Charlotte
If you are lazy and like to be told what to do and have your hand held, don't go to Rutgers. If you are looking for a really highbrow, sheltered, utopic college experience in a serene setting, don't go to Rutgers. If sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, don't go to Rutgers. If you do not have at least an inkling of what you might like to study, don't go to Rutgers. If you do not get along well with people from very diverse backgrounds and interests, or are only comfortable around people like yourself, don't go to Rutgers.
Rutgers is best for people with a great deal of self-motivation and an idea about what they want out of school. It's great for highly social, open-minded, hard working types. It's great for people who are unwilling or unable to go in to serious debt to pay for school. Rutgers is less like a cloistered college experience and more like the real world. Lots of kids at Rutgers work while going to school, live in houses rather than dorms, and carve their own paths academically, with little or no guidance. The downside is that it's very hard and lonely sometimes; the upshot is that you come out of school better adjusted, wiser and tougher than when you went in. It's best for the fiercely independent and the innately practical.
Akira
I think that Rutgers has helped me to grow as an individual in multiple ways and has helped me to understand people more. I was always able to let people be who they wanted to be but wasnt able to understand the way I interacted with them at times but Rutgers has allowed me to see that I was fine all along (yeah I know false advertising!!!). Seriously though Rutgers is a great place to find yourself and to nurture who you are in order to function more freely in the world.
Kevin
If you're out of state...it's a lot of money for little value.
In state...great deal.
I have developed an extreme love/hate relationship towards RU...Great place to go to school, but the RU Screw is prevalent.
Sam
Just like all huge universities, Rutgers has its advantages and disadvantages. Classes in almost every subject: check. Frustrating bureaucracy: check. You get the idea. If you know for sure what you're doing, you might want to go to a smaller, more specialized school. But if you're still unsure, maybe you should come to Rutgers. It's a state school, so it's not too expensive, and it's still pretty prestigious, as far as academics go.
Kyle
All that being said, Rutgers is really, really cool. You have everything you could possibly want--food, drink, girls, boys, a city, THE city (NYC), sports...anything. I definitely don't regret coming here.
David
Rutgers = Bureaucracy. Good luck getting anything done through the school. I tried to change my major sophomore year multiple times, filled out the form multiple times, turned it in multiple times, and not until last semester did it actually get changed. This, among other things, is known as the RU Screw. People are often de-registered for classes for no reason, grades get lost, housing gets messed up, etc. Paperwork for everything. That is all you need to know.
As far as New Brunswick goes. It is not the cleanest or safest city around. Like I said earlier, homeless people everywhere but near the classrooms. And they aren't asking for spare change, they wait outside of 7-11 and demand you give them your change. Very uncomfortable. Friends cars are broken into, people are mugged. Not friendly.
Andrea
I spent freshman year at Fordham in NYC and my peers were much less focused on partying there than at Rutgers. I feel that on weekends there aren't many campus events and there aren't many places to visit in New Brunswick that do not involve food or shopping. Students do not have a lot of money to begin with and they are not going to spend it on a $10 movie each week or a new outfit.
Students like attending cultural events, but they like to do them on their own time. Many of my friends would like to attend the RUPA trips to Broadway or the zoo, but they can't go on Thursday at 7 for example.
If this school offered large transportation discounts, I think that our reputation as alcoholics would decrease. Many people drink and party because there's nothing better to do at night in New Brunswick. This city is not safe to be walking around at night in. Free NJ Transit week should be every week.