Customer Reviews

The Insider's Guide to the Colleges, 2005: Students on Campus Tell You What You Really Want to Know, 31st Edition (Insiders' Guide to the Colleges: ... Campus Tell You What You Really Want to Know)

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

 

 

My son and I went through the college searching process in the past year (he'll start college next month), and we went through quite a bit of literature in our quest. Some of it serious, some of it not so serious.

"The Insider's Guide to the Colleges 2005" is one of those to be taken not too seriously. If anything, I would suggest this is a good book to read, when your son or daughter is close to making a decision, and (s)he wants to find confirmation of impressions already made. My son concentrated his college search to colleges in the southern half of Ohio, and having visited a number of them, the descriptions in this book seem on target, in a general "gut check" kinda way.

I certainly would not recommend this book as the most essential book to read when starting off on your college search. But it is a fun, irrevent look at the college scene, and the book should be taken as such, nothing more.

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 one has 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 gave a three star rating because general information is put in the same place. But there are a lot better books out there. So unless your just skimming the book while your in a book store, steer clear of this one.

Selecting a college has to be one of the most frustrating and overwhelming tasks for students and parents alike. As an experienced high school counselor, I use this book as the "icing" to determine how well the personality of the school matches my students' desires and comfort levels. The internet and the "big books" offer great statistical information, but "The Insiders' Guide" can help a students visualize what it would be like to actually live and go to school there. I highly recommend it, and often do!

So, according to this guide every school must be either...

a) A "party school" where the students are inebriated a greater percentage of the time than they spend in class. It turns out that the tuition and board at these schools are merely cover charges for the four years of parties and jam-band concerts. Chances are you'll miss the majority of your classes due to hangovers, so don't even bother with the academics.

or

b) A "nerd school" where the social life is defined by the number of people in your study group. Forget parties and fun at these schools kids, it's off to the library...Did we mention the lackluster "male to female ratio"...funny, considering they mention that for an all-male school...

Use this in conjuction with another guide such as Barrons or Fiske, and take everything with a grain of salt.