<p>Misery loves company, right? </p>
<p>Last year I was impressed with the freshman biology text price tag of $125. This year, we've got the $200 Chemistry text. </p>
<p>Anyone have an outrageous book price to share? And on a related note, what are the best sources for discount or used text books?</p>
<p>I know there are some sites out there, like half.com and I haven’t fully explored them but that is because my son grabbed this year’s pre-calc and chemistry books from students at the end of last year. He paid $20 for each. He ran a risk of them changing the textbook but at $20, it’s worth the risk. I know that some of the kids send e-mails in the fall saying what books they need and what books they have for sale, or often for free, but not everyone brings back books they no longer need. </p>
<p>My son took his Trig book back to school to sell but they had changed texts for this year. Thinking that this $120 book must be worth something, I went to Amazon (who owns half.com, I think) and typed in the ISBN. Several used copies were available for around $47. I figured if I wanted his to actually sell, I’d have to list it at $35 and then pay the commission to amazon. Selling it for $20 to a friend (if they hadn’t switched texts) suddenly seemed like a very reasonable thing to do.</p>
<p>books are really expensive. they didnt tell me each book price but the total was big</p>
<p>Textbooks really do cost this much new. The school is not making any profit. But you can find used books on Amazon (be sure to use the ISBN) and you can rent textbooks at Chegg.com.</p>
<p>I found <a href=“http://www.dealoz.com%5B/url%5D”>www.dealoz.com</a> which is a comparative book buying/selling site. </p>
<p>So are there any texts that you think would be worth saving for college? My d will be taking a college level general chemistry class. Should I encourage her to keep the text as a reference?</p>
<p>I was told by the BS to budget $800 for the first semester. I nearly choked until my other daughter (college) bought two USED books and that total came to $150. </p>
<p>I’ll post when I get the BS bill. For now we set up an account so my daughter can just charge them. Maybe I should take a valium before I open the envelope.</p>
<p>I’ve been advised that the strategy should be to buy books for the next year from other students at the end of the year when they are packing to go home. Cheaper than buying them used in the store. With my luck the instructor will change the text.</p>
<p>I know at least three schools- Choate, Loomis and Exeter- have scholarship book rooms where any student on financial aid can go BEFORE the book store to check out/borrow texts that the students have donated or left behind the previous year. Also new at Choate this year- you can rent seven of the most expensive texts right from the bookstore. My bill this year was under $100 and consisted mostly of those small English class paperbacks that need to be clean so the student can write in them. My college student has had luck with Amazon, Half.com and Chegg.</p>
<p>Saved over 75% . Opened the book list from the school site, copied and pasted the ISBN #'s into ebay, amazon, and just plain old google search. Had to buy one text book new, as couldn’t be found used, however we did this at the last minute - next year time should be on our side. Also only bought new paperback novels for English.</p>
<p>Sadie- that’s smart! Last year we had to buy a new foreign language book, as it came with an expensive internet access code that you couldn’t get separately. Luckily, it was good for two years so we were spared that one this year.</p>
<p>My son at Andover bought 10 books and was excited to report it was “only about $300!”</p>
<p>Buy discount/used whenever possible. I know at my school at the end of the year [and the beginning] lots of older students sell their used textbooks at very good prices, as they make more and others pay less than if they were to resell them to the school store.</p>
<p>An over $200 math book for our 11th grader…and the literature books that are for her favored courses were a lot less!</p>
<p>So far at Exeter, I’ve only used one textbook and it was for history, the rest of the books (math,physics, junior studies, latin) are made by the school. The aren’t that expensive. This term, though, I need a book for English and Latin and in addition to using the lending library, I can also use my dorm Library.</p>