185 of 191 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Much better than Fisk's or USNews College Guides, August 18, 2000
This review is from: Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools You Should Know About Even If You're Not a Straight-A Student (Paperback)
I used to have herd mentality. I thought schools like Harvard, Yale and Stanford are the best. I moved to Northern California to get close to Stanford and Berkeley. Then, I read "Profscam" and "The Hollow Man" by Charles Sykes and I was greatly disappointed in our higher education (for more information also read "Tenured Radicals" and "Illiberal Education" by other authors). The Fisk's and USNews & World Report college guides mention none of the cancerous problems mentioned in Sykes' books.
The colleges metioned in this book "Colleges that change lives" do not have the problems mentioned in Sykes' books.
Now on the positive side, the 40 colleges profiled in this book are gems. Mr. Pope has done a great service for the parents, students, society and especially our country. He has done excellent research. He personally visited these campuses, some several times. Buy this book. Read it and tell your neighbors about it. Buy a copy for your children's high school counselors.
In this 2nd edition 3 colleges have been removed: Bard, Franklin & Marshall and Grinnell. Three are added: Ursinus, Agnes Scott and Wabash. Also added are 2 sections: one section for Learning Disabled and another for Homeschooler.
We all love our children and want to do our best for them. It is important to find out what their natural gifts and talents are. When they know what they are naturally gifted in they can make intelligent choice about what kind of college profiled in this book they should attend. Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation provides excellent methods in finding out what a person's natural talents are.
All in all, this book deserves 20 stars!!! The best collge guide there is. And never let a small volume fool you. It is packed with gems.
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138 of 143 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Next time, Mr. Pope, please make it "new"...not "revised", August 28, 2000
This review is from: Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools You Should Know About Even If You're Not a Straight-A Student (Paperback)
Loren Pope's "Colleges That Change Lives" is arguably the best, and certainly one of the most influential, college guide books ever published in the U.S. Over the past five years its stature, along with that of its companion book,"Looking Beyond the Ivy League", has grown to the point that it is a "must read" for any college bound junior or senior, parents, and high school guidance counselors. Meticulously researched and beautifully argued, the message in "Colleges That Change Lives" about the continued developmental growth impact of certain types of liberal arts colleges even manages to supercede the excellent profiles of the specific 40 colleges in highlighted in the book. When my oldest son applied to college several years ago, he focused largely on colleges in the book, and we have all been very pleased with his progress at one of them (Denison). In that sense, the book itself has already helped change many lives.
That being said, the revised edition of the book is somewhat of a disappointment. Yes, three colleges have been changed (the dropped ones are now probably not accepting many students with less than A- averages, hence they no longer fit the strict definition implied by the book's subtitle!). And yes, there is a solid new chapter about ADD and learning disorder issues as they relate to these types of schools. BUT the rest of the updates are superficial, at best. Quotes from students and teachers that appeared in the first edition are still there. Mr. Pope's own insights and conclusions about the colleges are repeated verbatim. One gets the impression that he and/or the editors made some quick phone calls to the schools that Mr. Pope visited so exhaustively for the first edition, then changed a few sentences here and there. In short, virtually all the views, quotes and anecdotes from students, teachers, and even Mr. Pope himself are now literally over five years old. To put that into an obvious perspective, that's longer than an entire four year undergraduate cycle. Surely the changes at some, if not most, of these schools deserve a more up to date assessment at ground level. Yes, it would have taken six months of research to visit all of the schools again in depth, but that is something that Mr. Pope's readers have a right to expect.
Beyond this, perhaps the other perspective missing from this "revised" edition is some discussion on the growing importance of at least some technology knowledge becoming integral to a liberal arts education. By that I'm not referring to a specific, point-in-time, base of technical knowledge (Mr. Pope does a wonderful job arguing why this is generally irrelevant), but rather the importance of developing a technical perspective in the context of "even" a liberal arts education. How are different liberal arts colleges doing on that front? In particular, how are the 40 profiled here doing? We don't know because the question itself was not yet as relevant in the early days of the mid 1990s digital/internet revolution as it is today.
The above criticisms notwithstanding, "Colleges That Change Lives" is still an important book - as much for the perspective it provides as for the general feel of the colleges it covers. Let's just hope that the next edition of Mr. Pope's superb, originally groundbreaking book will not include quotes and perspectives that otherwise by then would be almost a decade old!
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28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent unconventional wisdom!, October 1, 1998
By A Customer
This book was a key factor in college selection for our seventh child to attend college. Without it, she would probably be at a top-name university which is best suited for graduate students, and not the community of learning of a small liberal arts school. What's more, she was offered merit scholarships (not need-based) from 7 of 8 of the schools on Pope's list to which she applied. (The so-called "top" universities give very few merit-based scholarships). She is in her second year at the College of Wooster, and I believe that she is happier and receiving a better college experience than she would have at Duke, where she was also accepted. The only drawbacks are that very few have heard of these schools, and the nearly-universal "conventional wisdom" fails to recognize the important truths that Loren Pope's books explain. His book "Looking Beyond the Ivies," was also helpful. This book may turn your college search upside down!
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