PROFILE: RAMAPO COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY, MAHWAH, NJ
This is one of a series of U.S. college and university profiles for 2011-12 and it will be
continually updated as new information becomes available to prospective students and
their families as well as the author. Statistics provided for this profile have been provided
from a variety of sources, most notably the U.S. Department of Education and the school
itself. Any use or reproduction of this profile without the expressed permission of the
author is prohibited.
Background
Founded in 1969, Ramapo College of New Jersey is the Garden State’s youngest public
college and with around 6,000 undergraduates, it is the smallest. It is also the only one
that is legislatively chartered as a liberal arts school and the only one that is located in a
community that borders another state. Located in Mahwah, in Bergen County, one of the
wealthiest enclaves in America, Ramapo is located less than an hour from New York
City.
Ramapo is emerging as a top-performing public school. Most recently, the college’s fouryear graduation rate was 65 percent, second only to the College of New Jersey among
the state’s public institutions, and better than only 15 other publicly-supported colleges
and universities in the country. This performance, among other factors, has given the
school high rankings among Kiplinger’s Best Value Public Colleges and Universities and
the U.S. News college guide.
While 94 percent of Ramapo students come from New Jersey, and nearly 40 percent
commute, the college offers some of the most attractive living options found on any
college campus in the country. No residence hall--the college community does not call
them dorms--is of the traditional corridor style, where students in several rooms on one
or both sides of a floor share a communal bathroom. Because no residence hall is of the
traditional design Ramapo was able to become one of the first schools in New Jersey to
offer the option of gender-neutral living to its students.
Ramapo is a member of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges (COPLAC), a group
of 26 public liberal arts colleges, including St. Mary’s College of Maryland, the State
University of New York campus at Geneseo and the University of Mary Washington in
Virginia. In addition to being liberal arts colleges, Ramapo and these three schools share
at least two common characteristics: no football and an emphasis on encouraging
academic achievement across the broadest possible spectrum of the student body.
While these schools honors-level academic options, they try to operate as a public
honors college for the full student body. Their faculty and administration try to offer the
same academic experience as their students might find at a very good to excellent
private liberal arts school, though some, like Ramapo, are well invested in preprofessional degree programs, too.
Such schools have a huge upside within a political climate that has raised issues about
the accountability of publicly-supported colleges and universities. However, Ramapo
also has more than twice as many students as a selective liberal arts school such as
Colgate or Dickinson on a campus that is about the same size or smaller. It also
operates under greater financial limitations than those private schools, and others.
Ramapo’s future success is predicated on how well it plays on the same stage as those
schools for excellent students, retains them and develops them into successful
graduates. It will need to continue towards a direction of being an honors-level institution
for all of its students, not just their best.
Competition
Most recently, applicants to Ramapo have had a median grade point average of 3.4 and
median SAT scores of 1170 combined on the Math and Critical Reading sections, says
Peter Rice, the college’s Director of Admissions. The middle 50 percent of the class
scores between 1070 and 1240, about the same as the applicant pool for Rutgers
University’s flagship campus in New Brunswick.
Last fall, approximately 5,100 students applied for about 900 seats in the freshman
class. According to the college’s 2011 Fact Sheet, half were accepted and 35 percent of
them chose to come. Over ten years, applications rose by 43 percent while median SAT
scores rose by 55 points. Admission to a Biology major or the Nursing program is
exceptionally competitive. More than 600 prospective students apply to each program for
90 seats. The college uses rolling admissions, so applicants receive a decision within a
few weeks after all of their materials are in.
During the current admissions cycle, Ramapo is participating in the Common Application
for the first time. As a result, Rice reports that applications for the Class of 2016 are up
27 percent from last year and, as the final deadline approaches, there could be a surge
that pulls the total over 30 percent. Participating in the Common Application has
increased the numbers of out-of-state applicants, Rice says, especially from New York
State.
While the campus borders New York’s Rockland County, more of these applications are
coming from students who live further upstate. Applications have come from more than
20 other states as well. He expects the median SAT scores of admitted applicants to rise
as well. Rice also says that the college has no plans to increase the size of future
freshmen classes. Total undergraduate enrollment is expected to remain at its current
level.
Rice says that Ramapo is cross-shopped most often against other state schools in New
Jersey; the college loses more accepted applicants to Rutgers’ main campus in New
Brunswick than any other school. In addition to the 30,000 student Rutgers campus,
Ramapo’s “bread and butter” students seriously consider The College of New Jersey,
Richard Stockton College of New Jersey and Rowan University. Sometimes this
students are also scholarship candidates at Montclair State University and William
Paterson University, Rice adds.
In past years, Rice says, applicants have also considered private colleges in New
Jersey, primarily Monmouth University, Rider University and Seton Hall University; those
schools aggressively pursue the “bread and butter” Ramapo student with scholarship
offers as well.
Ramapo also sets itself apart from these schools by offering eight Immediate Decision
Days throughout the school year. For each day, the college invites around 100 well
qualified (better than middle 50 percent of the pool in terms of grades and standardized
test scores) applicants to campus to interview with a member of the faculty or the
admissions staff and listen to several presentations, including a student panel, about the
school. At the end of the program, each student may know if they have been offered
admission as well as a merit scholarship based on their transcript and test scores. This
past year, 320 of the approximately 900 members of the freshmen class entered
Ramapo via an Immediate Decision Day.
Given Ramapo’s competitive pricing--the college charges out-of-state students around
half the tuition and fees charged by top-performing private liberal arts colleges--and the
rise in applications, it will be interesting to see how the composition of the freshman
class may change.
Ramapo shares locational advantages with the State University of New York (SUNY)
campuses at Purchase and New Paltz, three of the nation’s leading private liberal arts
colleges: Bard, Vassar and Sarah Lawrence, and one regional school, Marist College,
that has a similar freshman class profile in terms of high school grades and SAT scores.
While the SUNY campuses charge in-state residents about one-quarter of Ramapo’s
out-of-state tuition and fees, Ramapo’s charges, before scholarships are considered, are
just over half of those of the private schools.
Completion
While Ramapo posted very strong four-year (65 percent) and six-year (76 percent)
graduation rates for the classes that entered in 2005 and 2007, the freshman retention
has taken a slight fall from 89 percent in 2010 to 86 percent in 2011. This difference
accounts for a freshman class that has between 25 to 30 fewer continuing students or a
little more than a single classroom.
Improvements in the quality of future classes alone will not increase freshman retention.
While the upper quarter of a future freshman class is more than likely to be capable of a
very high level of academic achievement, especially the Presidential Scholars and
students in the Honors program, the expectations of these students will be higher, too.
Those who turned down offers of admission to leading private schools would, in
particular, expect to see the same amenities as those schools. Competition for grades
and seats in popular classes is likely to increase across the full student body. Unless the
college administration places a great emphasis on student success.
Ramapo will be revising its student advising program, says Christopher Romano,
Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management, and the school is in the midst of
developing a four-year student engagement. A Freshman Engagement Plan was piloted
last year, while a Sophomore Engagement Plan will be tested this year. The purposes of
a Student Engagement Plan are to:
• Gradually introduce all students to the college life and the resources available at the
college.
• Enable students to become good citizens on campus, to find friends and be respectful
of others.
• To develop the skills of students outside of a classroom setting, for example leadership
and follower-ship.
• Assist students in finding an academic program that best fits their interests, as well as
their knowledge, skills and abilities, as well as extracurricular activities that might
enhance that academic experience.
• Help students continue to make good progress towards their degree, with “early
warnings” in place to help advisors assist students who might be considered “at risk,”
and therefore less likely to graduate on time.
• Provide direction, as well as access, to help students secure experiential learning
opportunities to work with faculty or employers in preparation for work after graduation
or for further education and also to help them secure permanent employment and
acceptance into graduate and professional programs.
The engagement plan is a partnership across multiple offices on campus. Spearheaded
by enrollment management, partners include offices of academic advising, career
development, counseling and residence life, among others. Romano believes that a
successful plan will push freshmen retention over 90 percent.
In prior years, says Chris Romano, Ramapo had been more noted as a commuter
school, but now the administration wants to develop a more residential feel to the
campus. A more geographically diverse student body will help in that direction, and so
will more on-campus programming, especially on the weekends. Such programming, he
adds, should also encourage commuters to spend more time on campus. Currently, for
example, residence halls compete in a year-long contest where students accumulate
points for participating in activities and programs on campus. Commuters are assigned
to each residence hall to help the hall earn points in the challenge.
Costs
In-state tuition and mandatory fees at Ramapo are approximately $13,000 for 2011-12
high for a state-supported school. However, the college aggressively pursues its best
applicants by offering scholarships that may range from $3,000 to $18,000 per year. A
student who scores a 1230 or better on the Math and Critical Reading sections of the
SAT while also ranking in the top ten percent of their class is eligible for a scholarship.
The college does not hold hard and fast to these numbers, but the admissions office
expects a higher level of academic excellence to counterbalance a lower standardized
test score.
The merit scholarships, combined with thorough follow-up by the admissions office, help
Ramapo pursue the student who is more likely to fall into the upper half, but not
necessarily the top quarter, of the applicant pool at Rutgers-New Brunswick or TCNJ.
However, the college, according to Peter Rice, has been able to use the Presidential
Scholarships, valued at $18,000 per year, to aim higher. Presidential Scholarship
recipients are courted, in part, with an invitation to a personalized reception with the
president of the college. Rice adds that 72 percent of the accepted students who came
to the reception decided to attend. These students had excellent grades as well as SAT
Math and Critical Reading scores in excess of 1400.
Out-of-state charges are around $21,000, approximately half the rates charged by
private liberal arts colleges such as Bard, Vassar and Sarah Lawrence. They too, are
eligible for merit scholarships, though the pool of money is more limited. Funding to
assist in-state residents is made possible, in part, through New Jersey’s Outstanding
Scholarship Recruitment Program (OSRP). With an endowment of only $12 million, the
college has more limited resources than most public or private schools to dedicate
towards need-based or merit-based aid.
According to College Navigator, the Web site operated by the U.S. Department of
Education, in-state students in the class of 2016 can expect to pay just under $60,000 in
tuition and fees over the next four years, before grants and scholarships are taken into
account. Out-of-state students can be expected to pay just over $98,000.
Another measure of costs over the long run is the debt-to-credentials ratio. Developed
by Education Sector, a non-partisan, non-profit organization based in Washington D.C.,
this ratio provides the average amount of debt that a student needed to take on to
complete their degree. The lower a school’s tuition or the more generous its financial aid
and the higher the graduation rate, the lower the ratio will be. From 2006 through 2009,
this ratio for Ramapo was approximately $16,400. This compares to ratios of around
$14,800 for Rutgers-New Brunswick and $13,000 for TCNJ, Ramapo’s leading
competitors for their best students, and around $18,000 and $19,000 for Montclair State
and William Paterson, which compete aggressively for Ramapo’s bread and butter
students.
Curriculum
In 2006 Ramapo revamped its course and general education requirements. Students
carry a four-course load each semester. Each course is worth four credits; the extra
credit going towards a five-hour experiential learning opportunity outside of the
classroom. The experiential opportunity, for example, might include community service, a
visit to a museum, or outdoor field work in a science, among other leaning opportunities.
The college stretched general education courses over the full four years. Freshmen will
typically take two introductory science courses, mathematics, social sciences, global
studies, humanities, College English and Social Issues or Business and Society as well
as a first-year seminar They are left with one free elective. In the sophomore year, all
students take courses in the areas of Quantitative Literacy, the Human Condition,
Readings in Humanities, U.S. Cultures and World Cultures. During the junior or senior
year, students take a course in Values, Ethics and Society. All seniors are also required
to complete a senior seminar. Altogether, a student takes 54 credits in general education
courses, though some may be used to fulfill requirements for majors or minors. In
addition to the regular fall and spring semester schedule, the college offers a four-week
online winter session. These courses are priced at a flat rate rather than per-credit.
The college also expects students to take two lower level and two upper level courses
that are writing intensive. The senior seminar fulfills one of these requirements for
seniors; the other course would be in the student’s major. Students and the advisor also
have access to a degree evaluation, to help ensure that requirements are met, Each
academic department also has a four-year plan for each major that is designed around
the four course per semester load.
While Ramapo has requirements that are typical of a private liberal arts school, it does
makes a “discovery” experience, including participation in faculty research, study
abroad, an internship for credit or community service totally voluntary. However,
academic departments and student life offices actively coordinate all of these
opportunities for students--some are still requirements within classes or majors--as much
as they do at other schools that impose a discovery requirement.
Academic advising is mandatory. Freshmen meet with a professional advisor before the
start of the fall semester. A team of five advisors are assigned to specifically work with
freshmen to assist on course selection as well as to monitor academic progress.
While Ramapo markets itself as a liberal arts school, business is the most popular major
followed closely by psychology. The communication arts programs graduate more than
100 students per year and the biology and nursing programs come very close to that.
Accounting, history and literature are also popular choices.
Ramapo advertises a student-faculty ratio of 18 to 1, which would count all full-time
faculty as well as one third of the part-time faculty. This ratio is similar to larger statesupported universities such as the University of Maryland-College Park. More revealing,
the college also advertises an average class size of 23 students; there are no large
lecture halls on campus.
Ramapo students gave their faculty an average rating of 3.15 on
RateMyProfessors.com. While they did not rate their faculty as highly as Rutgers-New
Brunswick students (3.22), they held them, on average, in higher regard than TCNJ
students (3.04).
Comforts
Here Ramapo excels, for the college houses half of its student body in exceptionally
modern residence halls. Only the College Park Apartments (undergoing renovations),
the college’s original apartment complex--freshmen were once allowed to live in
apartments--and Pine Hall, opened in 1989, date back more than 15 years.
There are no traditional corridor-style living arrangements where students living in
several rooms share a common bathroom on a wing or floor. All residences halls are air
conditioned--the newer ones have central air--and have combination mini-refrigerator/
microwave ovens and carpeted bedrooms as well as cable TV connections. Laundry
services are no charge. However, students must bring routers or Ethernet cables.
Residence halls are not Wi-Fi enabled. While the college does not formally guarantee
housing, students in good standing who have lived in on campus since the first semester
freshmen year can feel safe knowing that they will have housing for all four years.
Freshmen have the option of living in Pine, which has suite-style arrangements where a
six students in three double small bedrooms share a sitting room, large bath with double
sinks, stall shower, and separate toilet compartment. They may also live in Mackin Hall,
which has large triple rooms, each with with own large bath, shower and toilet
compartment. Together, these two residence halls house 700 of an estimated 900
members of the freshmen class. While freshmen are most likely to live in one of these
two halls, they may also live alongside continuing students in Bischoff, which is designed
similarly to Mackin, Linden which offers four-person suite-style living, or The Overlook,
which offers the same.
Laurel, which offers suite-style accommodations for six, plus kitchen facilities, is
reserved for juniors and seniors, who may also live in the College Park, four-person units
with two double rooms or in the Village in townhouse living arrangements with four single
bedrooms.
The college will be adding new living and learning communities, including a substancefree living option. Currently, there is a learning community for students who wish to live a
sustainable lifestyle; the community manages an organic garden, among other
sustainability practices. Another learning community, developed around freshmen with
undeclared majors, is in a pilot stage.
Ramapo was one of the first colleges in New Jersey to offer gender-neutral living
options, available to students who have completed at least ten credits. The college has
also taken a unique approach to addressing possession of alcohol and underage
drinking. All residence halls, with the exception of Laurel have been designated as “dry,”
while the Village is the only apartment complex where students may drink. Students who
wish to live in “wet” residences where alcohol is permitted must participate in a training
and education program called TIPS (stands for Training for Intervention ProcedureS)
and refuse to serve drinks to underage students.
The TIPS policy places a hefty responsibility on upperclass students, especially on a
campus where there are no fraternity or sorority houses and off-campus rents are cost
prohibitive for most of the students. The college is located in Bergen County, where the
median household income, according to the U.S. Census, is over $82,000 a year and
the median value of a private residence is approximately $480,000. Sharing a twobedroom apartment in Mahwah or nearby Suffern, New York can run around $700 per
person per month, or more.
Beginning this school year Ramapo took a unique approach to cars on campus.
Freshmen who live on campus cannot have cars, unless they present a successful
appeal. Appeals may be granted based on employment, family-related issues, medical
concerns or participation in Reserve Officers Training programs (ROTC) which are
conducted on nearby college campuses. This year, around 100 appeals were granted,
says Patrick Chang, the college’s Associate Vice President for Student Affairs.
Community
The Ramapo campus is on 300 acres, of which 100 are protected wetlands that cannot
be developed for residential or commercial uses. Academic and administrative buildings
are at the center of the well-forested campus. Residence halls are clustered behind
these buildings, around the main parking lot and further back into the woods around
Kameron Pond. Outdoor athletic facilities are accessible across Ramapo Valley Road,
which is also the main entrance way into the campus.
Being a relatively new school, only two buildings on campus, McBride House, where the
admissions office is located, and the Birch Mansion, where the chief administrative
officers work, date before the college’s founding. The major academic building is a
modular mirrored glass structure with five two-story wings. A 21st century business
school building is attached to this structure at one end, the Potter Library is attached at
the other and the Scott Student Center is attached at the middle through the second
floor. While students in the Anisfield School of Business and the School of Contemporary
Arts attend classes in very modern facilities, as will students in a Center for Nursing
Excellence that is under consrtuction, the rest attend classes in the academic complex,
which is showing its age on the inside. This is probably the only reminder that the
college is just over 40 years old.
However, the campus is clean--no evidence of trash along walkways and green spaces-and extremely easy to navigate. Opportunities for serenity are abundant as are the
recreational facilities. Blue light call boxes are widely available for safety. The gym in the
Bradley Center, named for former U.S senator Bill Bradley, was funded, in part, with a
contribution from Sharp Electronics, which also maintains a presence in Bergen County.
But a bucolic setting has its unique hazards. Black bears, common to Northern New
Jersey, are known to visit campus as are deer and skunks, among other animal life.
In 2010, there were no reported incidents of homicide, robbery, aggravated assault,
arson or hate crimes on campus, according to statistics posted by the college’s
Department of Public Safety. However, there were also 11 forcible sex offenses in the
residence halls as well as three burglaries and three auto thefts on campus. The latter
two are exceptionally low incidences for a campus with 3,000 residents, while the first is
of concern because it is a crime against person. Incidents of alcohol abuse resulted in
only 12 arrests, but also nearly 800 disciplinary referrals. There were also 32 drugrelated arrests on campus, though only 26 students received drug-related disciplinary
referrals.
Crack-downs on possession of alcoholic beverages are frequently mentioned on student
review sites such as Unigo, Students Review and Campus Discovery. When students
complain it also shows that the school is taking issues such as binge drinking and
underage drinking very seriously. In 2010 Ramapo was the first college campus in the
country to ban Four Loko, a caffeinated “energy” drink from campus grounds after nearly
two dozen students were hospitalized for alcohol poisoning.
On more positive notes, ability to travel off campus is a major drawing card for coming
to Ramapo. The college provides bus service into New York City at a low cost of $12 and
operates Roadrunner Central, a ticket booth on the second floor of the Scott Student
Center where students may purchase discount tickets to concerts, plays and sporting
events in the city and elsewhere in Northern New Jersey. The college also operates a
loop bus service than runs every 35 minutes between 7:30 AM and 10:30 PM to Bergen
County shopping centers as well as the Mahwah train station. However, Bergen County
is one of the few counties in the nation that still adheres to Sunday closing laws for its
major shopping centers.
The college has the usual mix of student activities: open-mike nights, comics, speakers,
free and discounted movies to entertain everyone during evenings and weekends.
Students also manage a Relay for Life, which most recently raised $76,000 for cancer
treatment and research.
But comments on student review sites such as Campus Discovery, Students Review and
Unigo often mention that Ramapo is a “backpack school” or “suitcase school” where too
many students go home on the weekends. The no-car policy is expected to remedy the
perception, by encouraging freshmen to stay on campus. However, Ramapo lacks
traditional bonding mechanisms found at other colleges such as football and fraternities.
The college has not fielded a football team for 20 years. This, combined with a strict
alcohol policy, makes Ramapo more appealing to more serious students who do not
want a “party” atmosphere. However, it might also have a negative impact on retention
and graduation rates.
If the Ramapo administration intends to stick by its policies, then it must recruit students
who are more likely to be pleased to adhere to them. The college runs a homecoming as
well as events to celebrate diversity as well as achievement in the sciences, both
excellent ideas considering the academic and social aims within the community. In turn,
the college must encourage students who seek the more traditional residential college
experience, including fraternity and sorority houses, to look elsewhere.
Connections
Ramapo has fewer than 30,000 alumni. Most live in Northern New Jersey or the
remainder of the New York metropolitan area. This makes a small population relatively
easy to engage, though the college has limited resources to engage them. One very
attractive alumni benefit is that every graduate is eligible to audit one class each, for no
charge, during the Spring and Fall semesters, provided space is available. The alumni
relations office maintains class notes online and publishes several print newsletters each
year. The college’s LinkedIn alumni group has just over 2,200 members, impressive
considering the small size of the alumni base.
Career services are becoming a strength. During the beginning week of school, the
career development center is a Pit Stop in Ramazing Race, an introduction to services
available on campus. Counselors participate in the First Year Seminars where one
assignment is to complete an introductory profile to open an account in Archway, the
college’s job board and career office system. The profile is one requirement to receive a
letter grade in the seminar.
Counselors are assigned to serve students enrolled in each one of the five schools; each
student is more likely to work with the same counselor through their time in college.
Each counselor has also become better connected with the faculty and administrators
for the school they serve, says Beth Ricca, director of the Cahill Center for Career
Development, as well as with employers.
Last year the Cahill Center ran 10 career fairs or roundtables, including two targeted at
math and science majors and students in the School of Contemporary Arts. The Center
also ran approximately 40 workshops and smaller events, including panel discussions
with employers. The Center also invites employers in certain fields to come to campus
for a full day to meet with students. Past participants have included CBS News and the
New Jersey Superior Court, among others. Altogether, 160 employers participated in all
events during the 2010-11 school year, while more than 500 new employers registered in
Archway to post jobs. A Sophomore Internship Conference is in the planning stages; it is
slated take place in November, 2012.
While the Cahill Center serves as the primary office to arrange internship and co-op
assignments, these are not a college-wide requirement. Faculty set policies or, in the
case of service learning, initiate programs within individual classes. The college
distinguishes internships as being non-credit, through co-op carries academic credit.
These positions may be paid or unpaid, depending on the academic department
requirements and/or the employer. According to Beth Ricca, around 350 students per
year will go on co-ops, working 15 hours a week while classes are in session and 240
hours during the summer. Approximately half of the co-op students work in New York
City.
Typically, Ricca adds, 25 percent of graduating students will go directly to graduate or
professional schools, while the rest will seek employment. The college has added a
Director of Employer Relations to work specifically with alumni and more alumni have
volunteered to be mentors.
Conclusion
A New Jersey resident who is a very good-to-excellent student seeking a liberal arts
education will find Ramapo to be a very good value for the money, especially if s/he
qualifies for merit-based aid. The school has been successful at attracting high
achievers from New Jersey, in large part because state government has supported a
generous merit scholarship program in addition to providing need-based aid. S/he will
also attend smaller classes and live in a nicer residence hall than s/he will find at most
other schools, small or large, public or private.
In addition to its commitment to the liberal arts, Ramapo will offer more experiential
opportunities in the classroom while continuing to help students to take advantage of the
many opportunities that go along with living on a very livable, modern campus in a
picturesque valley that is only a short bus ride from New York City. These advantages
might also help to attract more international and out-of-state students who can pay a
higher tuition.
The downside is that Ramapo is still a school with very little history. It is also living under
the past perception of being a commuter school. Its alumni community is neither large
enough nor wealthy enough to significantly advance the school’s endowment at this
time. However, students make some of their most important connections at a liberal arts
school through the faculty. Ramapo offers more opportunities for student-faculty
interaction than most publicly-supported schools.
A weak economy, and lower-than-expected tax revenues breeds uncertainty for aid to
higher education in New Jersey. However, Governor Chris Christie, a fiscal
conservative, has shown tendencies to support winners and browbeat the losers,
including K-12 school systems and local governments, into accepting cuts. A program for
high achievers is more likely to escape his wrath, as long as it is working.
Fortunately for Ramapo, the upside is much greater than the downside. This top
performing school is positioned for a much larger stage. It will be interesting to see how
it rises to the occasion.
REPORT CARD: RAMAPO COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY
Costs: B+ 16 Points
Pluses
Generous scholarship program for well-qualified students--and scholarships are
renewable.
Competitive charges for out-of-state tuition, though 94 percent of the students are from
New Jersey.
Immediate Decision Day allows students to learn awards early.
Minuses
In-state tuition and fees are high for a state-supported school, if you don’t receive a
scholarship.
Endowment is only $12 million, too limited to offer much in the way of need-based or
merit-based aid
Scholarships are possible through a state-funded, rather than a college-funded
programs. They’re subject to political whims, though they’ve come under the radar of a
conservative governor.
Comforts: A 20 points
Pluses
Impressive array of on-campus living options
Residence halls are modern, well-equipped.
Students who begin their freshmen year on campus can reasonably expect to have oncampus housing for four years
Minuses
Residences are not Wi-Fi enabled
Local rental market is very expensive. On-campus housing is only option for most
students.
Community: B+ 16 points
Pluses
College does an excellent job of taking advantage of its proximity to New York
Administration celebrates diversity and academic achievement
Learning communities are being re-introduced into the residence halls
Attractive, safe campus in bucolic setting
Lots of opportunities for recreation and serenity
College takes alcohol-related concerns very seriously
Minuses
Those who want a “football and fraternity” experience should look elsewhere
College has not yet shaken perception as a commuter school
Alcohol and no-car policies meant for safety, but can have negative effect on freshman
retention
You might be attacked by a black bear
Bergen County Sunday closing laws
Curriculum: A 20 points
Pluses
General education requirements are not terribly cumbersome
No large lecture classes--professors teach everyone
Five hours of experiential learning built into every course
School is becoming very serious about academic engagement
Minuses
Smaller school means fewer pre-professional courses
Connections: B 12 points
Pluses
Aggressive career development center is trying to reach out to all majors and into
stronger interactions with underclassmen
Minuses
Small alumni base
Labor market is strictly New York and Northern New Jersey for all majors
TOTAL SCORE: 84 points