<p>We have a bunch of old college guidebooks that are 3-4 years old (Fiske, US News, Yake Insider, Princeton). </p>
<p>Thinking about refreshing/adding to the collection both to ensure we have the latest info and to get some new perspectives. </p>
<p>I know a lot of good student perspective can be found here and on other websites, and lots of quantitative data can be found on CollegeBoard and the school site,s etc. </p>
<p>Wondering what guidebooks other parents find useful for subjective (but accurate and meaningful) perspectives on top-50 type colleges/universities?</p>
<p>I just go on our local library website, and start seeing which college books look interesting and put them on hold. Then zip in and pick them up. Then, I would decide which ones might be worth buying.</p>
<p>I disagree with College that Change Lives - it’s a perspective that may open your mind but remember he evaluated these schools many moons ago, when colleges were a lot less expensive- which I think tuition is a game changer.</p>
<p>For basic facts, I prefer Princeton Review to Fiske. I think the consistent placement of the sidebar info (SAT, GPA, etc), makes it easy to thumb through in formulating initial lists. The “student life” passages seem pretty honest too. I get annoyed with Fiske for not sticking to alphabetical order. I’m using a PR guide from 2011 and it seems up-to-date, for the most part. Comparing it to later guides, some info is different–mostly deadlines for EA/ED etc. (but really, you should be checking the websites by the time you’re considering that). I wish someone would update the CTCL book because the info is nearly a decade old and there have to be other up-and-coming schools that would fit this description.</p>
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<p>I haven’t even seen it but I understand there’s a book called Rugg’s Recommendations that’s supposed to be very good. I used the Fiske lists of colleges for certain majors to help come up with lists for my kids to run through.</p>
<p>Rugg’s guide is unique because it lists recommended colleges for each major. It sorts each list into several categories based on their selectivity. It is a great starting place for researching colleges. I think the newer editions are electronic only??? Amazon has the 27th edition from 2009, but his website store has a PDF version of the 29th edition.</p>
<p>"For the latest edition of this classic college guide, Hilary Masell Oswald conducted her own tours of top schools and in-depth interviews, building on Loren Pope’s original to create a totally updated, more expansive work. "</p>
<p>Wrong info about what, barrons? Yes, YDN should survey the students and update that info more frequently (esp since they print a new book annually) but overall we found it quite accurate with respect to the “feel” of being a student there, the activities on/off campus, etc. In fact, the stuff about my undergrad sounded remarkably spot on decades later!</p>
<p>It may be difficult to survey and update every school every year, but surely its doene more frequently than every 10-20 years. That sounds unfair.</p>
<p>Choosing the Right College appears to have a politically conservative angle on colleges. I’d be interested to see if ISI’s political beliefs are evident in the discussion of the actual colleges in the guide?</p>