Incoming class is the largest in university history with the highest mean SAT score

Rutgers University–New Brunswick’s Old Queens building, visible behind the Class of 1902 Memorial Gateway
Rutgers University–New Brunswick’s Old Queens building, visible behind the Class of 1902 Memorial Gateway.
Nick Romanenko, Rutgers University

Rutgers University–New Brunswick this week welcomes an incoming freshman class that is record-breaking for its size (7,150 projected first-year incoming students) and mean SAT score (1318), exceeding the records set last year.

“Our back-to-back record-breaking years in incoming students’ class size and academic prowess reflects Rutgers’ status as one of America’s leading public research institutions, and the most diverse university in the Big Ten Academic Alliance,” Chancellor Christopher J. Molloy said. “Importantly, 21 percent of our first-year students are members of their family’s first generation to attend college – as I was, when I came to Rutgers as an undergrad in 1972.”

Molloy noted that, while New Jersey residents make up 80 percent of the incoming class, the class includes the largest percentage of international students (12 percent) in Rutgers–New Brunswick history, primarily including students from China, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Canada and Vietnam.

In addition to the projected 7,150 first-year students, Rutgers this fall will welcome a projected 2,400 transfer students with a mean cumulative college GPA of 3.44. Rutgers–New Brunswick’s total student population is more than 50,000, including more than 36,000 undergraduate students.

Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Salvador Mena said, “This fall, our incoming and returning students will find a host of new amenities – including ‘The Space,’ a community hub on our Livingston Campus, a new living and learning community focusing on entrepreneurship, and an updated food court and new eSports Center on the Busch campus – to enhance the student experience. We look forward to supporting our students in an exciting year of academic achievement and personal enrichment.”

Student Affairs has launched a new Entrepreneurship and Innovation Living-Learning Community in which participants will network with each other and with industry leaders, and will have access to the Rutgers Makerspace and mini-grant funding for startup business ventures; and “The Space” at Livingston Student Center which will include a prayer/meditation room, foot-washing station, lactation room, lockers for commuters and social areas which will provide students on the Livingston Campus with a new place to spend time studying, speaking with friends, or just waiting for the bus.