These are the top 5 hardest schools in NJ to get into

I could have just made this headline and article: “This is the toughest school to be accepted to in NJ." But wouldn’t we then all know what it was? Think about it. The only Ivy League university in the state. The one that “could use a man like Joel” as said in Risky Business.

Princeton University

The school, founded in 1746 in Elizabeth and first called the College of New Jersey, is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the country. A year later, it moved to Newark and then to Princeton in Mercer County in 1756. It received university status in 1896, and its name was then changed.

According to numbers crunched by NJ.com, Princeton is the single toughest school to gain acceptance in New Jersey. More on those numbers and just how hard it is in the Top 5 list below. But put it this way. An average SAT score for acceptance at Princeton is well above 1500.

There’s more intrigue in trying to guess the rest of the top five.

5 The College of New Jersey

The College of New Jersey is the school I hoped my son Jack would attend. He was accepted here and to several other good schools that had a fine reputation, and he could have paid in-state tuition.

TCNJ is in Ewing, and in 2024, 12,766 applicants hoped for the best, but 7,952 received acceptance letters. That made their acceptance rate 62.3%.

4 Saint Elizabeth University

My youngest boy’s mom graduated here back when it was still College of Saint Elizabeth. They have a solid teaching program here and an acceptance rate of 61.9%. It’s a small school, evidenced by 2,026 applications in 2024 and 1,253 acceptances.

3 Rutgers University- New Brunswick

Probably our best-known state school had 68,614 applicants in 2024, and out of that, 39,899 were accepted for a rate of 58.2%.

2 Stevens Institute of Technology

Located in Hoboken, most won’t get in. A quality school with an acceptance rate of 48.66%. 2024 applicants totaled 10,673, with 5,194 offers.

1 Princeton University

In 2024, they had 40,486 applications and accepted only 1,868. That works out to an astounding acceptance rate of only 4.62%, making it by far the toughest school to enter in New Jersey.