<p>We priced out all of D's textbooks and class required supplies for her first term. If we bought them new for full price at the WPI bookstore, the cost would have been a little over $500. If we bought them used at the bookstore, the cost would have been about $480. </p>
<p>But I bought everything online for about $270. Two of the textbooks are brand new, the rest are barely used.</p>
<p>It's the same everywhere. VT wanted a couple hundred for a book I got for about $75. It was the international edition, marked not for sale in the USA, but oh well.</p>
<p>And if you know what you will be taking the next year, and the required books, just do a little dumpster diving at the end of the school year. You would be surprised how many brand-new (never been opened) or nice used books some kids throw away because they don't want to bother going to the used book store to sell them (especially seniors). And they are usually not in bags, just lying loose in the dumpster. Do the dumpster diving anyway, and sell them to the used book store and make some money. D saw a few books in the trash, picked them up and sold them.</p>
<p>So what are the internet sites used to buy texts? I know amazon, of course, but what are the ones specifically for text books that folks have found reputable?</p>
<p>Also, the info. S has received gives zero about books. How does everyone know which books are needed?</p>
<p>cheaptexts.com had comparisons of prices for various textbooks culled from various sites. I think that was the name of the site. I ended up purchasing all of them from Half.com or Amazon Marketplace.</p>
<p>Have your S check the bookstore for his school - the WPI bookstore has fields where the student can choose the term and the class, which will bring up the required textbook.</p>
<p>Cautionary tale..... your savings could be wiped out if your child drops/switches early in the term; you may have several editions which can't be sold back to their college bookstore and your kid will need a full load of books for the new class in a hurry. We learned the hard way that buying books in advance brings illusory savings if you end up "eating" a $200 textbook or two along the way. Better to wait.... even if it means paying an extra $10 for overnight shipping, than to buy prematurely.</p>
<p>also be wary of getting the wrong edition.access to book listings online from the college bookstore are notorious for not giving you the IPN #(or IDN ??) which is the identifier for the proper edition.
Also be aware that professors sometimes amend their requirements when classes start..a book will go from "required" in the bookstore listing to "recommended" in class,or just a section reading that will be on reserve at the library.</p>
<p>Cathymee:</p>
<p>I think you are referring to the ISBN.</p>
<p>My S bought an international edition of a textbook. I think it was missing some part, but he thought it was not very crucial (an appendix?) and he was able to copy it from someone else. </p>
<p>In another case, the 6th edition of a textbook had a new chapter, which could easily have been photocopied or read on reserve at the college library; it apparently also had the same problems as the 5th edition, but their order had been scrambled so that it would have been difficult to figure out which problem the profs wanted students to solve when he assigned problem # 20, 25, 30 and so on (a neat trick for publishing companies to make money!).</p>
<p>About the ISBN numbers: what I do to make sure I have the right edition is take the publisher and the author, and the title if I can decipher it from the abbreviated version the bookstore gives me, and plug that information into the Library of Congress Catalog: <a href="http://catalog.loc.gov/%5B/url%5D">http://catalog.loc.gov/</a> . Then I scroll down the list of results to find the year or edition listed, get the ISBN number off of that, and plug that into the website Irishmomof2 mentioned, <a href="http://www.cheapesttextbooks.com/%5B/url%5D">http://www.cheapesttextbooks.com/</a> .</p>
<p>Our experience is that college bookstores will list the books students need for specific classes online, however, they won't/don't show ISBNs (at least for my 2 kids' schools).</p>
<p>They DO show which edition and based on that, we order online in advance.</p>
<p>To echo blossom's admonition--before they order any books, we usually have a discussion about which classes MIGHT be candidates to be dropped. If there's any question that a class could be "iffy", we don't order a book for that one. So far, with one exception, this strategy has worked pretty well for us. And the savings, as others point out, are significant.</p>
<p>WPI doesn't have add/drop because they have 7 week terms instead of semesters. So that shouldn't be an issue for us.</p>