<p>Hi, everyone-</p>
<p>I've read A is for Admission, Looking beyond Ivy League, Getting into the Right College...etc. I found a lot of them to be quite usedful. Parents or students, which ones would you suggest as your favorite college/admission guide books?</p>
<p>The Fiske Guide to Colleges seems to be excellent.</p>
<p>Not a guidebook per se, but a truly illuminating look at the admissions process: The Gatekeepers, by Jacques Steinberg (a New York Times reporter who spent nearly a year observing an admissions officer at Wesleyan).</p>
<p>The Fiske is a good review book to get started. I also like Princeton Review.</p>
<p>"A is for" is a classic.</p>
<p>Fiske was our favorite - the descriptions of the colleges were so helpful. It was easy to use, also.</p>
<p>Lots of good choices:</p>
<p>"The Yale Daily News Insiders' Guide to the Colleges," which people tend to love or hate; The Barron's Guide to the Most Competitive Colleges (covers about the top 50 or so); the various Greene Guides, one of which is excellent for people looking just below the Ivies, I think the title is "The Hidden Ivies," (Amherst got very miffed about being included when Williams wasn't !), "Discounts and Deals at the Nation's Best 360 Colleges" (or a title very close to that) by Bruce G. Hammond, "The ABCs of Merit Aid," Richard Mohl's "Playing the Private School Admissions Game," which is a little out of date but interesting.</p>
<p>Also, if you want to know which ECs count, why they have to write those essays, etc. or if you are an international student, I recommend Boyer's College In America, which is not a how to get in guide, though.</p>
<p>My two favorites were Fiske's and The Insider's Guide.</p>
<p>I agree with the Fiske Guide I find the Princeton Review book to focus too much on the negatives so it is hard to find schools that you want to follow up on. I used to like Kaplan's Unbiased Guidebook of the colleges...until some of the student "quotes" used in the book sounded familiar and I realized that they were just lifted from sites like eopinion, studentsreview, etc. Yet, they make it sound as if the guidebook writers personally went to each campus and interviewed students. I haven't trusted that book since.</p>
<p>Fiske was definitely closest to "truth in advertising" regarding what he said about the school and the reality. I did read A for Admissions because D was applying to Dartmouth-did not particularly care for it, becaue I think the process is much more wholistic than how she lays it out. When I did ask some of the Dartmouth Reps about some of the things Hernandez mentioned in her book, they said it was very out dated.</p>
<p>I also found the Princeton Review very negative. They have had the same negative student quote for my DD's college in their book for YEARS, and it doesn't strike me as being representative of the campus character at all.</p>
<p>The Insider's Guide and On Writing the College Application Essay. I was given tons of college books by family friends, but those two were the only helpful ones.</p>
<p>Even though reading or hearing about the cynical books (Gatekeepers & one other I read) were thoroughly unpleasant, I find it useful to know about them, because it allowed us to scratch those colleges from our list. But it can be really depressing to count on those types of books as your main reference.</p>
<p>I liked Fiske Guide & Insider's Guide for the single reason that there was much more "Student Life" info in them than in either those written by ex-adcom types or the promotional type publishers with built-in preferences. It was really important for my D (and me!) to know about things like dorms, campus culture, surrounding community, etc. That info was also an eliminator in some cases, an includer (new word) in other cases.</p>
<p>As to Michele's book ("A is for..."), I do agree that it's still a classic, even if the admissions procedures or viewpoint today is not quite as quantitative or formulaic as that. In terms of the adcom process, it helped me to lower my expectations (which were pleasantly reversed for us), because the whole Academic Index factor (again, if not totally current) was a good measure of expectation -- knowing just how competitive the Ivies are, & how accomplished the pool of applicants.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the best source? --- collegeconfidential.com!</p>
<p>I admit that I'm partial to PR's THE BEST 3xx. I like the way it's organized and the negative quotes don't particularly bother me...I always take such things with a grain of salt and I find them useful in highlighting items for further exploration so that one can decide for one's self.</p>
<p>There was also a fairly good match between the write-ups and how we actually experienced schools that we visited.</p>
<p>I also like the PR Best 357 (roughly). I also use the Yale Insider's Guide. Playing the Game is good on athletic recruiting. The only book I haven't liked is the outdated one by the Duke admissions reader. I thought she was obnoxious.</p>
<p>Our family has found PR Best 3xx the most appealing and in some ways the most useful, but I have to say that when we read about colleges we know well we find the description in PR and Fiske and Insider's all a little skewed, sometimes too caustic, sometimes too admiring (Fiske is the one that is usually too admiring). They all seem to have a tendency toward cliched images that have some truth but aren't as absolute as the descriptions make them seem. It is important to remember that the books can give some flavor of a specific school but that much of what's written simply reflects what is in the eyes and minds of the beholders, whether students or adult reporters (Fiske et al.). The key I think is reading several books and getting a composite sense of what a place is like.</p>
<p>After purchasing way too many books I am finally convinced that they are all virtually worthless, but I will continue to purchase every new book and edition for fear of sending the stock market into a unrecoverable tailspin. We all have to do our part.</p>
<p>I think that one big fat comprehensive directory such as the Collegeboard or the USN&WR Ultimate guide is very useful for stats and the lists in the front and back of the book. Also all of the colleges are in there, not just what the authors think are relevant. Then the Fiske or the PR are great narrative guides. After that the library or just reading in the bookstore will do it unless you find one that really strike you the right way. I could not resist "TAke MY Kid Please", which is hardly a guide but really summarizes the experience nicely for most households. I think I've personally experienced every single pitfall described in that book. What is really missing from the market and would make a great CC project are some volumes written in a narrative style about the 2000 other colleges that are not included in all of those guides that seem to pretty much select the same schools to give detailed description. Lauren Pope did the college world a big favor when he wrote his book on some not so well known but good schools, but his descriptions are very unbalanced as he did have a specific agenda when he wrote his books. A "Parent's Guide to Colleges" would be a good title for the series. I would even like to see descriptions of the various community colleges as there is a large variance among them.</p>
<p>I too would recommend multiple information sources, but if I had to recommend a single book it would be The College Admission Mystique by Mayher, for its sane perspective and general guidance on the process. For info on individual colleges I marginally prefer the Fiske Guide to the other options. </p>
<p>More specialized texts worth reading are:</p>
<p>College Admission Essays for Dummies (best essay prep book) </p>
<p>Acing the College Application and What it Really Takes to Get into the Ivy League (detailed app guidance for the most selective schools.) </p>
<p>Looking Beyond the Ivy League is a good book for students that are not qualified for or interested in the most selective schools, particularly those looking for nurturing small-school environments.</p>
<p>Fiske, no question</p>
<p>Also, Grammar Smart is really useful for the SAT II Writing, writing college essays and overall in life, an invaluable tool.</p>