Rutgers Preparatory School (also known as Rutgers Prep or RPS) is a private, coeducational, college preparatory day school established in 1766. The school educates students in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade, located on a campus along the banks of the Delaware and Raritan Canal in the Somerset section of Franklin Township, in Somerset County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Established in 1766, Rutgers Preparatory School is the oldest independent school in the state of New Jersey and the 16th-oldest in the country.
The school has a frequently cited student honor code, and requires its high school students to complete ten hours of community service each school year in order to advance to the next grade level. The vast majority of students take Advanced Placement (AP) courses, and the academic environment at the school is highly competitive. Rutgers Preparatory School is a member of the New Jersey Association of Independent Schools.Rutgeres Preparatory School, New Jersey Association of Independent Schools. Accessed February 2, 2017.
As of the 2023–24 school year, the school had an enrollment of 673 students (plus 36 in Pre-K) and 85.9 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 7.8:1. The school's student body was 43.7% (294) Asian, 34.2% (230) White, 14.4% (97) Black, 4.0% (27) two or more races, 3.4% (294) Hispanic and 0.3% (2) Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander.School data for Rutgers Preparatory School, National Center for Education Statistics. Accessed September 1, 2025. Tuition for the 2024–25 school year for grades 9-12 was set at $48,815. The school does not publicly release endowment figures; however IRS filings indicate close to $60 million in investable assets alone.
History
Rutgers Preparatory School is the oldest independent preparatory school in the state of New Jersey.Sahn, Michelle. "Students helping students is the norm at Rp", Home News Tribune, November 18, 2004. Accessed October 21, 2007. "The young people involved in these projects, as well as a host of others, are among the 710 students who attend Rutgers Preparatory School, the oldest independent school in the state." Founded as the Queen's College Grammar School, it was established on November 10, 1766, under the same charter that founded Queen's College (now Rutgers University). It was originally located in New Brunswick.
Instruction began on August 15, 1768, under the school's first master Caleb Cooper, a graduate of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). In those early years, instruction of students was carried on in various taverns and boarding houses in New Brunswick. From 1809 to 1830, the grammar school shared the Old Queens building with Queens College (after 1825, Rutgers College) and the New Brunswick Theological Seminary.
In 1825, the trustees renamed the college and grammar school after Colonel Henry Rutgers, whose donation allowed the college to reopen after years of financial difficulties. In 1830, the Rutgers College Grammar School moved to a building designed and constructed by local architect and builder Nicholas Wyckoff, at the corner of College Avenue and Somerset Street. From 1829 until 1963, the school operated at this location. The building is now known as Alexander Johnston Hall and is the second-oldest surviving building on the Rutgers University campus. The Grammar School also included an Elementary School division (now called the Lower School) that was located in its own building nearby on College Avenue.
Though officially nondenominational, the school's original mission was to train young men for the ministry, and its curriculum focused on theology and classical studies. Over the course of the 19th century, however, more modern options were added. During the Progressive Era, Rutgers Preparatory School was among the first schools in the nation to institute a curriculum involving the laboratory sciences, student publications, and community service. Progressive-minded headmasters like Eliot R. Payson (served 1891–1908), Myron T. Scudder (1908–1911) and William P. Kelly (1911–1934) consistently supported the implementation of new educational ideas and methods.
Rutgers Preparatory School opened its doors to international students in the 19th century. In the 1860s, as the Japanese Empire embarked on the reforms of the Meiji Era, several young men from prominent Japanese families enrolled at the school. Notable among them was Matsukata Kōjirō, class of 1884, who later became president of the Kawasaki Dockyard Company and whose art collection served as the nucleus of Japan's National Museum of Western Art. Japanese students continued to attend Rutgers Prep through the early 20th century. Several students from various other regions, particularly Latin America, were also drawn to the school in those years.
Rutgers Prep's lower grades (i.e., 8th grade and below) became coeducational in the 1890s, and have remained so ever since. Coeducation was allowed in the Upper School from 1892 to 1912, during which time some 93 girls were graduated. Coeducation lapsed after 1912, but in 1923 Headmaster William Kelly announced plans to open a girls' school that would operate "as an allied department of the Preparatory School." Seven girls were enrolled, but a lack of support from the community forced Kelly to abandon his plans after only one year.
Rutgers Preparatory School became fully and permanently coeducational in 1951. That same year, it disbanded its football team and ended its boarding program to become a day school. A shakeup of its faculty resulted in the hiring of several young, highly talented teachers and coaches, most of whom would remain at the school for decades. Notable among them were French teachers Al Gaggini and Helene Spratford, science teacher Gus Daviet, history teacher Frank Sperduto, and athletic director Dick O'Connell. In 1953, Dr. David M. Heinlein became Headmaster. One of his priorities was to increase the economic, ethnic, and gender diversity of the school's students and faculty.
In 1956, as Rutgers University became the State University of New Jersey, the university's board of trustees decided to divest itself of the preparatory school. The school created its own Board of Trustees and Parents Association, and began looking for a new campus outside of New Brunswick. In early 1958, Rutgers Prep purchased the Wells Estate (also known as Elm Farm) in nearby Somerset. The Wells family was eager to sell the property to the school partly because Elm Farm had originally been the home of Abraham Beach, one of Queens College Grammar School's co-founders in the 1760s. By the end of 1958, Rutgers University and Rutgers Preparatory School had officially separated from one another. Rutgers Prep's Lower School began operating at Elm Farm that fall. The Upper School remained in its old quarters in New Brunswick until 1963, when a new upper school building, constructed with the assistance of the Colgate-Palmolive Company, opened at Elm Farm. Since 1963, all divisions of the school have been located on the same campus.
The school expanded rapidly in its new setting. A field house was built in 1968, and, shortly afterward, a center for early childhood education. During the 1960s, the school's curriculum, athletic program, and extracurricular offerings all expanded dramatically.
Despite the economic downturn of the mid-1970s, Rutgers Prep continued to grow. It added a Middle School and a larger library in 1974. Athletic Director O'Connell introduced and vigorously promoted an athletic program for the school's female population. By the end of the 1970s, the school was much larger and more diverse than it had been a generation earlier.
In November 1983, an electrical fire destroyed a large part of the Upper School building. Classes were held in trailers while a new, larger, and more modern Upper School was built. The new building, which is still in use, opened in 1985. During the 1980s, Rutgers Preparatory School also aggressively supported the application of technology to education, creating a computer science department and encouraging computer literacy in all grades.
After Steven Loy became headmaster in 1992, the school began a series of campus expansions funded by a capital campaign. The new construction included a second gymnasium, an art studio, a music building, and a new library shared by all three school divisions. The campus was also fully wired for Internet access.
Academics Rutgers Preparatory School offers three levels of education: a Lower School serving pre-kindergarten to fifth grade, a Middle School offering grades six to eight and an Upper School offering traditional secondary level education from grades nine to twelve. Students are required to complete twenty course credits in order to graduate, accumulating a minimum of five credits per year, and are to take courses based in a traditional liberal arts curriculum that spans across several academic departments (English, History, Mathematics, Science, World Languages, Art, Computers, Music, and Drama).
The school offers a wide variety of AP (Advanced Placement) courses, which are the high school equivalent of a college-level course. Additionally, the School offers five language courses: Spanish, French, Latin, Chinese, and Arabic. Rutgers Preparatory School has also partnered with the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University, and by participating in its Waksman Student Scholars Program (WSSP), Upper School students are able to participate in, and contribute to, an authentic research project in molecular biology and bioinformatics.
Each student in the Upper School is required to perform a minimum of ten hours of community service during each academic year as a condition for advancing to the next grade level and for graduation. This community-service obligation may be fulfilled either through volunteer work with a non-profit organization, through a charity, or through a service that in some way benefits the school community (tutoring, etc.). In addition, at least five of these hours must be completed outside the school campus.
Matriculation The school has a 100% college admissions rate. A majority of the students are given offers of admission to selective public and private universities in the Northeast and throughout the country.
Institutional awards and recognition Rutgers Preparatory School is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and was recognized for the 1992–93 school year as a National Blue Ribbon School Award of Excellence by the United States Department of Education.National Blue Ribbon Schools Program: Schools Recognized 1982 Through 2019 (PDF), United States Department of Education. Accessed September 1, 2024.
The school received its most recent accreditation from the New Jersey Association of Independent Schools (NJAIS) in 2012.List of Member Schools, New Jersey Association of Independent Schools. Accessed November 5, 2017.
The school's delegation was awarded first place in the 2010 Euro Challenge, an international high school economics competition.Prizes, Euro Challenge. Accessed November 5, 2017.
In 2014, Rutgers Preparatory School received the Franklin Township Organization Environmental Stewardship Award, in recognition of contributions to the environment of Franklin Township, including participation in the "Rutgers Green Purchasing" and "River-Friendly School Certification" programs, recent construction of a new LEED certified building, new energy management installations, and development of an effective composting and recycling program.
Rutgers Preparatory School is the only school in New Jersey to be a member of the Council of International Schools. It is also the only high school in the world to be granted Non-governmental Organization (NGO) status by the United Nations.
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