Customer Reviews

The Fiske Guide to Colleges

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

 

 

Unlike many college guides that confuse the quality of student's who get accepted or rejected as a measure of the quality of the education, the Fiske guide attempts to go beyond mere stats and numbers. So, while you will find Median test scores, number of applicatants and percent accepted, you will also find ratings on quality of academics, quality of life, overlaps, etc. Especially helpful are the guides to each school's strongest (as opposed to most popular)departments. Beyond the stats listed for each school, there are fairly long essays on each school, so that you get a real feel for the culture of each school. This is both Fiske's strength and weakness. While it is helpful to learn that at Northwestern "some call the political atomosphere 'apathetic'" - a fact demonstrated during the Iraq War earlier this year, these essays do NOT get "Entirely Updated Every Year" as the cover claims for the guide. The stats for Harvey Mudd are identical in every way in both the 2001 and 2004 edition - down to the number of applicants (1517)and percent of male/female - something I find hard to believe. Further the essay for the school says "the computer science major has been considered weak in the past but students say there have been improvements" That's in both editions as well - and i have no way of knowing whether the 2001 copied 2000, etc - so that information is at best out of date and those students long gone. Fiske needs to flag statements like that where they talk about ongoing changes in the essays and follow-up on them. Still, its a great way to begin narrowing down choices based on what a college offers students, not just what a student offers the college's applicant-ranking numbers game.

This is one of the best college guides I have ever read. It's very informative and it's ratings of the academic, social etc. aspects of the colleges give a very nice scope. What I like most about it is that it lists the strongest majors in each college, not just the most popular ones...the first book I have seen with this.
I've heard that the essays aren't entirely updated each year, like advertised, but I haven't bought any of the previous versions, and the essays are still very helpful.
One of the BEST

Although my high school senior daughter and I are finding this book to have good information, we both noted that every review tells you how great the school is. You can still distinguish the differences between schools based on your own filters, but after you have read two or three reviews, it starts to feel more like marketing material than like "tell it like it is" analysis.

I thought this would be a great "second opinion" to the popular U.S. News & World Report. I was greatly mistaken. It listed the biggest, best known schools, and left out many many schools that are medium, or smaller size, and/or lesser known. It listed only 2 Ky. schools! This book would be helpful to someone considering ONLY the biggest/most popular name schools. Those desiring a thorough search to find their best fit need to go elsewhere. I agree with a previous reviewer that the school descriptions were all so favorable, that one really couldn't evaluate properly. This book will be donated to local high school library as soon as I can get rid of it.

There are many books that cover this subject but none does as good a job as Fiske. The book is well written, has fascinating information and was very helpful.

It is written much better than any of the other guides.

This is a perennial leader in college reference books. It has near everything about near every college. So, how do you make the right choice? The answer is, understand the real purpose of college education as told by the greatest educators, such as education pioneer Thomas Jefferson. To understand, I suggest you read the book based on Thomas Jefferson's wisdom called "West Point: Character Leadership Education: Thomas Jefferson" by Norman Thomas Remick before you make any decisions. It's a heads up. It will help you make the right decision so that you will have no regrets later down the road. It brings the real purpose of education into clear focus for you before you go on to pour over the colleges in Edward B. Fiske's "The Fiske Guide To Colleges 2004"

I was disappointed that there were only reviews of about five or six New Jersey colleges. I was expecting a larger representation. Schools such as Montclair and Ramapo were absent from the catalogue.
I was considering returning the book, but there was other material in the book that could prove useful so I decided to save myself the trouble and just keep it.

300 colleges reviewed by tri-delts, "oh our school is so cool", some real info would be nice.