Edward Fiske
1 GOOD JUMP ON LOOKING AT COLLEGES
Well my son is just in 8th grade so we have four years yet, but this was still a great book to have. More than likely he will attend a local college but this was a great way to look at the many local colleges without spending several days driving around. Of course, colleges like prospective students to visit the campus of course which is fine once you've narrowed your choices, but until then, get started with this fine book. Well over 300 colleges reviewed from the large to the small with full page or more reviews of each one. You get all the much needed information on major programs, financial assistance, tuition, activities, campus lifestyle, and so much more. Among the most valuable features is interviews with students and professors. These were quite interesting to read. Very good ratings system. It may have been a bit early but I doubt much will change in a few years and we'll probably just buy the 2009 guide when it comes out anyway. There's no such thing as being too early. Very valuable and worthwhile book.
2 Horrible
Stay away from this book. It's written by a 60 year old man that wears a diaper.
3 The best objective guide to Colleges in the USA
Fiske is by far the best objective guide to Colleges in the USA. While, for reference purposes, you can't beat Barron's or Petersen's, Fiske actually gives independent judgement and often recommends Colleges that are otherwise out of the way or not so well known. Having the pleasure of teaching for one superb US University in America itself and the study abroad program of several others, I can say from knowing many US colleges that Fiske gets things right. Make sure your child has read this guide before making her/his decision. Christopher Catherwood (Cambridge UK and Richmond VA; author of CHURCHILL'S FOLLY: HOW WINSTON CHURCHILL CREATED MODERN IRAQ, Carroll and Graf, 2004)
4 By far the best I've read
The Fiske Guide is the first college guide I turn to when I want to get a better sense of a particular school (and I own several guide books). There are several pages of text for each school. It paints a fairly clear picture of most schools, and gives a summary at the beginning of each review highlighting the significant facts about the college.
Fiske combines the two types of college guides--it both displays the facts (location, enrollment, sat ranges, admit rate etc) and discusses the general atmosphere of each school. In a box on each review are rankings of the schools Academics, Social Life, and over all Quality of life.
To facilitate browsing and to expose readers to schools they might not have otherwise considered, at the end of the review for each school are a list of "overlaps"--schools that are similar to the school being discussed. I actually found many schools that I am now strongly considering apply to in the overlaps box.
It also provides the dates for various admissions plans (early, regular, transfer etc) for each school as well as the essay question on that school's application.
One helpful aspect of Fiske that is absent in many other guides is a list of what majors the college is particularly strong in. As someone who is fairly certain of thier major, I have been really happy that I am provided with that list.
Fiske has been accused of viewing all schools through "rosy-tinted glasses" and there definitely is something to that. Princeton Review is more helpful in providing a sense of the student body at school and will say flat out that everyone at a a particular school is snobby and spoiled or that most students never bathe/shave their legs. So, if you seriously considering a particular school I'd look it up on princetonreview.com and click "students say" to get what may be a more critical view of the school. But for basic browsing, I'd go with Fiske.
5 The Best I've Seen
I think Fiske is the most useful of the college guides. It tells the most about each college's academic strengths, and it explains to parents who may have gone to the school twenty or more years ago how the school has changed. Most of the sidebar statistics are very helpful. Fiske rates academics, social opportunities and overall quality of life on a 1 to 5 scale. A lot of people are looking very closely at freshman retention and graduation rates these days, and Fiske provides those numbers as well.
I don't feel Fiske does an adequate enough job with each schools expense. It rates schools on a 1 to 4 dollar sign scale which I feel can be misleading because a school's price tag doesn't often equal the amount a student will have to spend if a school has a lot of financial aid available. There are times when students actually end up with more debt from public schools.
Except for finances, I think Fiske is better than Princeton Review in every regard. It does a better job detailing a school's strongest majors and describing which schools overlap the ones you are considering. Princeton Review uses a system where they tell you which schools are "often preferred" to the school you're looking at or which schools are "rarely preferred." That would be interesting if it wasn't so subjective and inconsistent.
Compared to Peterson's, Kaplan and Princeton Review, Fiske is the most exclusive as it states it restricts its list to the top 10% of colleges. So on the one hand there are fewer schools to choose from, and on the other you know that the listed institutions are respected enough to get the Fiske seal of approval. (Barron's Guide to the Most Competitive Colleges has even fewer schools, but I feel that book is not very useful in that it offers too few schools and each entry is written by an alumnus of that school.)
Fiske does give a fair amount of student opinion and covers subjects such as Greek life, athletics, and general atmosphere quite adequately. While it may skew a bit to the positive, I think this can be an asset as it will help make students excited about college.
6 Wouldn't Counsel without it!
As a high school guidance director/counselor in a college-prep HS, I use and refer students/parents to a variety of sources for information on colleges, especially views on the characteristics, "climate," and culture that they just can't get from data-heavy guide books. Fiske's provides well-written summaries with just the right amount of detail of what life is like on each campus. Entries are updated annually from reports submitted by a wide-range of observers and critics who visit and tour these campuses throughout the year. Fiske's Guide is essential for students who cannot visit on their own and provides a great "reality check" as they start narrowing down their "list."
7 A Very Positive Look at Colleges
While yes, the Fiske Guide to Colleges (2005) is sometimes absurdly rose-tinted and glossy, it nevertheless provides the reader with a shrewd sense of the ambience of each campus.
One of the best things about this guide is the sheer bulk of commentary about each insitute of higher learning. I believe the book states it provides from 1000 to 2500 words on each school, an adequate amount to give any high school student an idea of what schools he or she should look into.
One does get the sense, however, that the writing is something like either a reverent, wide-eyed student of that college would write, or heavily proofread by the schools themselves.
Don't let that deter you, however. There is good information to be found therein.
8 Accurate - helpful
If nothing else, this guide serves to provide an alternative to the Princeton Review. While no single book can explain all there is to know about a single school or admissions process, this guide does an admirable job describing the highs and lows of each school, its personality and some of the processes one would have to go though to get into such a school. Overall one of if not the single best guides out there.
