Customer Reviews

The Insider's Guide to the Colleges 2004: 30th Edition

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

 

 

I found this book to be quite useless. A lot of the information is old and outdated. There is much better, and more unbiased information available on the various college forums. There is so much redundancy in this book that it makes you wonder if any real research was done (I mean, how many campuses are engulfed in Ambercromie and Fitch, or are rated by Playboy for this or that, or you should bring a warm jacket - DUH). They raved about my alma mater, SUNY-Binghamton, being a diverse student body. Oh please - 96% of the kids from the greater NYC area. They might be different colors or whatever, but they are not diverse. For another school, Alfred Univ, they talk about the frats. Alfred got rid of its frats in 2002. Those are just a couple of the examples of poor information.

30 years ago, this book was one of the most valuable resources you could find when researching colleges. It wasn't just that it was witty and stuffed with information you would NEVER find in another college guide such as party life, drug use on campus, sexual mores, true access to professors, etc., but that in the small amount of space alloted to each college, it managed to sum up pretty well what a normal student's experience might be at that school.

I distinctly remember the review of my college (Kenyon): "At the end of the first year, you know everyone; at the end of the third year, you know everyone too well..."

This assessment would NEVER make it into the NEW Insider's Guide, which shouldn't even have "insider's" in the title. The new editions have been written by "insiders" from the admissions department and include the same information found in the public relations material put out by the colleges. If you want this information, you can get it free from the universities. If you want anything more, you will have to find it somewhere else. I am frankly surprised that this book, in this format has survived this long.

I am finding this book really useful in narrowing down my college options. It really goes beyond the statistics to give you a feel for the schools and the atmosphere you would be entering if you went there. I have found the descriptions to be very accurate, and that it lists both the pros and the cons of the schools. This book covers everything- from how selective the schools are, to the estimated costs/financial aid, to the party scene, etc.

I bought this book, and I looked at what the book said about my college (Pitzer) and everything you could pick off the website they got right. But as many have said before me, they get A LOT wrong. For example they say the school has two places students can eat, mentioning a place called "The Gold Mine," they mention this place a number of times, yet it does not exist. They talk about "nick names" that everyone calls the dorm buildings, nicknames that I have NEVER heard. Another example is the big fair that Pitzer has each year, there is a very strange story behind how the fair started. If they asked anyone on campus about the fair, they would could tell them the story. Yet the book says its a fair celebrating the coming of spring. Why would a college located in southern CA, with warm weather year round have a fair celebrating the coming of warm weather in the rest of the country? Yale kids are smarter then that? Arn't they?

I am a writer for the guide, and I can tell you that the information contained in the guide is written directly from interviews with students. Stating otherwise is a complete lie, and I can tell you from experience that the interview process involves contacting *students* from the schools and asking an endless list of questions which are compiled into the reports that are contained in this book. Have fun reading it! I'll say it again: if you read the articles you'll see that it was certainly not written by any admissions office.

This book is not a good guide when it comes to choosing a school. It doesn't change from year to year and its reviews are very misleading. I now attend Tulane Univeristy and the Insider's review of Tulane is completely wrong in my opinion. I'm glad I visited Tulane, because that visit was all I needed to know that the Insider's Guide was way offtrack. Tulane has been changing rapidly in the past ten years and this guide does not take those changes into account. I doubt that in the next edition they will even mention how the school responded to Hurricane Katrina, which was a tremendous effort. Also, the statistics they have for Tulane are wrong. I don't recommend this book at all.

This is a decent guide for the most part. The trouble is that the authors' biases are clear when they review Yale's "rival" schools. Is anyone surprised that this book makes Yale out to be the flawless shining star of the Ivy League and Harvard, Princeton, et al. to be overrated, filled with unhappy students, etc.? The not-so-subtle advertising compromises the book's integrity where the Ivy League is concerned. If those are the schools that interest you, Fiske and Princeton Review are better bets.

The book is NOT biased at all when it comes to reviewing the Ivy League (or other schools), including Yale. Everything in this book is more or less accurate because it is the ONLY guide that is updated every year, and the ONLY guide that interviews many students in order to get a complete picture. Don't trust the other guides; they keep information exactly the same, year after year.

I find this to be a great general resource for statistics, commentaries, and lots of other information. Outside of the scope of a resource such as "The Insider's Guide.." is an explanation of the real purpose of higher education, something you should understand when thinking about and choosing a college. As an advisor, a book I recommend that is excellent for that purpose is "West Point: Thomas Jefferson: Character Leadership Education" by Norman Thomas Remick. After going through "The Insider's Guide to Colleges 2004", read the Remick book before you make a decision that could be a lifetime mistake.