<p>This is kind of random, but I remember when I started the college search process, I was totally clueless about what guide book to buy. These books ended up being extremely valuable to me:</p>
<p>students' guide to colleges: the definitive guide to america's top 100 schools (edited by jordan goldman and colleen buyers): amazing for real reactions from students, gives a good feel of atmosphere, etc
The classic Princeton Review best colleges guide: great for stats of schools, brief description</p>
<p>So if you are looking for some books to purchase to find out more about colleges... these are highly recommended. Anyone else have some books they found really valuable?</p>
<p>I had the Insider's Guide. It was incredibly insightful. I recommend that the most. It had two pages about most colleges with real quotes and testimonials. It was really honest.</p>
<p>Also, if you're looking for Northeastern colleges, The 351 Top Northeastern Colleges (The name's something like that) even tells you about what they're drinking on campus. It also cues you into political awareness and smoking.</p>
<p>I used both to my advantage though for 'big' schools, it's much harder to get one straight opinion. Most of the time, the opinions are about how much the population/whatever varies.</p>
<p>Second the Insider's Guide recommendation. It's got a ton of information on a school's social life, and I've found it really helpful in narrowing down some of my prospective colleges.</p>
<p>I liked using it in combination with Fiske's guide because Fiske had more of a focus on academics, so between those two, I've found out basically everything I need to know about a school to decide whether I'm interested.</p>
<p>Because my S was interested in 2 diverse majors- Geophysics and Music-which are not offered at all colleges- we found Ruggs Recommendations to be very helpful. It is a compliation of colleges recommended by HS counselors around the country. It lists schools by majors offered, and in the back gives a summary of each college- including range of SAT's scores as well as majors offered. Many college counselors use this book, but not too many people outside the counseling industry have heard of it because it is not found in stores and can only be ordered directly.
We also used the Fiske guide.</p>
<p>US News Best Colleges
Fiske Guide
Princeton Review
Rugg's Recommendations
Gourman Report (out of print)</p>
<p>I second students' guide to colleges. I read the whole thing from cover to cover, it was really interesting reading up on what students had to say about their schools (even the ones I had no intention of applying to, like HYPMS for example haha), and it really helped me get a feel of what the campus/student body/academics were like.</p>
<p>Insider's Guide
Fiske
College P*rowler
Princeton Review</p>
<p>We used USNWR and Insiders Guide. DD1 recommended DD2 use the guide to help narrow down schools that would not appeal.</p>