In turn, the colleges, for their part—and for all their noble intentions—are still businesses, and need to make money. That means they want to be able to draw in as many students as possible. And that means that, like any business, they are always putting their best foot forward. So, even when you do visit a college, the things that may be less than ideal about that school—and, in particular, the aspects of the college that may not be a good match for your personal, individual needs—are not likely to jump out at you.
That’s why, when you visit colleges—and you should visit colleges, as many as possible before you make your final selection—you need to do a little informed investigating, to learn about the quality of life on campus in ways that the colleges do not automatically tell you. Spying On The College Of Your Choice is your guide to hundreds of questions you can ask, and hundreds of issues you can choose to explore, in order to ensure that you identify the right college for your needs.
Spying On The College Of Your Choice is the most in-depth book on the market that focuses specifically, and in extensive detail, on the kinds of questions you should be asking when you visit college campuses. By asking many probing questions during your campus visits, you will learn more things about the colleges, and also about yourself. You will discover which colleges or universities are the best matches for you.
Besides hundreds of suggestions for questions to ask during campus visits, the book also offers advice on how to select an initial list of colleges, how to get advice from adults in your local community (adults other than just your parents, teachers, and guidance counselor), how to prepare for your campus visits, and how to interview people effectively. Spying On The College Of Your Choices also offers extensive coaching on how to interpret the information you get. That includes not only how to really understand the answers you get from people on campus; but also how to critically interpret college catalogs, Web sites, and even the sales videos and DVDs the colleges send out these days.
What the book does not offer (because it’s fair to let you know this) is specific information on specific schools. You can get some of that information from other college hunting guides. But of course, the best way to get that information is to ask good questions during your campus visits.
There are other books that offer advice on how to make use of your visits to college campuses. But Spying On The College Of Your Choice has the most in-depth, most extended discussion of things you might want to ask about. Most other books devote a chapter, maybe two, to the subject of your campus visit. The nearest competing book is physically smaller, runs less than 160 pages (compared to 270 for Spying On The College Of Your Choice), and fully half of that book is devoted to how you handle your interview when the college interviews you. That "other book" certainly has some useful things to offer, and might be a good supplement to Spying On The College Of Your Choice; but it’s simply not nearly as in-depth concerning the questions and issues you need to explore, and the information you need to gather, when you visit campuses. Spying On The College Of Your Choice has 270 pages dealing almost exclusively with making the best use of your time during campus visits. (A few chapters relate to gathering information off-campus, and to transferring to other colleges if, in fact, you are an unhappy student at your current college.) The discussion includes not just questions, but the context: extended explorations of college academics, housing, social life, dating life, campus politics and economics, and many other facets of college life.
In addition to being helpful to high school students, Spying On The College Of Your Choice is also intended to help parents, and high school guidance counselors and teachers who are coaching high school students on their college choices. The book also has an extended appendix for current college students who are considering transferring to other colleges.
