Fiske Guide to Getting Into the Right College

I'm going to agree with the other reviewers that this is an excellent book that is clearly and intelligently written. It stresses the "fit" of the college and helps both parents and students easily understand the admissions process. It also does a good job with explaining the ins and outs of financial aid. I feel some books like Get Into Any College by Gen and Kelly Tanabe offer advice that I wouldn't recommend and others such as How to Get Into The Top Colleges by Richard Montauk and Krista Klein are guilty of panicking students about the necessity of getting into a prestige school instead of the best fit. I feel the Fiske book helps families relax and feel informed. There is a self-assessment quiz at the beginning that does much to help students figure out what kind of college is best for them. I have no complaints about this book at all, but if they wanted to improve it, they could expand their section on popular majors and the listings of schools that are strong in those majors. Fiske's other title, The Guide to Colleges, does a fairly good job of detailing each school's best departments, but it would be terrific to have more of that information here as well. [email protected] volunteer counselor (free college counseling available to economically disadvantaged students)

Let me depict the most outstanding features of this book by the worth of dollar amount to the students and the parents:1) Chapter 6 - list of colleges - worths at least $20,000 dollars. The discriptions of the colleges are right on the target. It takes years of experiences and observations on each college to be able to provide such succinct descriptions.2) Chapter 1 - concerning liberal arts education - worths at least $10,000. Liberal arts education is the true enabling education for everyone, whether you are a humanities or science major.3) Chapter 2 - Sizing-Yourself-Up survey - worths at least $10,000 dollars, especially p. 14 -- p.17, which explains the results of the survey. When you have answered this survey honestly, you can then proceed to find the colleges that match you. This will save you not only months or years of wasted youth (when you are in wrong institutions or majors), but also tons of money. Much more importantly, This chapter emphasized the most important concept in this book: College searching is a matching process. You are not begging the colleges to accept you. You trying to find the ones that match you.4) Chapter 7 - Where to Learn More - worths at least $2,000 dollars. The authors provide a good brief description for each college guide publication.The other chapters in this book are good, but you can find them in other college guides. So, in this sense, they are not unique.Having read through a lot of college guides and done a lot of research on colleges, I can say that this is an excellent, top-notch college guide. This is an excellent all-in-one college guide. The value of this book far exceeds its price. Highly recommended!!!

This book is a waelth of important information. I am sick of college rankings and this book is the antidote. It lists colleges according to the types of schools they are, their competitiveness, and their stregnths in various academic areas. This is much more useful than trying to determine which school is number 1 as opposed to numver 8. I really think that the way this section is presented can really help a student focus on which colleges he/she may want to investigate for a possible application.There is good information on applications, interviews, finances, determining which colleges to appl;y to etc. An important decision a student must make is whether to apply early decision. This book is very helpful in understanding the early decision process and in detremining whether this woul;d be the best strategy in an individual case. SATs, ACT and preparation before taking the tests are covered. I highly reccomend this very useful handbook.

This is a good, short guide to US colleges. Many of us parents may not want to admit that our college hunting began with a book that offers snippy little "bytes" about schools, and categorizes them under titles like "other well-known universities" but this book sure is helpful in the initial sorting process. Especially good if the student has no access to a college / guidance counsellor.We started with this book, & ended up referring to it again and again. But other useful college selection publications are the annual Kaplan Newsweek college selection issue (out in summer), Colleges That Change Lives (Pope), and the ultra-conservative Choosing the Right College by William J. Bennett. (Latter is very useful even to Leftists because he evaluates schools for their political tendencies... a very good read)!

I've found "The Fisk Guide to getting into the Right College" the best college guide around and I've read them all. It takes you step by step through the intire college sellection process. The emphesis is on "The Right College" not the the most presitigious or the biggest. I especially liked the sections titled, "The Case for Small Colleges", "Public vs Private", and "Best Kept Secrets". The section on financial aid is particularly helpful.