<p>Now that DS is twiddling his fingers waiting for college decisions, I am looking at a pile of SAT, ACT and SATII prep books, some of which are brand new (from a prep course he took), some of which are only quite slightly used, and some that are slightly more used. I hate to throw them away. I suppose the library would take the new ones? Would they want the slightly used ones that are just missing a few bubble answer pages? Anyone done anything useful with these?</p>
<p>If the library is not interested, I am sure some juniors are?</p>
<p>My D passed hers along to a younger friend, along with her Fiske Guide. They were very much appreciated. :)</p>
<p>The library might, you could DEFINITELY sell them on amazon if you are interested in that. I have bought tons of slightly used prep books on amazon.</p>
<p>My hs has a college and career center which has a library full of test prep and college search books that students have donated from the years before. It’s very convenient that I can go in during lunch and check out an ap prep book to see whether I want to take that test. Maybe you can see whether your son’s school does that (or you could start a collection)? The books my hs didn’t want I dumped on my junior friends.</p>
<p>So at the library, you just put the donations in the box anonymously. I won’t know if they didn’t want them and just chucked it, which would still be wasteful. Maybe I’ll give the unused ones to them and the used ones to the school.</p>
<p>Re: the library</p>
<p>Many public libraries have Friends of the Library groups that sell donated books at regular book sales as a way to raise money for special programs or library purchases. I volunteer with such a group. We can sell test prep books that are new or used, as long as the used ones are not out of date or literally falling apart. At least at our library, donated books are never put into regular circulation, but are sold at the fund-raising sales.</p>
<p>My son sold them on amazon.com. You just need to describe the condition of the books accurately. Believe me, someone will buy them if you price them right.</p>
<p>Sell them on half.com - that’s where we buy our used test prep books</p>
<p>I gave ours to the neighbors with younger kids.</p>
<p>I used ds’s for white elephant gifts this past Christmas!</p>
<p>Find a school in a low-income area near you and donate them to the library or counseling office.</p>
<p>Another option - freecycle . org (I don’t think I’m suppose to post links)</p>
<p>D’s Catholic HS had a used book sale (the Parent Teacher Org sponsored it) each year since students had to buy their books. We didn’t think of this until she was a senior, but one of the organizations she belonged to was interested in selling donated test prep books as a fundraiser during the book sale.</p>
<p>My kids gave theirs to College Center at the HS. However, they were BARELY used!</p>
<p>True story: I recognized one of the CC student posters (based on newspaper coverage + CC posts), and knew that the student lived in our general area and could use the books. We mailed them to the CC poster, and suggested passing them along to someone else who could use them. Just recently, we’ve found a few others, which I plan to ship to my nephew.</p>
<p>My D gave the AP and subject matter test books to the teachers.</p>
<p>We hand-gifted (unwrapped of course!) several to students we knew from our H.S. whom we knew were taking same courses and had weaker parental support. I mentioned how many pages were bubbled and asked if they still wanted the book; in all cases, the answer was “yes.” </p>
<p>All the rest, we did what Geezermom posted in #12:
</p>
<p>There I wasn’t sure if it was better to tear out bubbled pages or not, but took my cue from the kids who wanted the books regardless of a few practice tests taken and didn’t tear out any pages. Mostly our kids did 1 or 2 practices and left the rest unbubbled. I also underlined the date of publication in black magic marker, as I know these get out-of-date.</p>
<p>We gave a few to nieces and friends who were about to start the testing process. Most of them we donated to the college/career center at S2’s school. There are plenty of kids who don’t have $20/book to spend on this stuff, and my kids always wrote their answers on notebook paper, recognizing that we would try to get the books to other students at some point.</p>
<p>Between S1’s focused interests and S2’s AP/IB program, we had almost every subject covered!</p>
<p>Give them to the parents of juniors. Give them to the counseling center. Drop them off at Goodwill or Value Village. Leave them in the lunchroom at the school.</p>