Customer Reviews

The Insider's Guide to the Colleges, 2007: Students on Campus Tell You What You Really Want to Know, 33nd Edition (Insiders' Guide to the Colleges: ... Campus Tell You What You Really Want to Know)

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

 

 

This book provides a good basic set of data and student comments on most of the colleges we're considering. A good companion is "Students' Guide to Colleges," which covers only the top 100 colleges, but is brutally honest. This Insider's Guide tends to present a pretty positive view of each college, although it provides a little more insight than just looking at the college's own website or viewbook. The Insider's Guide has colleges grouped by state. I think Insider's Guide gives us useful information about each college: the physical campus, the dorms and food, the use of drugs and alcohol, the types of activities students typically enjoy (sports, arts, whatever).

Great reference to get an opinion on a number of different schools. As long as you keep in mind that it is only one point of view. My dautghter and her friends have used it substanially - it may at least help you narrow the field for potential visits or enrollments.

Excellent book would recommend it for those at the front end of their search!

I think it's disgusting the lack of research Yale Daily News put into this 2007 guide. There are a hundred things wrong with this guide, but just from opening to the school I go to (University of Delaware), and seeing that one of the things I have to do before I graduate is "go to the Stone Balloon," I could tell this book was just a new cover to the 2006 with updated admissions statistics. The Stone Balloon, a historic University of Delaware Bar and Music Hall, announced more than a year ago that it was going to be knocked down and replaced by condiminiums on Main Street. This was true, and it was closed for the spring, and camera crews were there at the beginning of the summer to see huge bulldozers knock it over. Pretty sad that NO ONE will be able to fulfill the Insider's Guide's instructions. Sweet life Yale...do some research and stop making money reprinting the same "best-selling" book each year

This book provides some insight into the college life that only those who are enrolled can give. It is good to find out details on the school to avoid enrolling in a school and then finding things out when you get there that you don't like. This needs to be read in conjunction with Fisk's Guide to Colleges before you spend money and time on visiting schools. It can help you find the college that matches you and what you are seeking both academically and socially.

i thought that this book would cover more colleges. While the information on the schools it did cover were detailed and helpful many of he schools we were intersted in finding out about were not listed. the preface and information in the beginning of the book are good and do answer many questions a college student might be interested in such as how to handle the interview and what colleges are politically active.

The book's jacket announces somewhat presumptuously: "students on campus tell you what you really want to know."

My kids are interested in pre-med and business. My neighbor's kid is interested in pre-law. Clearly the Yale Daily News Staff assumes we don't want to know about the average scores undergraduates make on the standardized tests they take in college.

Yet, a high school kid thinking ahead to professional schooling might well want to know how students do on the MCAT, GMAT or LSAT tests at different colleges. Just like the undergrad schools that use SAT scores as one factor in their admissions process, high school students could use this later college test information as one factor in their choice of schools.

But high school students are out of luck. These data aren't included in the Common Data Set, and the Yale Daily News Staff doesn't ask for them.

The Yale Daily News Staff also assumes that we don't want any hard data about campus crime. They ignore completely the information that colleges must make publicly available under the Clery Act.

Instead we get chirpy PR snippets such as that reported for the University of Pennsylvania: "Some students are concerned for their safety in the local community, but most people agree that safety in the area has 'really improved recently'." They deftly duck the issue of just how bad safety was before and what today's crime numbers are.

It's just another don't-rock-the-boat and somewhat lazy effort by a college guidebook publisher.