<p>what do you think of it? was it cheaper than book stores? did they have most of the books available? do you think it is a good idea to wait until sept. to buy the books?</p>
<p>I am a huge proponent of SBE, especially for buying books. For most intro classes, you’ll find the books you need easily. They’re usually cheaper than bookstores or at least about the same if the student sellers have done their homework in setting a price greater than bookstore buyback but less than used book price. The danger in waiting a week would be having to make stuff up from the first week, but in intro classes, I don’t think this will be a huge deal unless you have weekly problem sets or something. And there’s always a chance your book won’t be there, but if you go an hour before they open you’ll be at the front of the line.</p>
<p>However, to be fair, I didn’t go last year, and there’s a bunch of people lately (I don’t even know what to call them) that set up tents and buy everyone’s books, so this may affect supply. Call me old-fashioned, but I like the idea of Michigan kids passing down books to other Michigan kids via SBE instead of shipping them all over through Amazon and stuff.</p>
<p>thanks for the advice</p>
<p>Use Amazon! Trust me, I’m going to be a freshman. Instead of buying directly from amazon, I looked at the other sellers list, and got most of my books in good condition and dirt cheap. My organic chemistry text book was only $5! Compare ISBN instead of the title to be safe, and if someone still sends you a wrong version (it doesn’t happen often), issue a refund claim, which will be processed in just a few days.</p>
<p>I pretty sure you can get orgo for just as cheap at the SBE. It’s actually infamous for that, since so many freshmen buy from Amazon like doctor, but have no use for it afterwards (I made this mistake too).</p>