Customer Reviews

The Best 366 Colleges, 2008 Edition (College Admissions Guides)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am in the home stretch of the college search process. My youngest is now starting her senior year, and that'll be it then. The Princetown Review publishes a number of college search-related books, including the "Complete Book of Colleges" and this one. This book is essentially a distilled version of the "Complete Book", and frankly a lot more useful.

"The Best 366 Colleges (2008 Edition)" (813 pages) is very similar to last year's edition. After holding the number of best colleges steady at 361 last year, this time there are 8 new "best" colleges and three that didn't make the cut anymore. Those new colleges are California State University-Stanislaus, Florida Southern College, Sacred Heart University, Thomas Acquinas College, Tuskegee University, Washington College, Washington & Jefferson College, and... University of Cincinnati (more on that later). The best feature of this guide remains the 2 page layout for each of the colleges, with in-depth information on campus life, academic selectivity (the number of applicants, how many were accepted, and of those how many actually decided to attend), tuition and room/board costs, etc. Another aspect that is very helpful is the "Survey says" sidebar, in which the essence of the university is distilled from the college students themselves, and "The Inside Word" segment on how tough it really is to gain admission.

The proof is in the pudding: of the many college guides out there, my daughter is spending more time with this book than with any other. This book is not the first place to start the college search, but once your son or daughter has narrowed down his/her colleges of choice, and assuming those colleges are featured in the "best 366", this book clearly is the best resource, the last step before a campus visit, and can be used again following the campus visits. If I was forced to recommend only one book among all the college search guides, this book is it.

[As an irreverent aside, how about the inclusion of UC in the "best" colleges! The university president has been villified in our city over her handling of the since-departed basketball coach Bob Huggings, and has stated from day 1 that "upgrading" academically UC was her top priority. I'm sure she'll feel vindicatedin part by this ranking among the best colleges. Not that it matters a lot to me, I'm a Xavier fan!]

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.

Princeton Review and Fisk are the two best college guidebooks for getting a feel for what it would be like to go to a college. Princeton Review gives you a very good feel for what the students are like, how hard they study, whether it's a party school, whether people are generally happy and nice feel for the social aspects of the campus. The strength of the Princeton Review guide is that it is based largely on surveys given to students, and by getting information directly from students, and seems to convey an insiders feel for each school. The weakness is that the surveys don't appear to be very scientific, as the information comes from students who volunteered to be surveyed or submitted comments online. This means means that while the information is useful, it has to be taken with a grain of salt, as it may not be totally representative of the student body as a whole. Still, when I compare the Princeton Review write ups with my own impressions of the college as I have visited, they jibe pretty well. So I definitely think this is a useful source of information. Fisk seems to have more of an expert's view, as though it were written by a college counselor or perhaps your high school guidance counselor. The Fisk write ups are very balanced and the factual information about the college seems to me to be more complete than that of Princeton Review. It also jibes with my experience at the campus as I have visited, but is not quite as adept as Princeton Review for conveying the social aspects of the schools. Overall, both guides are very useful and are worth consulting before making an important decision like this.

I've spent hours pouring over this review. And I haven't even scratched the surface. The information is extensive, pertinent, and so very fascinating. Anyone planning to go to college, including their parents, should have a copy. I assure you that it will be vital in selecting the right school. And it is also a great resource for anyone who is just interested in colleges and in college life, including college students, parents of college students, and those who wish to reminisce about their own college experiences.

This book is great for anyone looking at different colleges. This book rates the colleges on dorms, campus security, and is filled with details. Male/Female ratio, the size of the classrooms, and even quotes from students that have attended these schools. These schools range from all over the US.

THE BEST 366 COLLEGES is superior to most college guides on the market: for one thing, it provides high school to college-level students with information based on the responses of over 120,000 college students who provide insights on the realities of their institution of choice. For another, it offers unique rankings of the schools in over sixty categories based on student ratings of not just academics but financial aid, dorms and more - and it offers tips to high schoolers on how to prepare for admission to a college of choice. With all that under one cover, this becomes the item of preference for any collection catering to students who are college-bound.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

We have been referring to this book a lot in trying to figure out possible colledges for my daughter. She has gone through and put numerous post-its on schools that sound appealing, and then is narrowing those down by going to the school's website.

This book and the Fiske guide are our favorites.

Very thouough and useful. I recommend it strongly for any household with high school juniors that are interested in learning a great deal about their potential college options.

This is one of the best college resources I've found. By the time you finish reading the 2-page layout for each college, you really have a pretty good idea what each college is like. Particularly valuable to me were the "Quality of Life" rankings, the comments by the students themselves, the Academic Ratings, the Student/Faculty Ratios, The Average Class Size, The Admissions Rating, the % of Applicants Accepted, the Recommended SAT Scores, and the Financial Aid Ratings. I also found the section "Schools Ranked by Category" very useful which covers pretty much everything from "Their Students Never Stop Studying" to "Party Schools" with everything in between.
Highly Recommended!

This book is priceless. It gives excellent information on so many of the country's colleges. It helped my daughter when she was looking at colleges and now my son is using the book, too, as he prepares a list of colleges to apply to next fall.