@doschicos , of course profit is involved but at the same time there is no pressure to buy from them… so I still feel it it was a nice gesture 
@SevenDad I am a big supporter of hard copies. Online books are great for quick reference… (to me) but hard copy as the main book… amazon has a lot of used books options…
Agree with the rest. Hardcopy for the main textbook. Digital is fine for some supplemental texts.
NMH didn’t give out schedules till registration either. We were completely in the dark on which courses and dorm DS gets in. And then we take the schedule to the bookstore and they take it to back room and come back and give you the stack of books to buy. There was a loooong line even to enter the bookstore. We were told if we go later the used books may run out and we will have to buy new books so we headed there as soon as we can after unpacking. The books can be returned (with receipt) if there’s class change etc.
I prefer to have ISBN so that I can comparison shop at Amazon, bookbytes, half price books, etc. I hope in the future years we can find out the class assignments and books ahead.
If the bookstore is run by Follet or some other for profit, good luck getting the ISBN ahead of time. I’ve found they are loathe to give that info to you.
don’t want it to come wrong way but I forgot to mention that we did get the schedule and book list with ISBN end of August … official orientation is on Sept 8th. They are currently running a week long program on campus with orientation and actual classes to get kids prepared to learn Milton way… it’s my first experience with high school BS so wanted to share… finding it all valuable.
@ChoatieMom: Choate has a very limited number of FA library books. DD only got one, which had just been put back into the stack. No stipend or discount for any of the other books.
First year DS didn’t get schedule until arriving, taking math placement test (there was one test in the spring, but an on campus one for a few advaand working out schedule with advisor. That was also the last year of school bookstore having textbooks. I don’t know how they do this for new students now that Follett is the provider. Follett (this school site anyway) has ISBN numbers on all books so I can easily compare other sites.
I definitely do the ISBN search for alternatives thing, but some of the books (esp. foreign lang, in my experience) are only available through school vendor.
Finally… managed just under $525 what would have been a $925 dent for textbooks only. (Not including any school supplies).
I will say that although our book bill was extremely reasonable, the pre-school trip to Walmart and Staples were not.