The Scarlet Journey initiative within our multi-year Cornerstone project has more than 244,000 reasons to celebrate Rutgers joining the Common App.
Since the August 1, 2023 launch, Rutgers has been wonderfully inundated with student applications. By March 20, 2024, the university had received more than 244,000 applications for academic year 2024-25. That’s a record-setting number.
About 178,000 of these applications arrived via the Common App, which enables students to apply to many schools at once, using just one application, without filling out the same information—personal data, transcripts, etc.—over and over again. The simplified application process made possible through the Common App has expanded Rutgers’ reach to a broader set of prospective students who now can apply to our programs in Camden, Newark, and New Brunswick on a single form, rather than with separate forms and fees.
It’s important to note that, although the number of applications is increasing, the university is not increasing the percentage of admittances. As a result, Rutgers will likely see a collateral benefit to the record-setting response: a larger, more competitive applicant pool. This means Rutgers can be more selective as it crafts future classes.
The transition to the Common App is only one of the tasks associated with the Scarlet Journey, the university’s constituent relationship management implementation project. By early spring—as part of a continuing plan to integrate Rutgers’ professional schools into Salesforce, to centralize data, and by providing a unified platform for tracking applicant information across Rutgers—the university will be integrating applicant information for the School of Dental Medicine.
In addition, Rutgers will complete integration of official, final high school transcripts from the Common App by the end of spring, which will provide high school counselors with a streamlined process for loading transcripts into a centralized location.
These integrations will result in process enhancements for Rutgers’ admissions in three areas: efficiency; accuracy; and transparency.
In Other Scarlet Journey News …
The Rutgers University Foundation continues to leverage technology to enhance donor engagement, streamline operations, and improve overall efficiency. Recent accomplishments for the Foundation include consolidating multiple websites into one, creating a streamlined and “Amazon-like” experience for all donors through the Salesforce Commerce Cloud platform (give.rutgersfoundation.org/). This enables them to pinpoint where they want their money to go.
Rutgers is the third major university in the nation—behind Arizona State University and Indiana University—to activate this e-commerce experience and has already brought on multiple digital wallets such as Apple and Google Pay.