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Product Description
Book Description
The best college guide you can buy.' -USA Today<br><br>For more than 25 years, this leading guide to more than 310 colleges and universities-fully updated and expanded every year-has been an indispensable source of information for college-bound students and their parents. Helpful, honest, and straightforward, the Fiske Guide to Colleges delivers an insider's look at the academic climates and the social and extracurricular scenes at the 'best and most interesting' schools in the United States, plus Canada and Great Britain.<br><br>In addition to the candid essays on each school, you will find:<br><br>-A self-quiz to help you understand what you are really looking for in a college<br><br>- Lists of the strongest majors and programs at each college<br><br>- Vital information on how to apply, including admissions and financial aid deadlines, required tests, and each school's essay questions<br><br>- 'Overlap' listings to help you expand your options<br><br>- Selectivity statistics and SAT/ACT scores<br><br>- Indexes that break down schools by price and state<br><br>- A list of schools with strong programs for learning disabled students<br><br>- All the basics, including email addresses and university websites<br><br>Plus a special section highlighting the 45 public and private Best Buy schools-colleges that provide the best educational value
About the Author
Edward B. Fiske served for 17 years as Education Editor of the New York Times, during which time he realized that college-bound students and their families needed better information on which to base their educational choices. He wrote the bestselling annual, The Fiske Guide to Colleges, to help them.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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3.9 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)
43 of 43 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
3.5 stars... not bad but not the starting place for college-search, Aug 25 2011
By Paul Allaer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Fiske Guide to Colleges 2012 (Paperback)
"Fiske Guide to Colleges 2012" (848 pages) is a curious college-guidance/search book in my opinion. It lists the "best and most interesting" colleges in the country, about 300 out of 2,200 four year colleges in the US (and even a couple of Canadian and British schools) are written up. According to the introduction, they were selected on the basis of academic quality, geographic diversity, a balance of public and private schools, and schools that are currently popular for certain programs (engineering and technical schools, religious emphasis, etc.). Being from Ohio, I look at the list of 12 schools that "made the cut" and inexplicably Xavier University (a fine Jesuit college here in Cincinnati) is left out of the book. Huh? While the descriptions give a good flavor of a particular college, there are essentials missing, such as the exact tuition/room/board (there is only a general 1 to 4 star rating on how expensive a college is, and even those are misleading, for example American University is listed as "moderately" expensive). Also not helpful in my opinion is that the colleges are presented alphabetically, rather than by state, since most kids look at colleges in a particular state (usually their home state), although there is an index by state.On the other hand, the descriptions of the schools are oftentimes right on point. Check the first sentence on American University (where my youngest one is going): "If the odds to enter Georgetown are against you and you can't see yourself on GW's highly urban campus, welcome to American University." That is EXACTLY what happened to my daughter: not admitted to Georgetown, admitted to GW and AU, but not at all charmed by GW's urban campus, hence she's at American. The descriptions of the school my son attended are also on point.
When my daughter was simply looking to get basic information, she did not spend a lot of time with this book. As she narrowed her choices, she did read up more on her pool of colleges in this book. Bottom line: if you are at the very beginning of your college search, this is not the book to start with. For that I might instead suggest "The Complete Book of Colleges" issued by the Princeton Review. The "Fisk Guide to Colleges" is instead more helpful to get a second (or third) opinion once your child has narrowed down his/her selection of colleges of interest (assuming of course it made the cut of 300).
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good, but some info is incorrect., July 6 2011
By Paul K. Stauffer "pstauffer" - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Fiske Guide to Colleges 2012 (Paperback)
This is a good college guide, among the best available. I have a 2010 edition and looked forward to the updated 2012 edition, as my daughter is a Senior in high school. The overall write-ups tend to emphasize the positive, with minor coverage of the negatives. The guide has helpful summary ratings on three categories. 1. Academics, 2. Social, and 3. Quality of Life. It can range from 1 to 6 in each category. Some of the ratings seem to be off, but generally they get it right.Make sure you read the parents and student pledges at the back of the book. They are helpful, true, and amusing.
I was a bit disappointed that some of the info is not accurate. Some things I found wrong or puzzling:
1. Goucher College criticism that says the library closes at 6PM on Saturday. That was true in the old library from a few years ago. It is open 24/7.
2. Reference to Towson State in the Goucher College review: Towson University is the name of the school, as it has been since 1997. You would think the editors would pick up this name change, since it was 13 years ago.
3. University of Maryland not listed for strong music programs from large universities. Not only is MD strong in music, they have the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, which is among the largest and nicest facilities on the East Coast. Big omission.
I am taking off one star for its inaccuracies. Also, Kindle edition is highly needed! This book is too thick to cart around.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Useful, though a little disappointing, Dec 7 2011
By samenjoe - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Fiske Guide to Colleges 2012 (Paperback)
The Fiske guide is not a bad place to browse colleges, but inaccuracies in those places we happen to know makes one wonder if descriptions of places we don't know are also inaccurate. One example: the entry on UCSB does not mention the recent surge in Nobel prize winning faculty (or other prestigious awards), barely mentions the very original and selective College of Creative Studies ("the Graduate school for Undergrads", especially excellent in Physics), and appears to simply have reprinted old descriptions of the school as the surf-and-party school on the beach. That may well have been true 15 or 20 years ago but things have changed a lot since then. Generally speaking, the recent sea changes in the entire UC system (mostly bad trends due to state defunding) are not adequately addressed.Another annoying feature is the order--one reader said schools should be arranged by state, and it would probably make more sense. One often has to go to the index to find schools because the order is not consistent. Canadian and British schools are hard to find at best, and there are some strange omissions--where are Oxford and Cambridge for example?
Lastly, our copy was defective, with about 70 pages in the second third of the book printed upside down and scrambled, which made it really difficult to use. There didn't seem to be a way to get a replacement copy.
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