The Board of Trustees approved a dual admission program with Seton Hall University Law School on Sept. 30.
Incoming freshman students that intend to major in law and society or political science will have the opportunity to apply to Seton Hall’s law program in addition to the School of Human and Social Sciences or the Salameno School of American and International Studies.
“It’s great for Ramapo as an institution, since it impresses and persuades prospective students and parents toward our program and has the potential to make our campus more recognizable and identifiable,” said Jeremy Teigen, associate professor and convener of political science.
The program will begin accepting its first pool of applicants for the fall 2014 academic year. Ramapo’s next incoming freshman class will include the first admitted under the dual admission standards into Seton Hall University Law School.
“For the future students enrolled in the dual admission program, they can embrace a seven-year plan, rather than only a four-year commitment to a Bachelor of Arts. It’s a win for everyone, too, including Seton Hall,” Teigen said.
The application process will not include a large amount of supplemental material beyond the common application. Students receiving merit-based scholarships upon admission and enrollment are most likely to be considered.
The agreement between the committed student and the institution includes administrative and faculty advisement over the course of the student’s four years within both academic programs in SSHS and SSAIS. Also, these selected students will be required to maintain a high grade point average during their entire undergraduate career.
This dual admission program simply finalizes and commits students to a path that many Ramapo students have already followed.
“Seton Hall is virtually always on my students’ lists of schools to apply to,” Teigen added.
According to Associate Vice President of Enrollment Management, Christopher Romano, recent data says that 50 percent of Ramapo graduates enroll in graduate programs.
“Programs like these continue to reinforce and signal to the market the strength and quality of a Ramapo college degree in that other institutions see that quality and will guarantee incoming students a space in their competitive programs,” Romano said in an email.
Sophomore Carolina Bayuelo commented, “I wish that this had been done sooner. I think it will definitely encourage others to look into the law and society program. I intend to go to law school, and this type of program would have been ideal for what I want to do in the future.”
Prior to the anticipated approval, the proposed program met points included within the College’s new Strategic Plan, which was approved this past summer, including Objective 1.4, that primarily focuses around enrollment among “underrepresented groups, transfer students, international students, graduate students, and returning students,” and Objective 1.7, to increase the amount of arts and humanities students.
“As a Ramapo alumnus and current Seton Hall Law student, I was pleased to hear of the new dual admission program. During my time at Ramapo, professors like Mark Howenstein, Mihaela Serban, and Aaron Lorenz and organizations such as Ramapo NORML helped breed in me a desire to be involved in social justice lawyering,” said graduate Kyle Ulscht. “To this day, lawyers still receive a bad reputation for being greedy or unethical, but I hope that by increasing their focus on studies from the arts and humanities, Seton Hall Law can change that and build on their already impressive list of social justice causes such as the Institute for Social Justice and the annual Public Interest Law fundraiser.”
The program will be formally debuted at the open house on Oct. 19.
Romano said in an email that he anticipates a positive reaction from incoming students and parents.
“We expect that there will be great interest from prospective students and their families in the program.”
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dcorcion@ramapo.edu
