<p>I'm looking for a book that will more spark someones interest in going to college rather than stress the dry details... one with appealing pictures and interesting stories and facts about life at diferent colleges </p>
<p>Any suggestions?</p>
<p>The Fiske Guide and the Insiders Guide are good but don’t cover all of the schools. I also like the Princetron Review Guide of top colleges. If you are looking at small liberal arts college you can also look at Colleges that Change Lives. I’d suggest you go to a bookstore, review a few books and they choose one or two that seem appropriate. For pictures, I’d go to the individual school’s websites.</p>
<p>I would look at Cool Colleges: [Cool</a> Colleges: For the Hyper-Intelligent, Self-Directed, Late Blooming, and Just Plain Different (Cool Colleges: For the Hyper-Intelligent, Self-Directed, Late Blooming, & Just Plain Different): Donald Asher: 9781580088398: Amazon.com: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Cool-Colleges-Hyper-Intelligent-Self-Directed-Different/dp/1580088392]Cool”>http://www.amazon.com/Cool-Colleges-Hyper-Intelligent-Self-Directed-Different/dp/1580088392) It certainly helped me to think about colleges (about time too, since I only started reading it in October of senior year!) While it only highlights the more “unique” schools such as St. John’s and USMMA, it shows students how many different options there are.</p>
<p>It doesn’t have pictures, but I really like SparkNotes’ “283 Great Colleges”. At the beginning of the process, my son was feeling overwhelmed, and this book was particularly good for him. Each college has two pages of very easy-to-digest information - combination of basic stats, “5 reasons it’s cool” list, special identifying “icons” (e.g. big brain, big research, big world, etc.) and a few paragraphs of “this is how it is”.</p>