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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Did anyone fact-check this book?, September 12, 2005
This review is from: Best 361 Colleges, 2006 (College Admissions Guides) (Paperback)
I just received this book. The second school profile I turned to (Stanford University) was completely botched. While the narrative text seems to be about Stanford, the sidebars full of statistical information is obviously not related to Stanford. I have no idea what school it belongs to - but it lists Stanford as a "public" institution with an in-state tuition of just a few thousand dollars annually. I wish. Lucky for me I knew enough about the school to recognize these patent errors.
Now I am left to wonder what other information in this book is completely off the mark? Everything else I have read seems to fit what I know about the schools, but I don't know that much about many of the schools reviewed.
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27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great buy...Very well organized...Excellent for above average students, August 23, 2005
This review is from: Best 361 Colleges, 2006 (College Admissions Guides) (Paperback)
This is the best college guide for students with SAT scores above 1100. I don't reccomend it for students will lower scores because it concentrates on schools that expect a higher SAT.
This book rates college on academic as well as social factors so you can see if you fit in to that campus. You can read about dorms, party atmosphere, and what current students are like.
One feature that I felt was great was... "if you like a certain college you may want to look at"... This allows you to add new schools to consider.
My high school son continually used this book to help make his choice. I highly reccomend this book! My daughter used an earlier version to pick her school.
You will continually come back to using this book.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Probably the best for students, January 25, 2006
This review is from: Best 361 Colleges, 2006 (College Admissions Guides) (Paperback)
To be perfectly honest, I prefer Fiske as I feel it is the most informative in regards to the academic strengths of each school. It's positive and relatively unbiased while being just critical enough that you know it's not a mere mouthpiece for the admissions departments. I think parents will like it best.
However, students will probably not. It's pretty dry. Princeton Review is less factual, but much better reading, even providing an occasional chuckle. Still, these other reviewers are right. There is some incorrect and/or confusing information and these books cannot replace campus tours and talking to current students.
As for the other guides, I think that the Insider's Guide is gossipy, negative to the point that it portrays schools inaccurately, and provides too little information about the schools' programs. On the other extreme, Peterson's Guide to Competitive Colleges isn't very useful at all either as it offers nothing but statistics that can be found elsewhere. The possible exception to that is Peterson's inclusion of more Christian schools than the other guides would be helpful to some families who want someone to tell them which religious schools are most selective. (And by the way, Princeton Review is by far the best choice for kids researching Historically African-American universities.) Kaplan is very good as I feel it is less biased than Princeton Review while providing a bit more information on life outside the classroom than Fiske. However, I still find that Kaplan, like Fiske, is a little lifeless. So while I think Fiske and Kaplan are better, I feel that, unless you have a self-motivated and intellectual child, if you want your student to get involved in doing his or her own research on the schools, Princeton Review is the way to go.
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