Rider's strongest claim to fame is Westminster Choir College, something that never gets quite the credit it deserves. It is the only reason people come to Rider from outside the immediate New Jersey area, and despite its music focus, its students in general are much more responsible people and higher academic achievers.
Rider has had incidents lately with drinking on campus being an issue, causing the university to supposedly "crack down" on its alcohol policy. However, after the past year of living on campus, I've not seen one shred of evidence of this occuring. Rider calls itself a dry campus despite allowing students who are 21+ to have alcohol in their rooms (thus distributing it among their friends without any trouble) and having an alcohol-serving pub on campus. The Resident Advisors do not enforce the alcohol policy; rather, most of them are in violation of it as well, with the exception of one that I know.
Rider's campus is well-maintained and attractive, one very positive thing I can say about it. However, the university is constantly looking for new projects to pour their money into to make their campus more beautiful, while the Princeton campus (Westminster Choir College) gets drastically overlooked. Being the part of the university that draws the most attention for reputable performances and nationally acclaimed events, Westminster should be getting far more money for renovations. I don't simply mean beautifying the exterior of the campus, either, as is the case with most Rider renovations; Westminster's primary recital/concert hall, for example, finally was renovated to meet its fire code this past fall. Scholarship money is also quite unevenly distributed among the campuses. A Westminster entering freshman with an impressive high school GPA and quite high SAT scores might receive 9,000 a year, while a Rider entering freshman with much lower grades, GPA and SAT scores could receive 15,000 per year, a half tuition scholarship. Additionally, the president of the university recently took a large pay raise for himself, making himself one of the highest paid people in this position in the nation, something I feel is completely unjustified after the way he has failed to shape up the school after the alcohol-related incidents as well as something unjustified when we have so many areas where that money is sorely needed.
Lawrenceville is not much in the way of a college town, but Princeton is just a short drive or bus ride away, and there is a great deal to do there in the way of entertainment, restaurants, etc. The location of both campuses also provides very easy access to NYC and Philadelphia.