Choosing the Right College 2012-13: The Whole Truth about America's Top Schools [Paperback]

John Zmirak (Editor), Walter E. Williams (Foreword), Thomas E. Woods Jr. (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 5, 2011 | Series: Choosing the Right College

 

"Practically every aspect of university life that a potential student would want to investigate can be found within these pages.”

——THOMAS E. WOODS JR., Ph.D., bestselling author of Meltdown

“Easily the best of the college guides” (American Spectator) . . . “Indispensable” (First Things,/i>) . . . “An excellent guide” (National Review) . . . “Of great value” (New York Post) . . . “A godsend” (National Catholic Register) . . . “An essential reference” (Homeschool Magazine) . . . “A must for parents” (Dr. Laura Schlessinger) . . . “Unmatched” (Christina Hoff Sommers) . . .

That’s just a sampling of the overwhelming praise for Choosing the Right College, the most in-depth, independently researched college guide on the market, and the only source for students and parents who want the unvarnished truth about America’s top colleges and universities.

Updated and expanded, Choosing the Right College 2012-13 features incisive essays, telling statistics, and revealing sidebars on 140 schools—Ivy League institutions, state universities, liberal arts colleges, religious schools, military academies, and lesser-known schools worth a careful look.

Here you’ll discover information you can’t get anywhere else about the intellectual, political, and social conditions at each institution, including:

• Insider tips on the best—and worst—departments, courses, and professors
• The statistics that colleges don’t want you to know
• A unique “traffic light” feature—red, yellow, or green—that reveals the state of intellectual freedom and the extent of political correctness on campus
• The truth about day-to-day student life: the social scene, living arrangements, campus safety, clubs, sports, traditions, and much more
• A roadmap for getting a real education at any school, whether a huge state university or a tiny liberal arts college
• Essential financial information, including the extent of need-based financial aid and the average student-debt load of graduates
• The most overpriced colleges—and the good values you don’t know about

Plus, you’ll get a FREE one-year subscription to the companion website , which profiles dozens more schools and offers special “top five” lists, expert tips on handling the admissions process, an “Ask the Editors” feature, guides to navigating the college experience, videos featuring students and recent alumni, and much more.

Choosing the Right College provides all the answers you’ll need to make one of life’s crucial decisions. Visit www.CollegeGuide.org

 

 

 

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Zmirak, the longtime editor of Choosing the Right College, is a recognized authority on America’s colleges and universities. A frequent guest on radio and television, he has written about higher education for USA Today, Investor’s Business Daily, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the American Spectator, the American Conservative, InsideCatholic.com, and many other publications. He is the author of several books, including Wilhelm Röpke: Swiss Localist, Global Economist (ISI Books), and has contributed to American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia and The Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought. Zmirak received his B.A. from Yale University and his Ph.D. from Louisiana State University. Currently he serves as writer-in-residence at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in New Hampshire.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1047 pages
• Publisher: Intercollegiate Studies Institute; 8th edition (July 5, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1610170059
• ISBN-13: 978-1610170055
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #168,859 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #100 in Books > Education & Reference > Almanacs & Yearbooks

More About the Author

John Zmirak received his B.A. from Yale University in 1986, then his M.F.A. in screenwriting and fiction and his Ph.D. in English in 1996 from Louisiana State University. His focus was the English Renaissance, and the novels of Walker Percy. He taught composition at LSU and screenwriting at Tulane University, and written screenplays for and with director Ronald Maxwell (Gods & Generals and Gettysburg). He was elected alternate delegate to the 1996 Republican Convention, representing Pat Buchanan. He has been Press Secretary to pro-life Louisiana Governor Mike Foster, and a reporter and editor at "Success" magazine and "Investor's Business Daily," among other publications. His essays, poems, and other works have appeared in "First Things," "The Weekly Standard," "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution," "USA Today," "FrontPage Magazine," "The American Conservative," "The South Carolina Review," "The Atlantic," "Modern Age," "The Intercollegiate Review," "The New Republic," "Commonweal," and "The National Catholic Register," among other venues. He has contributed to "American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia" and "The Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought." From 2000-2004 he served as Senior Editor of "Faith & Family Magazine" and a reporter at "The National Catholic Register." He works now as an editor for several publishing companies.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An honest book that even offers hope in some unexpected corners. September 20, 2011

By John Mark

Format:Paperback

This is a consumer guide for those looking for a more traditional liberal arts education. Nowadays, those students tend to be conservative and moderate students - you know, the ideologically and intellectually "diverse," aka the untouchable. These students often learn early on that they have to be courageous and more willing to engage others who may disagree with them. They may be looking for a school that has not yet abandoned the mission to teach, much less teach anything to do with the Western tradition. Faculty who are not afraid to engage them, however laughable, regressive and benighted the students' views may be. This book provides some surprising direction for those who have such values. For everyone else, any college's viewbook will suffice.

The authors argue that there are many institutions that have not yet fully succumbed to rigid leftist intellectual orthodoxy. The really interesting part is that many of these schools are rather well-known and some even have sterling left-wing reputations. Yet they have departments that still offer dialogue and engagement, even with ideologically heterodox students. See for example, the chapters on Reed and UC Berkeley (yes, that one). There are others. Some very well-known and highly-regarded places are really trainwrecks when it comes to undergraduate education. All this was eye-opening for us. We confirmed much of what was said about those on my son's list of schools through personal visits.

The college search for the intellectually diverse student really comes down to a question of finding schools with institutional self-confidence and intellectual integrity.... Those institutions with that self-confidence and integrity have no fear of creating an environment of acceptance and tolerance if not embrace for those few non-leftist students who dare to enter (according to the authors, several highly selective liberal arts colleges actually fit this profile - again we confirmed this personally). Oddly, the students in these places tend to be happy and intellectually engaged, and this applies even to perpetually aggrieved leftists. Institutions without these important values tend to impose a rigid intellectual culture where dissent is feared and suffocated; thoughts and words are punished, inferences are drawn about the heart of the accused, and in these places the student body tend to be passive and unengaged (a problem common in large state universities). This book shines a light on the high points of over a hundred schools, making it possible to draw inferences that cannot be drawn from the happy talk in the viewbook. Read more ›

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars To the Naysayers - Look at the Title! August 22, 2011

By Prof Johnson

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a great book, full of useful information both general and specific.

As the folks who gave it minimal star-ratings have noted, it is a conservative book - I'm pretty sure the title (Choosing the RIGHT College) should give that away. But it gives very helpful information, and is particularly of interest to those who are looking to spend four years getting an old-fashioned liberal arts education.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The college guide I was looking for. July 23, 2011

By KMB

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I love this book! It is fun to read, and filled with useful information. Left-leaning people might not like it, but only if they don't want to hear other opinions on campus. This book helps you find colleges which support freedom of speech. It has a lot of other information that helps you get the "feel" of the school.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars NOT for Liberals December 7, 2011

By R. Tarbell

Format:Paperback

The authors of this book are cultural conservatives, and their agenda is conservative. The book makes this very clear, without any pretense of being neutral. They also achieve their goal quite admirably. With few exceptions, every major university in America is reviewed. This includes Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Notre Dame, Tulane, Ohio State, Texas A&M and more. Well known smaller liberal arts colleges, like Williams, Tufts, Davidson, Reed, Kenyon, St. Olaf, and Whitman are also covered along with some of the authors favorites like Thomas Aquinas College and Hillsdale.

The authors are devoted to a number of principles:

1 - Liberal arts education (as opposed to professional or pre-professional training)
2 - Core curriculum of required courses, especially those taught from an historical perspective
3 - Lack of liberal bias (they don't mind conservative bias much) in the classroom
4 - A campus which encourages free speech, particularly free speech by conservatives and Christians

The Editor in Chief, John Zmirak, is a conservative Catholic with a sense of humor. Take a look at the Amazon listings for his "The Bad Catholics Guide to..." books. The same humor occasionally shows itself here. Like most conservatives, he has little respect for the left, however he appears to have no real problems with either fundamentalist Christians (nor their colleges) or non-Christians.

Reviews of the colleges in this book are extensive and detailed, including recommendations on courses, and professors, which a conservative might wish to take in order to get a traditional liberal arts education (see they actually do not dislike the word "liberal").... Although the book certainly pokes fun at the left at various colleges (and liberal departments in relatively conservative schools) the bulk of the book is seriously dedicated to helping students find a good education; even at left leaning schools.

The schools that they like include Princeton, University of Chicago, Pepperdine, Tulane, and Baylor. The ones they don't like include Holy Cross, Amherst, Bryn Mawr, Duke, and Stanford. All in all, from a conservative perspective, they do a very good job of justifying their judgments; which, by the way, are rather nuanced. For example, even though they do not like Holy Cross, the authors do praise its Classics program and the Political Science Department. This is not a broad brush approach!

Other reviewers seem to misunderstand the nature of the book's "green light," "yellow light," and "red light" designation for each school. This designation does not cover every aspect of the college, only its perceived attitude and behavior toward conservative speech. A "green light" often means nothing more than that most professors and students do not care about politics one way or the other. "Red light" means the institution or the students are openly hostile to conservative perspectives. This frequently means that a rather left wing college will still get a green light, as long as it is respectful toward dissenting conservatives. Reed College in Oregon would be such an example.

Other than the green, yellow, and red lights, the book does not rank or otherwise sort these schools. There is no best or worst college in this book. The extensive descriptions allow readers to judge for themselves whether a particular school would be suitable for them or their child.

In addition to the academic and "political" aspects of a campus, the book provides information on tuition costs, extracurricular activities, crime rates on and off campus, fraternities, dormitory regulations, and social life at the campus. Also provided are basic statistics such SAT and ACT scores, graduation rates, and total enrollment for each college. All in all, this is a very through and well written guide. Seems to me that conservative families should start here when they begin considering college for their children.

Still, it is not quite perfect. First, it is not comprehensive. Many of your favorite schools might be left out. A book cannot be this thorough and cover every school. The fact that Auburn University is covered here but not the University of Alabama might disappoint Crimson Tide fans but should not be taken as bias. The line had to be drawn somewhere. Although inherent, this is a weakness and families will need to do their own research for schools not listed. Second, I get the suspicion that some of the methodology is flawed. At a minimum, the methodology is not clear. The authors use reports from students and professors at each college, but there is little clue as to how many students or professors are providing input. We can wonder too, how reliable is the input from these students and professors? The previous edition, 2010-2011, stated that one student at Furman University reported an "underlying tension between Catholics and Protestants" at the school. This is not reported in this 2012-2013 edition, having been replaced by a statement that tensions between Catholics and Baptists have "mostly evaporated." The question is, how many reports does it take to confirm such statements? Apparently, sometimes the answer is "one." Thus, I recommend that the authors make a couple of changes. First, they should state how many students and professors are reporting from each campus, and second, don't take single reports as being true. I doubt that this issue has resulted in serious bias or wildly inaccurate reports, but it is best to be on the safe side.

In summary, this is a serious reference book by conservatives with a sly sense of humor but a clear agenda. It is well written and exceptionally thorough -- almost too thorough. Certainly liberals are not going to find it helpful, but conservatives will, and moderates probably will find a ton of useful information here too.

P.S. Frugal readers who own the previous edition of this book might not need to purchase this one. Only a few additional schools are reviewed and most of the text has not been revised much, although a handful of "green lights" have turned "yellow" and vice versa. All statistics appear to have been updated however. Read more ›

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Un-Biased... January 18, 2012

By Mr. Contrarian

Format:Paperback

Yet, very opinionated. If you don't know the difference between being biased and being opinionated, then perhaps you aren't as well educated as you think you are.

This book, CHOOSING THE RIGHT COLLEGE, is stridently conservative. It is not "right wing." It is not backward. It is not biased. Sarah Palin does not value education the way this book does.

Its obvious goal is to help serious conservatives choose an appropriate college for their children. Along the way it takes more than a few swipes at liberal concepts such as "diversity" and "multi-culturalism." A person would have to be exceedingly naive to think that the book is politically balanced. They would also be naive to think that college campuses are not already political battlefields.

One of the virtues of this book is that it does make clear that colleges are political battlefields. It is unsurprising that the left would be offended. They prefer to pretend that colleges are bastions of value neutral, open inquiry. That makes it easier to indoctrinate the students. Now, lest readers suspect me of bias, I should point out that there is a solid contingent on the right which simply has no use for ecology, despite overwhelming evidence of environmental degradation. So everybody, anywhere along the political spectrum, get your head out of the sand. Politics is practiced in the classroom. Let's talk about what to do about that.

The book is not biased, but it might very well be hypocritical, or slightly muddled. I am not so sure that it is as true to conservative principles as it claims. It actually is trying to advance at least four different sets of values, which are not necessarily compatible....

First, apparently the author of the book is a Catholic and thus tends to praise the most conservative Catholic schools, such as Ava Maria and Creighton, precisely for their adherence to Vatican policies. But, a second value is, strangely, libertarian; especially libertarian economics. However, the Catholic church is not and never has embraced any form of libertarianism. Plus, no serious libertarian separates economic libertarianism from social libertarianism. In other words, to be in favor of unfettered economics goes hand in hand with the legalization of marijuana and abortion. True libertarians understand this. The author of this book seems not to get it.

A third value promoted in this book is political free speech. I am not fully convinced that the author believes this. Certainly he wants conservatives to be able to speak freely on campuses. But does he really believe that liberals should be equally free? Well, he makes it clear that he was one of those Catholics who complained when Obama gave a commencement speech at Notre Dame. That would be a form of hypocrisy, or at least a double standard.

The most noble value of this book, a fourth value, is that of a liberal arts education. I completely applaud the author's apparent commitment to those colleges that have a core curriculum of required courses, which require extensive reading and writing, which give the study of history a very high priority, and which downplay the notion of professional or pre-professional training at the undergraduate level. The author is on the right track here and is to be applauded. Indeed, I think this, in itself, makes the book valuable. However, I do have some doubts about how deeply committed he is to a liberal arts education. Several of the colleges and universities which he likes in this book are simply not particularly good, even if they are relatively conservative (Additional mediocre colleges are praised on the associated website). From what I can tell the author would prefer that a college be conservative than that it provide an excellent education. College is about removing ignorance and acquiring skills -- not about politics. Let's get both liberal and conservative politics out of the classroom.

POSTSCRIPT
For those who might care where I am coming from, whether I am a leftist, or a right winger. Consider the following:

- I voted for Obama
- I think Obama's health care reform bill will make the system worse, much worse, not better.
- I think Obama's foreign policy decisions are close to as good as it gets these days. Far better than Bush's (which is why I voted for Obama).
- I believe that the single most important issue of the 21st century is the environment; especially global warming. If we mess this up, nothing else matters -- at all! The second most important issue is the global economy. These two issues might very well be at odds with one another. In other words, avoiding global warming might result in an economy which nobody wishes to be part of.
- Like the author of this book, I am Catholic.
- I graduated from one of the state universities which this author likes, but would not go there again because its emphasis is not on liberal arts but on science and engineering.
- It is my opinion that idealism has no place in politics. "Politics is the art of the possible" -- unfortunately I forget who coined that phrase (it wasn't me). Let's make the world a better place, one step at time. Fast, full fledged, revolutions end in chaos or dictatorship. Reform? yes. Revolution? no.
- I believe that college students are in no position to make political judgments. Heck, most have no idea what kind of job they want. They do have the right to vote but, in general, politics is a distraction from their education. Let's teach them how we got to where we are, through the study of history. We cannot move forward when we don't fully understand where we've been. Read more ›