Choosing a College, Continued

In the third post in this series on choosing a college, we are moving from websites to books. You remember those compilations of fact and fiction produced on tree pulp for general consumption. I guess that definition would have to be revised in this "Kindle" generation. Forget the social commentary. In this post I intend to focus on the Princeton Review's publication, The Best 373 Colleges.

In Choosing a College, Dr. Thomas Sowell seems not to place much stock in many of the college guides he reviewed. However, his book was published in 1989 and the Princeton Review series was first published in 1992. Had Dr. Sowell been able to include it in his treatise, I think he may have found many worthwhile features. This post will concentrate on a few that I think are most beneficial.

-The book provides a guide as to what a student should do during each year of high school to enable her to be admitted into college.

-It provides tips for getting financial aid in the form of scholarships and grants.

-It provides listings of "great schools" for 15 of the most popular undergraduate majors and the rationale for inclusion in the lists. The book gives detailed descriptions of how schools were selected from their surveys which included admisnistrative personnel and students.

-The Review presents 62 top 20 rankings in eight categories:
Academics/Administrative
Quality of Life
Politics
Demographics
Town Life
Extracurriculars
Social Scene
School by Type

-There are three "honor rolls" dealing with Financial Aid, Fire Safety and Green Rating.

In Part 3 of this volume, the schools that have been rated as the 373 best are then presented in complete profiles that contain facts and impressions by which you can decide to include or exclude the specific institution from your list of application possibilities.

It's a very good guide which I can personally recommend. Regarding good college guides, Dr. Sowell writes that,
Guides that are in your home can be read
whenever the time and the mood are right,
over a period of weeks and months.
Special things about particular colleges
can be underlined and comments put in the
margins to be looked at perhaps months
later, when you are ready to decide where
to send your applications - and still later
again, when making your final choice among
the colleges that accepted you. (p. 149)
Come to think of it, can you do all that with a Kindle? For these reasons and those listed above, I believe that the Princeton Review's, The Best 373 Colleges is a very wise investment.

As we begin the Spring Season (in reality, Spring Training), the constraints of other commitments will confine these blogs to a biweekly schedule. (I always liked alliteration!) The next post will be on March 16.