Save on textbooks?

<p>I just saw on WebSTAC that most of the required books for fall courses were available for ordering. So I was wondering...what are some more economical ways of getting textbooks, other than from the campus bookstore? I heard that we could rent books or something...thanks!</p>

<p>So if you buy your books online, like at half.com and ebay, you will be able to save a pretty good amount of money. Just make sure that the books are in pretty good condition because you can sell them back to the school at the end of each semester, and they will give you what they think it is worth, or you can do Lock and Chain and set your own price on the book. Just try to buy online - the school’s price is pretty high.</p>

<p>Renting textbooks is brand new this year, so no one can really tell you much about that.</p>

<p>But as galexigirl said, amazon marketplace, half.com, ebay, border/barnes and noble used books are generally good places to look.
I’ve sold books I bought from amazon back to the bookstore, and gotten a fair bit of money back.</p>

<p>Also, how are you seeing textbooks for the fall? The bookstore still only has summer semester up I thought.</p>

<p>lauranawain, did you actually click on the order textbooks button, or did you just see that the button was there, because if you actually click on it, it should tell you that the books are not available yet, but they can notify you when they are.</p>

<p>Another awesome option is Lcok & Chain, which is a student organization that organizes a book sale. Student’s “lend” their books to Lock & Chain for the duration of the sale and name their own price for their books. If their book is sold, the student receives about 75% of the price (i forget how much exactly) and Lock & Chain gets the rest, which they donate to some charity. A lot of times you’ll find excellent deals, wont have to pay for shipping, and its really beneficial to the students because the sellback rate for them is much higher than in the bookstore. </p>

<p>Another option is waiting till you get to campus and buying from upperclassman. I don’t mean to be self-promoting - only trying to help - when I say that I still have my books for intro chemistry, differential equations, intro psych, and physics 197/198 that I’ll be trying to sell once I get back to school. Buying books from upperclassmen for those large intro classes (also other calc and physics classes, and definitely Writing 1) should be fairly easy. Good lucK!</p>

<p>I buy most of mine from Amazon. If I add a class late, I just buy from the bookstore. When you sell your books back (Amazon has recently started buying back books and generally at significantly higher prices than Wash U bookstore) it won’t end up being too much. </p>

<p>I personally prefer new books rather than used, as people usually highlight and write in books and that bothers me. Another option is to buy the international paperback edition of books (I know Mcgraw Hill does this). This books are virtually identitical and cost half the price of the hardcover edition.</p>

<p>However, keep in mind that almost everyone adds and drops classes. Buying books months in advance from Amazon for example will prevent you from returning them.</p>

<p>I’m gonna go ahead and blast lock and chain.</p>

<p>Only 5% goes to a charity, so their website says. They other 20% goes to the members themselves (people blast thurtene, but other groups like l&c buy super expensive jackets for themselves too. Don’t believe me? Just take a look at the su finances page for l&c on the track spending option).</p>

<p>Also, they had a complete failure this year. It took them until may to get me money for a book I gave them last may.</p>

<p>I’ll never again give them a book, although I would still see what they had at the book sale.</p>

<p>@Johnson181 & @GaLexiGirl -
Yes, I THINK I’m seeing textbooks for fall 2010…I saw a link that says “books” behind the instructor column for each individual course on Course Listings, and when I click on one, say, Writing I, a new window appears and reads:</p>

<p>RESULTS FOR:Washington University - St. Louis > Washington University In St. Louis > All > Fall 2010 > L13 > 100 > 02</p>

<p>REQUIRED
TITLE:ACP WRITING ANALYTICALLY WASH U
AUTHOR:Rosenwasser
EDITION:
COPYRIGHT YEAR:2010
PUBLISHER:Cengage Learning
ISBN:9781111522179
NEW:$81.25
USED:$61.00</p>

<p>@tumbletiger009:
Haha, that’s fine…but I’m afraid I would be taking any of those classes, sorry! But thanks, I’ll keep that in mind!</p>

<p>So…half.com, amazon, ebay, lock & chain, borders, barnes and noble, and upperclassmen, got’cha…thanks, everyone!</p>

<p>Remember to sell books back to Amazon…I noticed this after last semester when I had already sold my books back to the bookstore. The bookstore offered $46 for one of my books…Amazon buyback offered $98…big difference. The book itself was only $140 new, which meant it would have been $40 for the textbook for the semester which really isn’t bad.</p>

<p>marc- that works in some cases, but in others I’ve actually made a profit by selling back to the bookstore. </p>

<p>laura- it looks like that’s right. They added that section to course listings only in the past few weeks so it’s new.</p>

<p>The bookstore should be completely updated within the next two weeks to have all of the books you’ll need listed. I personally prefer that, since it usually gives a picture as well.</p>

<p>@Johnson: how do you view the list you mentioned then? By clicking the order textbook button on WebSTAC?</p>

<p>That button works, but you’ll know when all of them are up when this link:</p>

<p><a href=“efollett”>efollett;

<p>switches to say fall '10 rather than summer '10.</p>

<p>Also, the “suggested by the bookstore” charts are a huge waste of money (they have them for nearly every class- chem, psych, physics, math, etc). Generally speaking, don’t buy the “recommended” items for your classes.</p>

<p>i have a question,
how am i supposed to buy textbooks from amazon.com or ebay.com if i dont know which books i need for my 1st semester? do i have to just wait unitil it switches to fall 2010? is that the only way?</p>

<p>help me you guys!!! i want to rent textbooks or buy them in lowprices @ amazon ASAP but i dont really know what i have to buy… : (</p>

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<p>You will need to wait until the page switches to “fall 2010,” or until the names of the books show up through the “Buy Textbooks” button in WebSTAC. Which will probably be the same time.</p>

<p>There’s really no hurry - until the professors have posted which books they’re going to require, it’s not worth the bother trying to guess, and they’ll post things leaving plenty of time for you to buy the books. Amazon (which I do recommend) is probably the “slowest” method of getting your books, and even then you’ll be fine waiting to order them until the week before classes start, frankly: professors tend to assume (but not always) that you won’t buy your books until they officially tell you which books to buy on the first day of class.</p>

<p>Wait, I realized that for those of us not attending artsci weekends, we won’t register for courses until orientation - and that would be around August 27th.
Classes start on the 31st.
How do we find good deals on decent textbooks in that period of time?</p>

<p>washuwashu -
Click on Course Listings from your WebSTAC page (or any other page where you can find a course listings link), choose Fall 2010 and your school, find the department of one of your courses, and on the page where every available courses are listed, there will be a column behind “instructor” that says “book”. Just click open the one that corresponds your specific class, and you will be able see a list of the book required in the popped up window. Note that sometimes the book titles aren’t that accurate, so there might be more choices than you expected when you search for them in amazon (at least it is so for me). So unless you desperately need to get them NOW, I’d say wait until the bookstore website is officially updated, like Johnson said.</p>

<p>Johnson -
Oh I didn’t know that, thanks!</p>

<p>Crozet- essentially it sucks for you.</p>

<p>If you know for sure what classes you’re taking (ie psych 100), but just haven’t registered for them, you could always search for them on the bookstore website and buy them before you register.</p>

<p>That doesn’t work if you don’t get into the class though. Large intro classes like psych and gen chem you’re essentially guaranteed to get into.</p>

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<p>ya, like Johnson181 said you’ll be kinda rushed, but for classes that don’t fill up (math, psych, general physics, genchem…) you can buy your books once the bookstore posts which ones to buy. And if you order books off Amazon (etc.) around the 27th you should be fine, too. No worries! :)</p>

<p>Don’t forget that you’ll rarely need books for the first week or so of classes! There’s not really such a rush to buy them!</p>

<p>^ Thanks, everyone :)</p>