<p>There are so many college guides available. Which one do you think is the best/most helpful regarding admissions, list of majors, etc.?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>For just lists go to the school website. For more color and feel type info The Fiske, Yale Students, and All American Colleges are good with different viewpoints.</p>
<p>Do your own research. Nothing can substitute that! Nobody knows you personal situation. We did not even rely on our great college conselor at D’s private prep. HS. He did not know even names of some programs that D. was interested to apply. How could he? He had other 32 kids to take care of.
I have created very complex and detailed spreadsheet organized in preferencial sequence. That has helped so much. D. did not get into her #1 choice and went with the smile to her #2 (looking back, it was a better choice for her UG). We have eliminated frustration, replaced it with pride, this spreadsheet did the job! We have used no help, no books, never checked any rankings, used D’s own criteria. She visited a lot, stayed overnights, talked to current students. She knew clearly where she felt comfortable and where she did not belong. That made a huge difference in her whole UG experience, graduated in May Summa Cum Laude and started at Med. School few weeks ago.<br>
Only applicant can determine which place fits him/her the best and which major(s)/minor(s) to try.</p>
<p>Nice advice MiamiDAP, however, you must have used sources that indicated GPA/SAT scores. How else would you have known where she could and could not be admitted?</p>
<p>I like Fiske and Princeton Review. Obviously you want to do your own research on the issues/topics that are most important to you on top of that - but as a starting point - these are the 2 guide books that I would recommend.</p>
<p>I like Ruggs if you have an idea of what you want to study. The guide will list strong programs in schools of various levels of selectivity. It is a great way to identify safety schools.</p>
<p>editor,
My D. gave me criteria for her schools. She (we) did not care where she would or would not be accepted. We constructed the list based on D’s criteria. However, my D. had no plans to apply to any Ivy’s or Elite schools (she saved it for her future Med. School applications). She also wanted to have Merit awards in UG. She had very many other criteria. She was accepted to all UG’s on her list (including the UG with program that rejected her) with huge Merit awards. Apparently, her criteria has worked for her. If we started matchig her stats to the programs, she probably would not apply to any. They are very very selective, D. ended up at the program that had only 10 spots for incoming freshman. The program that rejected her has about 15 spots with about 1200 applicants every year.</p>
<p>Agree on Ruggs - if you know your prospective major - Ruggs is a great way to add a few more possibilities. Of course, given how many kids change their major between the time they apply and the time they graduate - this could be a risky approach!</p>
<p>Editor, if you are looking for score ranges etc., the CollegeBoard website makes it all very easy-- for the feel of the college and more in depth material-- this website is the best thing I’ve found, and it still leaves a lot to be desired. I think that Colleges that Change Lives has a great perspective and I’d love to see a resource that covered more than 40 colleges from that point of view. But between this, CollegeBoard, Fiske,and Ruggs, then going through the college websites on your own, you should be able to get a list of places worth visiting, and go from there.</p>
<p>If I had to choose just one, I’d go with Fiske. Although they might all seem similar at first, the reviews are actually both enlightening and differentiating. Never really critical, after you read a few of them you develop a feel for its discrimination in how something is said (lauded by strong praise or damned by faint praise) and what is not said. I would advise reading a few of the reviews, in particular about schools with which you are familiar, before reading those of schools that are new to you.</p>
<p>Any published work, and many Websites, suffer from out-of-date data that is likely to be a year or two behind what you can find on the school’s Website (search for “common data set”) or the more authoritative sites like the College Board’s. But Fiske’s reviews provide a value-add that is hard to find elsewhere.</p>
<p>Princeton Review: I find this too numbers-driven (with out-of-date numbers) and the narratives simply a collage of quotations from student interviews. The best parts are often the little snippets you get in the “View from the Admissons Office” and other places on the second page of each spread.</p>
<p>Colleges That Change Lives: Therapeutic if you are in a “name-schools only” mindset, but the reviews are so uniformly glowing that it is difficult to use them as guides.</p>
<p>Rugg’s Recommendations: Is oriented to majors and programs, which I feel are a secondary concern in choosing an undergraduate institution. You can find similar guidance in The College Finder by Antonoff and its associated Website Inside College.</p>
<p>Students’ Guide to Colleges: Limited in its scope (100 schools?), it is based on in-depth student interviews and can give you some insight if you are interested in one of those. But student’s have limited perspective: often the only school they know well is the one they are attending. So I find the content of limited value, too.</p>
<p>Choosing the Right School: I find the compilers’ politics abhorrent, but because they premise their sense of quality on schools that insist that students learn Euro-American history, literature, and tradition (preferably exclusively, if I read them correctly) they pay particularly close attention to one aspect of colleges that other books scant: curriculum and graduation requirements. But you, too, can develop an awareness of these details without their guidance.</p>
<p>Barron’s Guide to the Most Competitive Colleges: If you are interested in the higher premium schools, this can be of some use because the descriptions are extensive. However each description is, I believe, written by a loyal alum, and so I find I read each with a forced skepticism.</p>
<p>Cool Colleges: A good book if you want to a little different approach to schools. The author has a fondness for schools with quirky or unique approaches, especially those that maintain a high degree of academic rigor even as they encourage individuality.</p>
<p>Fiske seems to be head and shoulders above the rest. </p>
<p>Barron’s Guide to the Most Competitive Colleges is way too wordy and it doesn’t help you narrow the field because and they all sound alike…the alums who write the articles ALL think their school is a unique learning experience with caring professors, challenging academics, lively activities, fascinating students, etc.</p>
<p>Great feedback!
Thank you!</p>