<p>What is the cheapest way to get books? Renting? Buying new then selling? Getting used books? I need to save as much money as possible!</p>
<p>Renting books from an online site like chegg.com is much cheaper than buying the books from the bookstore.</p>
<p>Online and used is generally the way to go. Renting is good in some cases, in others it might be easier to buy used as well. </p>
<p>What specific classes are you taking? I used to work at the bookstore during orientation so I can tell you about what books most classes will need and whether you can find them used or not.</p>
<p>Biology seminar
Principles of bio
Bio principles lab
General Chem
Chem lab
Freshmen english
Elem calc w/ trig I-(1106)</p>
<p>Bio seminar: doesn’t have a book</p>
<p>Principles of bio/General Chem: New edition/never been used before so the bookstore won’t have it new. This is probably true for the off campus bookstores as well. You’re better off buying these used somewhere else or online, NOT renting because you’ll be using them for two semesters and most rental prices are only for one semester.</p>
<p>Bio/Chem Labs: Need to buy the lab manuals brand new.</p>
<p>Freshmen English: There’s a “course pack” at the bookstore that changes every year for English and MOST teachers require it…but they do say go to class first or check the syllabus to see what books each teacher actually requires. I know that one of the required books (Reading Culture) can be found online/used, but again, I don’t know if the other bookstores off campus will hold these since they haven’t been used in previous years.</p>
<p>Math 1016: Doesn’t have a book, all material is on the course website.</p>
<p>To compare book prices I reccommend using BigWords, its a site that will list the prices of books from a ton of places online that sell/rent the book. You can look on the VT Bookstore website to see what books your specific class section requires if they already have it listed, and then use the ISBNs to search online for a cheaper price. The Chem textbook is $150+ at the bookstore, and since it’s brand new it looks like other places that are selling it still go for about $120+.</p>
<p>Alright, thank you so much for the info! But I have a question about the math classes, I understand they’re self guided online but how hard are the tests and quizzes, are they just similar to the practice examples I’m guessing? And do we just take the quizzes/tests whenever we want to</p>
<p>If you take the practice quizzes, those are the same types of problems that will be on the real quizzes and exams. They won’t exactly be the same problem, numbers and variables will be changed around, but the concepts will be the same. </p>
<p>The practice problems that are within each section are much, much easier than the problems in the practice quizzes in my opinion, but I’m not much of a math person. There’s a weekly deadline for each quiz and then deadlines every few weeks for exams. You can take the quizzes and exams anytime before those deadlines. For the exams you have two attempts for the exams, and if you choose to use both attempts your scores will be averaged.</p>
<p>Hey I have 2 questions
- when I looked up my textbooks there were comments under them saying go to class first, is it a good idea to wait until then or go ahead and order them?
2)I can’t look up a textbook because it says the class is taught by staff. How can I figure out which textbook to get?</p>
<p>For both of these it means that there’s no order in for any textbook with the bookstore at the moment. You can keep checking back at the website to see if it ever gets updated (the bookstore usually does this the same day they get an order), or you can wait until classes start. If the teacher posts the syllabus on scholar a week or so before classes start, that should also have the info for whatever textbook they want to use.</p>
<p>buy used on Amazon.com or at least compare prices at the bookstore. I find it’s usually at least $10 cheaper.</p>
<p>The cheapest way is to rent it from the library (using an interlibrary loan if necessary) and keep renewing it online. It costs $0 and I was able to do it with 5-6 books my junior and senior year combined, which really added up. </p>
<p>I never messed around with renting books for money, although I did buy international editions and electronic editions a couple times to save money. Other than that I just bought used on Amazon.</p>
<p>One time I actually got a little more for a book doing a buy-back with VT at the end of the year than I’d paid for it from Amazon. That was pretty cool.</p>
<p>Really…I used buy back my freshman year and usually only got back like 10% of what I paid for with the book in the same exact condition too. Since then I always sell on amazon and get back at least 80% usually of what I paid. That’s interesting though, I had always thought buy-back at the bookstore was a Scam. </p>
<p>Either way, if you sell online at least your getting the market value of the used book back.</p>
<p>I should mention that if anyone is taking World Regions, you need to buy the book new because it comes with a one-time code that you need for the online materials. It’s like EA’s Project Ten Dollar for textbooks. Not sure if there are any other courses that have similar requirements.</p>
<p>Okay, what’s the trick here - have tried inputting the ISBN numbers listed on the Tech textbooks and all of them come up as non-matching when using amazon or chegg - what am I doing wrong?</p>