<p>Which college guide is best?</p>
<p>Princeton Review's "361 (the number changes annually) best colleges" is really handy</p>
<p>I like comparative data. I am data-driven by nature. So, I prefer US News Best Colleges. I think US News is best. </p>
<p>Fiske Guide is good for descriptive information. Princeton Review has some descriptive information and some comparative data. There are helpful rankings and lists in the Gourman Report and in Rugg's Recommendations. College Board Index of Majors is useful if you just want to find out which schools offer which majors. You can also get some useful comparative information from IPEDS COOL web site.</p>
<p>Ask questions on CC. There is a lot of collective knowledge here.</p>
<p>I think it is a mistake to rely on only one source.</p>
<p>US News gives objective rankings wihch are probably the most universal, but Fiske gives lots of info on the actual school itself and is also widely respected (of course, it has disagreements over what the best schools are with US News)</p>
<p>Students' Guide to Colleges.</p>
<p>Colleges That Change Lives by Loren Pope is an excellent place to start. The Fiske Guide is nice because it lists the strongest majors at each college and similar colleges to consider.</p>
<p>I personally don't think the Yale Daily News guide is very helpful, and Choosing the Right College by ISI is too biased. The College Board and Peterson's books are comprehensive, but the majors listed are often inaccurate. Princeton Review's guide is somewhat questionable- the desciptions are usually accurate, but the rankings can (should?) be ignored.</p>
<p>Princton's book is kind of cynical sometimes, they may be pointing out true tidbits, but the majority of what I read has shed a negative light on the school. The Fiske guide is less likely to be as humorously negative. I like both though, and I think together they paint a nice picture. If the ratings match then I can get a fairly good idea of the school, sometimes they are totally off, which would lead me to investigate further.</p>
<p>Fiske is my favorite.</p>
<p>Princeton Review's <em>narratives</em> are good for giving a feel for the culture of a school and what it's like to be a student there. It's worth looking at for that reason. PR's academic, admissions, etc. rankings are worse than useless.</p>
<p>Princeton Review was def my favorite, it wasn't afraid to exploit a college's negative characteristics though was more than happy to share the emphasize the stronger facts about a college.</p>
<p>Also, one that I came across only recently was College Prowle* (yea for some reason I can type that word: Prowle*), it's really good if you just go to the local bookstore and have an hour or two to kill and just read all the specific books about each college.</p>
<p>Since it is my feeling that you cannot properly judge a college by numbers or any other objective data, the Fiske book is the most useful tool you can buy.</p>
<p>I have the us-news book, its good but i feel that they dont tell you enough about the university, just half a page.
I looked at the fiske guide and it looks good.</p>
<p>Fiske also has rankings like US News, but not a sequential one but like a group called "The Elite Schools" and "Rising Stars" or "Awesome LACs" instead of an objective ranking that doesn't give much information about the school aside from statistics.</p>