The Best 376 Colleges, 2012 Edition [Paperback]

The Princetown Review publishes a number of college search-related books, including the "Complete Book of Colleges" and this one. This book is essentially a distilled version of the "Complete Book", and frankly a lot more useful (but for people completely new to the college-searching process, definitely check that out too).

"The Best 376 Colleges (2012 Edition)" (840 pages) is similar to last year's edition. After holding the number of best colleges at 373 last year (remember this book started off in 1992 with the best 250, where have the years gone!), this time there are 6 new "best" colleges: Champaign College, Christopher Newport University, Portland State University, Roanoke College, the University of Houston, and the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. Three schools from last year's list were dropped (but if the inflation of "best" colleges continues, I surmise we'll get to 400 by 2020 or so). There are over 60 fun-to-browse top 20 lists of best/worst, such as "Most Beautiful Campus", "Students Study the Most", "Party Schools", and "Most Politically Active Students" (my daughter is attending the #5 ranked school on that list, it was ranked #1 last year, so yes these rankings change from year to year, although not sure how exactly these rankings come about, a drop from 1 to 5 in a single year seems pretty steep).

The best feature of this guide remains the 2 page layout for each of the colleges, with in-depth information on campus life, academic selectivity (the number of applicants, how many were accepted, and of those how many actually decided to attend), up-to-date tuition and room/board costs (I checked the numbers of the college that my daughter is now attending, and they are accurate), etc. Another aspect that is very helpful is the "Survey says" sidebar, in which the essence of the university is distilled from the college students themselves, and "The Inside Word" segment on how tough it really is to gain admission when all is said and done. I can't help but notice that the tuition and room/board numbers for Xavier Univeristy, a fine Jesuit school here in Cincinnati, are completely wrong (they are double from what is listed in the book), an unlikely and uncharacteristic mistake.

In the end, the proof is in the pudding: of the many college guides out there, my daughter spent more time with this book (when she was looking at colleges a few years ago) than with any other. This book is not the first place to start the college search, but once your son or daughter has narrowed down his/her colleges of choice, and assuming those colleges are featured in the "best 376", this book clearly is the best resource, the last step before a campus visit, and can be used again following the campus visits. I've looked at a lot of college-search books and if I was forced to recommend only one book among all the college search guides, this book is it, period.

In my town, many high school students only consider three colleges: the local public college, because its close and cheaper....the really BIG state university with a great football team, and the astoundingly BIG state university with a great football team.

Less than half of the first year students who enroll at those three schools ever obtain a college degree. The fact that the majority drop out is not because they are not bright. It is because they were at the WRONG school for their personality. Mega-size public universities are great for football fans and frat parties, but the are wrong choice for many bright and talented high school graduates.

The "Best 376 Colleges" does a very good job of explaining the "personality" of each school. BYU is a very good university, and UC-Santa Cruz is a very good university. But, those two schools have very different learning environments and social environments. The sort of student who would love BYU and be very successful at BYU is likely to be very unhappy at UC-Santa Cruz, and vice versa.

The other strength of this book is it draws attention to the strong financial aid programs of most private colleges. Few parents or high school students know that the average student loan debt of a Princeton graduate is LOWER than the average student loan debt of a graduate from the typical "Big State University". The fact is, for high school students ranking in the "Top 10%" of their high school graduating class and scoring in the top 10% of the nation on the SAT test and the ACT test, hundreds of private colleges will provide scholarships and grants that make the "net" cost of a private school education less than that of a typical public university. And, many private colleges make a commitment to meet the financial aid needs of EVERY student they enroll.

The weakness of the "Best 376 Colleges" is that there are simply more than 376 good colleges in America and Canada. The publishers should consider expanding the book to cover about 500 colleges, or divide the book into four regional editions of about 125 colleges each. A high school student could then buy the books for the regions they are interested in. The majority of top students in Boston are ONLY considering schools on the east coast, and the majority of top students in San Francisco are ONLY considering schools on the west coast. Regional editions could provide more depth at lower cost.

Used the 2008 edition extensively as a reference during my son's college search. Decided to buy the 2012 edition for my daughter. Very disappointed with the newer edition. We've run across numerous examples of obviously inaccurate information in the statistics sections, which makes one wonder about the credibility of the rest of the information presented.

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