Fiske Guide to Colleges 2009, 25E (Paperback)

by Edward Fiske (Author)
Key Phrases: total enrollment, first year experience, venture program, Phi Beta Kappa, Email Address, Financial Aid (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Any prospective college student should certainly purchase a copy of this book. Fiske's Guide to College 2008 will become your virtual bible as you begin and progress through the difficult and often overwhelming college admissions process. (Kristy Novoa Helium.com )

I'm a fan of the Fiske Guide to Colleges. Each profiled school is described by a well-crafted 1,000 to 2,500 word essay that draws on information from students, administrators, and independent research. The book is pleasingly readable with concise side boxes containing numerical data on SAT scores, retention rates, acceptance rates, and so on.

Don't expect a ton of objective data in the Fiske Guide to Colleges. The lover of numbers would do better with the U.S. News and World Report Ultimate College Guide or Peterson's Four-Year Colleges. That said, numbers rarely tell the story of a school effectively. The essays in the Fiske Guide employ both subjective and objective information to capture the real "feel" of a school. Since picking the perfect college is more about a personality match than anything numerical, Fiske's efforts to capture the personalities of the schools should be applauded. (Allen Grove About.com )

Product Description

For more than 20 years, this leading guide to more than 300 colleges and universities has been an indispensable source of information for college-bound students and their parents. Hip, honest and straightforward, the Fiske Guide to Colleges delivers an insider's look at the academic climates and the social and extracurricular scenes at the "best and most interesting" schools in the U.S., plus Canada and Great Britain.

The Fiske Guide to Colleges 2009 is a tool to help you make the most intelligent educational investment you can. With The Fiske Guide to Colleges 2009, you'll get:

• The #1 Bestselling College Guide
• The guide that is most trusted by guidance counselors, students, and parents
• A book packed with tips from current students about the ins and outs of their schools Fiske's exclusive academic, social, and quality-of-life ratings for each school

"I happen to prefer the Fiske Guide for its combination of compressive facts and figures and personal anecdotes and descriptions of each campus. They may take a bit longer to read than a quick reference guide, but each entry leaves you with an indelible impression of the academic and social life at the college in question."

- Excerpt from The Truth About Getting In, by Katherine Cohen, founder of IvyWise

The Fiske Guide to Colleges 2009 also includes:

• Fiske's exclusive academic, social and quality-of-life ratings
• The 40+ schools that deliver the best education at the most reasonable costs
• Lists of each school's strongest majors and programs
• Candid tips from each school's current students
• A self-quiz to help understand which college is right for a student
• Vital information on how to apply
• "Overlap" listings to help students expand their options
• Selectivity statistics and SAT and ACT ranges

(20080908)

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Product Details

• Paperback: 848 pages
• Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.; 25 edition (July 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1402209592
• ISBN-13: 978-1402209598
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 8.3 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #10,528 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Standard Guide to Colleges, November 13, 2008

By	Henry W. Gilligan (Maryland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The "Fiske Guide to Colleges" is probably the best known college guide in the country. This is the guide you will want to buy when you would like to read descriptions of most of the colleges that you have probably heard of. Most of the colleges and universities that the average high school student would be interested in are included. One feature that will appeal to many high school students is the ratings of a college's academics, social life, and quality of life. The social life opportunities at a college are an important consideration to a lot of today's teens. The guide rates the college's social life possibilities on a scale of 1 to 5 - with 5 being the highest. It has a similar 1 to 5 rating of each college's academic credentials that is based upon the school's reputation, the quality of its faculty, the quality of its facilities, the academic abilities of its students, and the academic seriousness of its students and faculty. There is also a 1 to 5 rating for the quality of life a school offers it students. This rating, however, seems somewhat difficult to pin down in terms of how it would affect any given student.

In some ways, the "Fiske Guide to Colleges" is the antithesis of books like "Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About Colleges". Whereas the "Colleges That Change Lives" book extols the advanages of small liberal arts colleges, the Fiske Guide seems to extol Ivy League and Ivy League wannabe schools. In fact, the author actually hints that the real reason some people say liberal arts colleges provide a better undergraduate education than Ivy League schools is due to sour grapes because they were not smart enough to get into the Ivy League schools!

Regardless of the reasons some people think small liberal arts colleges provide a better undergraduate education, there are some legitimate things to consider about the ratings in the Fiske Guide. First, the ratings and descriptions are subjective. They come from questionaires and interviews with those associated with the colleges. Ideally, it would have been nice if there would be some way to objectively consider every aspect of how a college meets the needs of various types of students. Unfortunately, there is no practical way to do that when considering so many colleges. Second, schools that the guide rates the highest academically tend to be the country's most prestigious schools (i.e., Ivy League and Ivy League wannabe schools), while most small private 4-year colleges are mostly rated academically average. However, the ratings cannot capture the value of smaller class sizes, a closer relationship of professors to their students, and a faculty in general more devoted to teaching than to research and publishing. Third, the guide's academic ratings do not prove that a school with world renown professors will give the typical undergraduate student much (if any) opportunity to learn directly from those professors. In fact, most of their classes will probably be taught by teaching assistants rather than the professors themselves. Finally, while reading the views of students at each college provides useful information about that particular college, it does not provide much in the way of comparative information. Most students will say good things about their colleges during interviews that they know will be published. The interviewed students have not attended the other colleges and are not in position to say their college is better than the others.

Despite its shortcomings, the "Fiske Guide to Colleges" is a valuable resource to have when evaluating colleges and universities. It provides College descriptions, and it includes ratings and statistics that most people will find useful.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Detailed information with useful student feedback, August 25, 2008

By	Laura Boyle (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This is one of the best college guides out there. It has a lot of great detailed information on the colleges including quotes from students. The number of colleges profiled is just right--enough to provide some options but not so many that it's overwhelming. I really like how Fiske shares which colleges are similar to the one you're interested in. That makes the college search a little easier.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A useful guide!, October 3, 2008

By	Tamara L. Black (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The Fiske Guide presents thorough information on a remarkable number of schools. In addition to basic enrollment statistics, this book provides up-to-date contact information for admissions departments, enrollment deadlines, a list of the school's strongest programs/departments, a list of similar ("overlap") schools for each college or university, and an in-depth discussion of academic and social life at each school. Well-researched and accurate. I am an academic counselor, and I refer to this book *constantly*. It is far superior to other college guides I have read. A must-have for anyone embarking on the college search process.