their own faculty advisors to help.  Rutgers admits honors students by invitation, so prospective students do not need to write additional essays as they might at Penn State and other schools. Selection to the Honors College is not tied to money, although nearly each student receives a merit scholarship.

The prospective students for the public honors college are not usually courted early, as highly-skilled athletes would be. But that doesn’t matter. Rutgers has welcomed more freshman honors students than scholarship varsity athletes, by far.

Want to learn more about the Rutgers Honors College? Listen to this interview now!

Need help on the journey to college? Contact me at stuart@educatedquest.com or call me at 609-406-0062.

Want to know more about me? Check out these podcasts!

Listen to my talk, College Is A Learning AND Living Community, hosted by Dr. Cynthia Colon from Destination YOUniversity on Voice of America Radio!

Listen to my talk, What Exactly Is a Good College? hosted by test-prep experts Amy Seeley and Mike Bergin on Tests And The Rest!

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