Fiske Guide to Colleges 2018

The Fiske Guide to Colleges is an indispensable book in any college counselor's library. When I recommend a short list of books to my families, this is included. The gigantic book profiles 300+ schools- from my experience, each has pretty accurate descriptions. I tell my students that each school has a "personality" and you need to find schools that are a "good fit." I really like the side bar with quick info about school, esp: SAT / ACT (they show mid-50% ranges instead of a simple average); the "Overlaps" to help students find similar schools, etc.Financial Fit is an increasing important factor in college selection. I appreciate that the Student Loan Info uses the Common Data Set as its source. But I think we need more detail than just Yelp-like $ signs for Average Debt or Expense. I don't think that the average family understands this. Does "Financial Aid: 70%" mean 70% of families qualified for some financial aid (even $1000 in student loans)? It's an oversimplification. I would like to see both the "Sticker Price" and theAverage Net Price" included in the side bar, too!One of my pet peeves about this book is the er... "alphabetical order" of the schools. Ugh. Am I the only one with this problem?Regarding California schools: Fiske includes profiles of 8 of the 9 undergraduate UC schools (the new one UC Merced is not in the 2016 Edition). Some info is outdated (eg. UC Santa Cruz narrative evaluations are optional as of 2010.) I didn't see any comments about the UCs being in the middle of a court controversy over admitting more international students over domestic students. Our state also has another 23 California State Universities (CSUs). While they are not profiled in depth, they do highlight a few of the schools that are more likely to be of interest to out of state students. The Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE) program should have been included, IMHO.Many reviewers are upset that schools in their state are not included, but I think that's inevitable. There are 4000 schools in the US! It makes sense to focus on the schools that attract the students who are most likely to consider schools beyond their 200 mile radius.That said, I would also like to see reviews of schools featured in Colleges That Change Lives (CTCL) by Loren Pope (eg. St. Mary's College of California, Willamette U.) It's always good to cross reference reviews of schools.In spite of these short comings, Fiske is invaluable. Yes, a lot of this info can be found online these days, but still having a paper version is wonderful, because your fingers will stumble across new schools that you have never heard of. I still recommend the book highly for college exploration.

If you are feeling overwhelmed, lost and unsure where to start researching colleges, this book is a great place to start. It’s informative and yet concise enough to give you an idea of each school. It offers a good range of different kinds of universities (though it doesn’t have NEARLY all of them, which would be impossible.). It has some schools for B students, larger and smaller schools, rural and city, big name and some smaller named.I found this helpful to determine what categories to write down and what information to search for on schools outside of this book.PLEASE only use this as a jumping off point, because there are soooo many great colleges out there that don’t make this book, but really helped us to narrow down our focus and make the whole college search process more manageable.Note, the numbers ( costs, SAT averages, etc) for many we’re definitely off, but it gives you a good enough ball Park, and that’s what the internet is for!

We have read through many of the colleges listed in this guide. What I like best about this guide is that they have gone to a lot of effort to illustrate in words the general vibe of the college and its students. I hope the descriptions are accurate, as my daughter has outright rejected (as have I) several colleges based on the various descriptions provided in this guide. We have also discovered several great colleges that we had not heard of and we will be investigating them. I do wish this guide had more colleges listed, and I really wish it included more good "average" colleges. I feel it is a bit lacking in describing, for example, colleges that might be average, but perhaps have great honors programs. I wish the guide listed colleges that dole out money for good students. I REALLY wish it provided information about how good the job and career centers are. At the end of the day, the student needs to get a job. I think Fiske mentions one or two institutions with good career centers, but I believe it needs to evaluate that for every college they feature. I sugegested this to them several weeks ago, but have yet to hear back, so I will update this if necessary. I think this is a great guide for excellent students, but for more average students, or kids who are looking for safety schools, it is a little lacking. I am sure combined with other sources, this guide would be more useful.

Got admission and lot of information for my son

Very helpful. Concise descriptions of colleges including admission statistics, quotes from students, campus size and demographics, social aspects including Greek life presence. Handy for quickly researching and comparing colleges, helped us create our short list

Great product with interesting and detailed descriptions, making it far more interesting a read then most college guides. We like the student comments as well. The only improvement would be if there were pictures. However, this book is thick and the pictures would likely make this a nearly 2000 page volume so we understand why this wasn't done. As well, pictures would be limited and an online look is easy once you find the colleges you are interested in. I would definitely recommend this product which my very analytical friend suggested for our teen.

Il prodotto mi ha soddisfatto, è un testo esaustivo e ben preparato. Indispensabile nella fase di scelta di una università statunitense.

Its all there