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School data & stats
Outcomes
Cost
Community
Overview
Rider University is a private university in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, on a suburban campus between Princeton and Trenton. It is a mid-sized, comprehensive university with particular strength in business and education, and it carries an unusual musical pedigree through its historical association with Westminster Choir College, long known as one of the country's leading choral training programs.
Academics
Business and education are the largest and most established programs. Rider's music offerings, rooted in the Westminster tradition, give it a choral and vocal-performance reputation disproportionate to its size, and the university maintains a strong theater and musical-theater program that draws students specifically for its pipeline into professional performance and the New York theater market.
Campus & student life
The Lawrenceville campus is suburban and residential, close enough to both New York City and Philadelphia for students to reach either for auditions, internships, or entertainment, while remaining a self-contained campus community day to day. Music and theater students in particular benefit from performance opportunities tied to the Westminster tradition.
Getting in
Rider's process is holistic rather than formula-driven, and for its music, theater, and musical-theater programs an audition or portfolio component carries real weight alongside academic credentials — artistic preparation matters as much as transcript strength for those tracks.
After graduation
Business and education graduates tend to enter regional New Jersey and Northeast job and school-district markets, while music and theater alumni benefit from the Westminster name in choral and vocal circles and from proximity to New York's performing-arts industry.
Admissions
Deadlines (2026–27 cycle)
Applying
rider.edu ↗High school coursework
Required16 total college-preparatory academic units required · 4 units of English (academic English courses) · 3 units of Mathematics (Algebra I, Algebra II/Trigonometry, Geometry) for most majors; 4 units (through PreCalculus) required for School of Science, Technology, and Mathematics majors · 3 units of Science (Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Earth Science, Geology, Marine Science, or Computer Science) required for School of Science, Technology, and Mathematics majors · Remaining units (9 for most majors, 5 for STEM majors) from Humanities, Foreign Language, Mathematics, and Social Sciences (plus Sciences for non-STEM majors)
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