I believe that should be the final word on the subject as it relates to @stargirl3. 
I somehow managed to buy four copies of a couple of books, instead of two. Hope to turn a profit on Half.com. 
Holy jeepers…I just dropped $400+ on MBS! And that’s AFTER factoring in the hand-me downs 7D2 bought from a dorm mate. Time to go back to eating ramen!
I think I am late to the game… just started looking for the books for my DS… and shocked to see the shelf price of $300, $150 etc… looking for cheaper options on Amazon and other places but still very pricey… I guess early bird gets the worm on these sites… now prices are up everywhere… I wish for some hand me downs…
My favorite? Those foreign language books that are only available through school source — or from the country where the language is spoken (lower price but astronomical shipping charges). Zut alors!
Uh my French book was 140$ with a 25$ fee!
For my daughter’s community college courses, when there is no cheap option for the current edition book, I buy a copy of previous edition book at $0.01 + shipping from Amazon. If you are lucky the previous version would be almost same or otherwise still usable. If not, the $4 wasn’t a big loss anyway compare to the possible $100+ saving.
To put things in perspective, my college daughter reports a first semester textbook bill of nearly $800. Yes, mostly science classes.
Today’s bookstore bill: close to $500. Anyone have something very different?
$270 for 2 subjects. $15 school planner.
@mexusa: You did well. I don’t seem to remember getting out of the Choate bookstore for under $800.
@ChoatieMom: We did ask for used books, if possible. That may have helped!
Got books for 4 classes for $275 - no
book for Spanish. Math book was new $100 but history, English, and physics were all used from Amazon. Total would have been almost $500 for new books from school online bookstore.
A bit surprised about textbook distribution at Cate - schedule not received until move in Sunday & books (all new) distributed to DD Monday. DD has no idea how much they all cost but was told they could be returned if students are able to find used books. I assume student account will be billed but I’m not crazy about not knowing the cost! At our previous high school (and college) we are able to look up the texts (with ISBN) for each course and have the opportunity to source the books wherever we would like. Maybe I’m missing something about how it is handled because I wasn’t there…
We cannot order books online, cannot even get info on the books so we could order a copy for home or online…Hopefully, she will bring them all home tonight.
Milton has all books boxed for each student based on their individual schedules. Very nice gesture and took a lot of effort on their part… You walk into a huge room with walls of boxes…and pick up the box with your student’s name and buy… you also have the option of pick and choose (and not buy the entire content). However the prices of books… a different story… Math $309, History $220 etc (others are not as expensive) … I am sure these are some great books… and yes, you can order them online Milton bookstore and/or other online sites too. All in all, a fantastic and time saving experience. B-)
These BS bookstores are definitely for profits (many run by Follet) so while it seems nice for them to box up your student’s books for you, they definitely have a profit motive. I apologize for my cynicism. 
Anyone have a POV regarding digital textbooks vs. hardcopy? I think my kids prefer the hardcopy…and I can understand why. Sometimes you just want to be able to write notes in a book, pen/pencil to paper. But the cost difference (at least in the cases that I’ve seen where we had a choice) certainly makes the digital copy look very attractive.
My kids always have preferred hard copy but have taken to renting when available to save $.
I hate online textbooks. My biology class used a digital book and a different hard copy, and staring at the screen just got me all spacey.