Students' Guide to Colleges: The Definitive Guide to America's Top 100 Schools Written by the Real Experts--The Students Who Attend Them

by Jordan Goldman and Colleen Buyers

College guides are a must for any teenager trying to choose the right school. Unfortunately, most guidebooks are vague, boring tomes written by administrators and journalists, instead of the real experts the college students that actually go there. Students Guide to Colleges is different. Entirely student-written and edited, this invaluable resource cuts through the cant with comprehensive listings of the vital statistics and requirements for America...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0143035584
• ISBN13: 9780143035589
• Release Date: August 2005
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Length: 704 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 7.4" x 9.3"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

My #1 College Guide Pick!

I've been researching colleges for the past 6 months, and only found Students' Guide to Colleges two weeks ago. But it is already, by far, my favorite college guidebook. It's just as (or more) informative as the other guides - but then it's also fun to read, and tells you what the other guides don't, like "What wouldn't a prospective student see on a campus tour", and "what wouldn't an admissions officer tell a prospective college student." I can't recommend this book highly enough!! (...) Also, that one reviewer, Lisa Stephens, made no sense. Her review hawks "How to Ace Your Way Through College and Still Have a Life" by David Kennedy" - and if you look at her history page, she does this over and over, negatively reviews books, and then hawks her own. Sorry for ranting about that, but her review is totally disingenuous, and it lies, and she's really doing a gross thing, putting down other books (in a way that doens't even make sense, cause this is a great book!) to promote her own book, or a friend's, or whatever. WHATEVER!! I loved this college guide. Can't recommend it enough.

Incredibly Useful!

As a prospective college student, I have to tell you how much I appreciate Students' Guide to Colleges. It combines many of the best features of the Princeton Review and Fiske guides with much more comprehensiveness. I also appreciate that it is without any trying-to-sound-hip blather because these are not editor-interjected profiles, they're written by actual students. This is a great compliment--I have been looking at colleges seriously for about a year, and this is the best guide to colleges among the many I've seen. I also just read the Oberlin College profile in this book with an Oberlin alum and relative. She said that this was this most comprehensive and accurate Oberlin portrayal she's read in a guide. Among other things, she and I loved the different student perspectives and the unthinkable-in-previous-guides questions like "what aspect of your school would a prospective student not see on a college tour?" The guide's honesty also impressed me, as the Fiske guide lauded Vassar's "diversity," for example, where Students' Guide admits "Although Vassar likes to talk about diversity a lot, most students are actually wealthy and white." I am confident in saying that anyone applying anywhere from Hampshire to Harvard will find this book incredibly useful!! -Josh

Excellent resource for high school students

I have been a professional college counselor for more than 10 years, and I can't recommend this book highly enough. It's an upstart title in the college guidebook industry - this is the first edition - but it has such a novel take on the process, and offers such innovative features, that I'll be very surprised if it isn't here to stay. A colleague of mine recently said this book is the next best thing to spending a week on each college's campus. I usually shy away from cliches like that - but, in this case, it's very close to the truth. If you're looking at any of America's top 100 colleges and universities, I highly recommend it.

Really Innovative College Guide

There's so much I loved about this book. The first page of every review does a great job of summing a school up: it offers all the pertinent statistics (when each school was founded, its location, phone number, email address, web site, how many undergraduates it has, how many graduate students, the cost of attending, the application deadline, and the early decision deadline.) Then it has a great Selectivity Rating for each school. You always hear you should apply to Safety Schools, Target Schools and Reach Schools - the Selectivity ratings in Students' Guide make it easy to figure out which schools belong in which category. It lists the Notable Majors and Programs at each school, so you can quickly see, if you're interested in majoring in English for example, which schools are notable for having that major. Students sum up each school in five words. For example, Bard College students sum it up as "Hipster school for creative rule-breakers", and "Small, controversial, intellectual, true individuals". When you're looking at lots of schools, it's easy to forget which is which. These five words on the first page of every review help you remember. Then, there's a grid which tells you the size of each school (small, medium, large), the location (urban, suburban, rural), On a Saturday Night, Students Talk About Academics (always, sometimes, never), nightlife (intense, moderate, laid back), political leaning (left, right, split), and diversity (high, medium, low.) Having all this information right up-front - particularly regarding night life, how often students talk about academics, and political leaning of student bodies - really help you quickly grasp a school's character, and see if it's right for you. Know that you're interested in small, liberal, very intellectual schools? This grid will help you figure out exactly which schools you should be focusing your attention on. Then, there's a paragraph, "From the School", which shows you how the school markets itself. Which is interesting to see. And, finally, there's a box that says "If You're Interested in Columbia (for example), you may also be interested in". This is great, because if you find one school you love, this box points you to others you may also really like. And this is just one page, out of 7, that you get on every school! I think it's really indicative of what makes this book great. There's just tons of new ideas in it, things you won't find in any other guide, and you can really tell the makers put a lot of time and thought into figure out how to make this whole college search process easier. I'm first finding this book now after a year of looking into colleges, and I'm so glad I did. I'd recommend this book to anyone and everyone going through this stressful process!!!

I loved this college guide!!!

As a prospective college student, I have to tell you how much I appreciate Students' Guide to Colleges. It combines many of the best features of the Princeton Review and Fiske guides with much more comprehensiveness. I also appreciate that it is without any trying-to-sound-hip blather because these are not editor-interjected profiles, they're written by actual students. This is a great compliment--I have been looking at colleges seriously for about a year, and this is the best guide to colleges among the many I've seen. I also just read the Oberlin College profile in this book with an Oberlin alum and relative. She said that this was this most comprehensive and accurate Oberlin portrayal she's read in a guide. Among other things, she and I loved the different student perspectives and the unthinkable-in-previous-guides questions like "what aspect of your school would a prospective student not see on a college tour?" The guide's honesty also impressed me, as the Fiske guide lauded Vassar's "diversity," for example, where Students' Guide admits "Although Vassar likes to talk about diversity a lot, most students are actually wealthy and white." I am confident in saying that anyone applying anywhere from Hampshire to Harvard will find this book incredibly useful!! -Josh