<p>the title pretty much says it all...</p>
<p>thanks guys!</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-maryland-college-park/743815-umd-textbooks.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-maryland-college-park/743815-umd-textbooks.html</a></p>
<p>In addition to those, one thing I do is email all my professors before the start of the semester and ask them if I will be fine with using the edition before the most recent one. Most say yes, and I can get them for $5-$15 on ebay or half.com, since the prices drop once a newer edition comes out. I get my textbooks for under $100 a semester every time.</p>
<p>so it doesnt matter which edition you get generally ?? becuase yeah (obviosly) the older editions ive seen on ebay/amazon are much cheaper</p>
<p>DS says he was told not to buy books until classes have started. Are we missing something?</p>
<p>Past two years we have ordered the books from the campus bookstore and DS has picked them up before classes began. Students are able to return the books for a full refund if they should decide to drop the course or if prof announces that book will not be used or that reserved copies are available in library.</p>
<p>@nYc91: Not necessarily; I recommend emailing your professors and asking, because some do assign problems from the textbook, and you don’t want to be stuck wondering why yours says to use a slide rule to do some calculation, while the newer edition says to use a graphing calculator.</p>
<p>@Jewels_08: This has always been a tough situation for me. It depends on whether you want to buy online or get them from one of the bookstores in the area. I have had professors told us not to get such and such book the first day of class, but also most professors jump right into the material, so if you’re stuck waiting a week for a textbook and it can put you at a disadvantage. Emailing professors is a great way to find out in advance which books to get, though.</p>
<p>Compare prices online before you do anything else. There’s a great wikiHow article about college textbooks - [How</a> to Buy Cheap College Textbooks - wikiHow](<a href=“http://www.wikihow.com/Buy-Cheap-College-Textbooks]How”>http://www.wikihow.com/Buy-Cheap-College-Textbooks)</p>
<p>Tons of good suggestions in that article.</p>
<p>If D2 had gotten all her textbooks at Student bookstore on campus (new), it would have been 762. If she’d gotten used (very good or better condition) it would have been 602. She ordered used (vg or better) from bookholders.com and it was 447. (all pretax prices). via directtextbook.com she could have gotten a few lower prices on individual books, but for the ease of picking them up at one time at the Bookholders store in downtown College Park (and avoiding shipping/handling costs) she went with the bookholders.com order. YMMV.</p>
<p>when i went to orientation i was told that it was better to wait to u get to class to see what books to get so that way you dont buy any books that you dont really need, i havent decided if im going to do that yet</p>