Interesting notice for any new Exonians for the 2011-2012 School Year (Exbooks)

Prep School Admissions
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<p>Haven't posted in the prep school forum in a while.. but I have something of high interest for anyone attending Exeter in the fall.</p>

<p>Last spring, a group of students created a company, called Exbooks. Its an online forum, essentially a Craigslist that is specific to Phillips Exeter, bringing Exonians together. It provides a cheaper alternative to the bookstore. The bookstore here often puts huge profit margins on textbooks, then buys them back from students at cut prices.</p>

<p>Take a look at the website here.
Welcome</a> to Exbooks</p>

<p>And the youtube video that gives a great intro for it.
Exbooks</a> - YouTube</p>

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<p>The owners of Exbooks were also wondering if they could get some feedback from the users on this website. Its a new project, and they’re open to plenty of suggestions. Thanks.</p>

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<p>Maybe instead of just having a listing of all of the courses, most of which have zero books available, there could be a page listing all the books available. Also, we still won’t know for sure which books we’ll need, so…</p>

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<p>the site just opened back up a week ago, earlier it had around 180 ads… and the books normally don’t change from year to year</p>

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<p>vk77, to say that “books normally don’t change” is a bit misleading. Many books do change from year to year. The bookstore website now has fall 2011 textbook requirements up: [Welcome</a> to Phillips Exeter Academy*Bookstore](<a href=“http://exeter.bncollege.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/BNCBHomePage?storeId=42565&catalogId=10001]Welcome”>http://exeter.bncollege.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/BNCBHomePage?storeId=42565&catalogId=10001)
Note that if your class has multiple sections, different sections may use different books, so you still won’t know what books to buy until you get your schedule. But some classes only have one section and/or use the same textbooks in all sections, so you should have the info you need to start buying.</p>

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<p>PEAteacher, I just put on a few of my courses on the website. For AP Bio, just taking an example (since I know for sure that I’ll have to have the AP Bio book and manual from collegeboard) I saved around 90 dollars just for the textbook! the bookstore just marks up way too much.</p>

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<p>Maybe instead of having all the categories on one page, you can try making different tabs on the top of the page. Just a suggestion.</p>

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<p>HAHA owners are never open “to plenty of suggestions”, just good feedback</p>

<p>hmmm i wonder who one of the owners is.</p>

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<p>Good feedback is nice too, but they are looking into suggestions as it is a relatively new project.</p>

<p>haha, i wonder too…</p>

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<p>vk77, I don’t question that your website can save students money. I’m just urging you to make sure that new students especially are clear on the fact that books can change from year to year; you will have many unhappy customers if you sell them the wrong books.</p>

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<p>This is a good solution to a nagging problem. I like to expand it to my school and probably all schools.</p>

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<p>invent, what school do you currently go to? in order to assure quality, we’re not expanding as of now, but that is something that we plan to do in the future. </p>

<p>keep the good feedback/bad feedback/suggestions coming! haha</p>

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<p>But… a lot of people’s books are covered by financial aid anyway. I don’t know if you can use that money outside of the bookstore.</p>

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<p>as one of the fans of our facebook page posted (which you are free to like)
financial aid can be used for other school costs, such as music lessons and any other insularly needs, so the money doesn’t completely vanish. exbooks is also a forum to sell books, great for fa kids who want more money for their books.</p>

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<p>Sounds cool. I wanted to point out something that I observed about this thread - </p>

<p>The first several posts suggest “there is a new started business” and “they want feedback”… “They”…</p>

<p>But then the comments became “we’re not expanding” and “our fb page”. </p>

<p>Is this a great business you found? Or a great business you run? I felt uneasy about the thread and business because I didn’t feel it was a forthright posting.</p>

<p>If it is your own business, (or whoever’s it is) being ambitious and filling a need is terrific. I hope you/they are successful. I also personally feel honesty, especially to classmates and “fellow students” is very important as well. When the notes went from “they” to “we”, I “felt” that the posts seemed to have been intentionally misleading with a slipip later on. This may be my misinterpretation but it was my feeling. To me, part of business is image. I personally like the idea of disclosure from the start. </p>

<p>At any rate, considering the newness of the above business as well as just being one to shop around and research my personal best options anyway, I also looked at half.com and amazon.com for our textbook needs. </p>

<p>This thread does share interesting info about what can hopefully be a valuable resource to Exonians down the road. Good luck guys!</p>

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<p>Well “souful” pretty much implied that I am indeed one of the founding partners of Exbooks, so I assumed that everyone else got the same message. Are you new to Exeter this year?</p>

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<p>vk77,
Did you say that you bought an AP Bio book for this year?
I’m pretty sure they’re switching to the 9th edition for this year, seeing as when I went to the bookstore at the end of last year to see if I could find a copy of it, they said that they were not buying back the 8th edition because they were not using it anymore; just what I remember.</p>

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<p>yes, you’re right. i got the 9th edition through exbooks.</p>

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<p>How do you pay for books on Exbooks? Do you just directly pay the person who is selling the book?</p>

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<p>Sorry, I realize now that all of the financial aid issues are addressed on the facebook page. Maybe one day, Exeter will allow FA money to be spent on the Exbooks website.</p>