Peterson's Four-Year Colleges 2008

By Peterson's

A staple for anyone researching college, this guide is packed with information on more than 2,500 colleges in the U.S. and Canada. This volume contains three books in one: profiles of colleges, need-to-know information from college officials, and a majors listing for each school."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0768924006
• ISBN13: 9780768924008
• Release Date: June 2007
• Publisher: Petersons
• Length: 2823 Pages
• Weight: 5.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.8" x 2.5" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Awesome Book

It is a magnificent book. You'd have thought it was was Christmas the way my 14 year old daughter opened the box. She's going into the 9th grade and is already planning her college career. It makes a father proud. Thanks for living up the the almost new promotion, when in fact, I doubt it was ever cracked open. Bryan Carlile

Tons of information

I found this book to be very helpful in exploring colleges and options. The information is very thorough and accurate. I would recommend this book to anyone!

Major overhaul in presentation (but not substance)

My youngest just started college a few weeks ago, so I'm officially done with the college-search process but when I saw this at my local library, I couldn't resist picking this up out of curiosity, and imagine my surprise when I flipped through this. "Petersen's Four Year Colleges - 2009 Edition" (2,897 pages--it should be sold "by the pound"!) is essentially 2 books in 1. On the one hand there are the 'hard cold facts', presenting a summary of about 2,200 colleges around the US. On the average, all colleges get about half a page description. Very helpful is that the colleges are lumped state-by-state, because, let's face it, most college students remain in their home state. The other part of the book is a more in-depth (two pages) profile of about 1,000 colleges. It is important to understand that those in-depth profiles are NOT written up by the book's editors, but instead by the colleges themselves (and the colleges have paid for this placement). Thus, a 2 page profile on GW and American, but not on Georgetown. The HUGE difference with earlier editions is that these college-provided profiles follow immediately after the state-by-state summaries of all the colleges. I found the book more useful that my daughter did, when we used this. For one, because the book is so huge and outright heavy, it's not user-friendly from that perspective. That said, there is no denying that there is tons of great information in this book, including at the front (in earlier editions if was at the end) of the book 200 pages of colleges by major (which is VERY helpful if you are into a specific area of interest--as an example, you can major in "Textile Science" in only 2 colleges in the country), as well as by entrance difficulty and cost ranges. Another reason I like the book is that for most colleges it does have the latest (08-09) figures for tuition, room and board, and other miscellaneous charges. Hence I read that the total cost for attending GW (where I went to grad school) is now over $50,000. PER YEAR. Unbelievable. Ultimately, this is a book to get when your son or daughter is at the very beginning of their college search and is simply looking to get some basic information. On that level, the book performs well. But after the initial looking around, there are other resources that should be checked out, such as the Princeton Reviews 2009 edition of "The Best 368 Colleges".

Great book at a great price!

This book was highly recommended by my son's ACT tutor. It arrived very quickly and we immediately began reviewing the contents. Great information for any high school student that wants to read about different colleges/universities. It has a section that lists schools by major that was extremely helpful too!

A good place to get initial data on colleges

I am on my last college searching tour: my youngest is just starting her senior year, and she has narrowed down her list colleges of interest to her to about 8 or 10. "Petersen's Four Year Colleges - 2008 Edition" (2,823 pages--it should be sold "by the pound"!) is essentialy 2 books in 1. The first 1,060 pages of the book present a summary of about 2,200 colleges around the US. On the average, all colleges get about half a page description. Very helpful is that the colleges are lumped state-by-state, because, let's face it, most college students remain in their home state. The second part of the book is a more in-depth (two pages) profile of about 1,000 colleges. It is important to understand that those in-depth profiles are NOT written up by the book's editors, but instead by the colleges themselves (and the colleges have paid for this placement). Thus, a 2 page profile on GW, but not on Georgetown. I found the book more useful that my daughter did. For one, because the book is so huge and outright heavy, it's not user-friendly from that perspective. That said, there is no denying that there is tons of great information in this book, including at the end of the book 200 pages of colleges by major (which is VERY helpful if you are into a specific area of interest--as an example, you can major in "Textile Science" in only 3 colleges around the country), as well as by entrance difficulty and cost ranges. Another reason I like the book is that for most colleges it does have the latest (07-08) figures for tuition, room and board, and other miscellaneous charges. Hence I read that the total cost for attending GW (where I went to grad school) is now just over $50,000. PER YEAR. Unbelievable. Ultimately, this is a book to get when your son or daughter is at the very beginning of their college search and is simply looking to get some basic information. On that level, the book performs well. But after the initial looking around, there are other resources that should be checked out, such as the Princeton Reviews "The Best 366 Colleges".