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mmaah
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| Joined: | Mon Mar 27th, 2006 |
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Posted: Sat Dec 29th, 2007 11:50 pm |
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Any suggestions on good resources for balanced, helpful reviews of schools that don't quite make the cut for Fiske or CTCL? I find some of the books too big/inclusive, others too slanted--I'm longing for something that would give reviews like Pope and Fiske do for schools like Pacific University in Oregon, Linfield College, Westminster in Utah--and just haven't found anything comparable for this group of schools. I'm trying to nudge my daughter towards some shopping/browsing and would love a single volume that gives more than just stats and offers some sense of the school community.
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Canadian
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Posted: Sun Dec 30th, 2007 12:46 am |
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Have you tried Princeton Review online?
http://www.princetonreview.com/
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Lupine
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Posted: Sun Dec 30th, 2007 06:38 pm |
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Canadian wrote: Have you tried Princeton Review online?
http://www.princetonreview.com/
D wasn't interested in visiting many schools after reading the reviews on Princetonreview.com -- there seemed to be a focus on the negative and the snarky that pervaded the reviews. Fiske may focus on the positive, but at a time when I'm encouraging her to be open to different college possibilities, that's not all bad. Ialso would love to find a Fiske-like review source that woud cover some additional colleges.
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Sun Dec 30th, 2007 08:19 pm |
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Lupine, my daughter had the same reaction to Princeton Review, as have some of my students. I'm not a big fan of Princeton Review myself as I find that their "reviews" tend to be more focused on reinforcing stereotypes rather than giving a broader view. It bothers me that they base their "reviews" on student surveys but don't give any indication of how many people actually were surveyed on a particular campus, so you don't know if the quotes came from one person or 300.
In my mind, Fiske is the best, but here are some of the college guides on my bookshelf that I find make good companion tools to Fiske:
America's best Colleges for B Students (Tamra Orr)
Barron's Best Buys in College Education (not updated since 2002 but a good intro to a variety of schools as long as you do more research on current admissions stats. Try Amazon for a copy)
Finding the College that's right for you (John Palladino)
Cool Colleges (Donald Asher is the name of the author). This book gave my daughter a headache but my son, who is the original cool dude, loved it.
Loren Pope's Looking beyond the Ivy League
US News Ultimate College Guide (no reviews, but invaluable when you're trying to find lesser known schools)
To a lesser extent, these can be useful as well:
Yale Insider's Guide to the Colleges
The Students' Guide to Colleges Jordan Goldman and Colleen Buyers
Sparknotes has a series of short guides to colleges in different areas of the country that are pretty good for a quick overview
College Prowler Big Book of Colleges (like the PR tends to reinforce stereotypes)
Choosing the Right College ISI Guide (some people don't like this book because it is written by a conservative group, but I think it provides some good insights into curriculum and political climate on campuses; mainly well-known schools are included)
Last edited on Sun Dec 30th, 2007 08:30 pm by CarolynLawrence
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skibum
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Posted: Sun Jan 20th, 2008 01:17 pm |
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If you take many of the comments and salary surveys with a grain of salt, studentsreview.com can be an interesting read. Ther are positive and negative comments about the schools, and general information about them, but the accuracy of the "stats" posted is in serious question, especially for things like the salary survey. This is not a controlled database (anyone can post just about anything) but it does give a flavor for what students thik and feel about the schools.
My kids both found the Yale Daily New's Insider Guide to Colleges EXTREMELY helpful. It was their bible for a while.
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Sun Jan 20th, 2008 05:18 pm |
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| The only caveat about the Insider Guide is that I have found their admissions numbers are frequently out-dated so be sure to go right to the school for updated information. But, I agree: it is a good overview of life on campus for many schools (unfortunately, however, not many lesser known schools are included).
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Canadian
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Posted: Sat Jan 26th, 2008 04:04 am |
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| I enjoyed the Insider's Guide, but when I read the profile of UBC, it had some pretty amusing inaccuracies.
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Mrs. Aardvark
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Posted: Sat Feb 2nd, 2008 08:38 pm |
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| While it's true that the Princeton Review has snarky comments, the Fiske guide appears to fall into the category of not wanting to say anything bad about anybody. Since social atmosphere is so key to assessing fit, the lack of any negative comments at all makes me feel as though I'm not getting a true sense of the school.
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mackinaw
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Posted: Sun Feb 3rd, 2008 05:23 pm |
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Back in the day, it was for capturing that flavor that we found the Yale Insider's Guide and Barron's Top 50 Colleges very useful, since each had well written essays characterizing the social and intellectual atmosphere on campus. (Caveat: I haven't looked at these guides in quite a few years. As Carolyn indicates, Barron's probably has not been updated for a long time. But college atmospherics tend to persist over time. Check your library for this if you're interested.)
Last edited on Sun Feb 3rd, 2008 05:47 pm by mackinaw
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Lupine
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Posted: Sun Feb 3rd, 2008 06:56 pm |
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Mrs. Aardvark wrote: While it's true that the Princeton Review has snarky comments, the Fiske guide appears to fall into the category of not wanting to say anything bad about anybody. Since social atmosphere is so key to assessing fit, the lack of any negative comments at all makes me feel as though I'm not getting a true sense of the school.
Maybe the purpose of using the guide makes a difference: for D as a junior I wanted her to be open to possibilities at colleges she might never have heard of before. Too many of the snarky comments on Princeton Review made her decide that a certain college couldn't possibly be good to investigate or visit. Fiske may accentuate the positive, but sometimes that's not bad.
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