Rutgers University - New Brunswick

I'll break it down by campus
Livingston- Nice campus but very boring. Bad dining hall.
Busch-Same as Livingston but nicer and bigger. Best dining hall/ student center at Rutgers. Its also where all the Rutgers-sponsored parties are, if you're into that type thing. Lots of dorks.

Douglass/Cook-Good times can be had; nothing special. Overabundance of women and science-related majors. Pretty good dining hall.

College Ave.-Where most of the activity is. Bad dining hall, but plenty of shops and diners to make up for it.Your best bet is living off-campus near College Ave. Oh yeah. If you're not 21, New Brunswick kinda sucks. The only things are house, dorm and frat parties.

1st Year Male -- Class 2006

Collaboration/Competitive: B+, Individual Value: F

I attended Douglass College at Rutgers, which is the Women's College. I had many opportunities while there to develop excellent leadership and networking skills, which have greatly benefitted me since. I also attended the Graduate School in NB, but am only rating the undergrad program at this time (there's no option to do both at once). The support for science students was outstanding, particularly through the Douglass Project for Women in Math, Science and Engineering. I am greatly indebted to that program for all the support, encouragement, and skills development they provided. Beyond all that, the curriculum was always challenging, and at least as good as what you'd get at that snobby Ivy down the road a bit.

The only down side to Rutgers are the busses. It's a huge school and you can take classes on any of the 5 New Brunswick campuses -- and you will! That can mean waiting for an overcrowded bus to shuttle you over to another campus at what feels like far too early in the morning. Don't let them schedule you with back-to-back classes on different campuses; you won't make it on time. On the other hand, there were benefits to this as well. You could get to activities held at the student centers of any of the 5 campuses, so it meant many more opportunities for finding things to do that you'd enjoy in your spare time. The downtown area is quite nice too. It has all the college town essentials; coffee shops, good restaurants, cheap restaurants, expensive restaurants for when your parents visit, bookstores. Of course all the take-out places deliver to the dorms. It's also a place where diversity and being an individual are cool (or at least it still was when I was there). There were fraternities and sororities, but nobody felt obligated to join like at some schools. If you wanted to study 24/7, that was cool; if you wanted to schedule your classes so you had Friday off and could enjoy a 3 day weekend every weekend, that was cool. Oh, and there are great arts events with Mason Gross School of the Arts sharing the campus, as well as a few downtown theaters. If you want to see the movies, you're going to have to drive or take a bus, but the student centers used to have movie nights as well. Overall, I had a wonderful experience at Rutgers.

Alumnus Male -- Class 2000