Profiles of American Colleges, Northeast: Northeast (Barron's Profiles of American Colleges: Northeast)


Compras Nikon
Bluetooth
1 Meets its goal, barely
This book does what the title promises: it delivers quick summaries, usually a page or so, of four-year colleges from Maryland and DC up through New York and Maine. It allocates a paragraph per school to housing, non-scholastic activities, handicapped access, scholastics, application procedures, and a few other basics.

That's it. Academic programs are addressed in a single paragraph, and not always the longest one. There are stats on degrees awarded in the 2002-3 year, but nothing before or after that. Graduate study is shrugged off in one line that states how many graduate students there are - if non-zero, there must be at least one grad program. Community colleges aren't listed at all. That's a small enough loss, since they generally address a different clientele than this book is meant for.

What's painful is indexing - there is none, to speak of, just an alphabetical list. It's perfectly reasonable to ask questions like:
-- Which schools have law programs?
-- Which ones issue MFA degrees?
-- Which have ABET certification?
-- Which have a Catholic or other religious orientation?
-- Which have under 500 students? Over 10,000?
These questions can only be answered by a cover-to-cover search.

Also, information about the computing facilities has questionable freshness, and lacks in important details. Yes, a certain school may have (or had a while back) some super-computer, but that doesn't mean all students have easy access to it.

This book keeps the promise of its title. It doesn't go an inch past that goal, though, and misses important facts. One in particular, is glaringly absent: universities generally consist of several colleges. Each college generally has its own requirements and application procedures. Describing each college might have been a bit much, but it would have been helpful to note that the colleges differ and to be more explicit in saying where to find information about each.

//wiredweird

Thursday, 21-Aug-2008 14:45:36 CDT
Quote of the Day:


If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

-- Maslow

"Many have seen Topaxci, God of the Red Mushroom, and they earn the
name of shaman," he said. Some have seen Skelde, spirit of the smoke, and
they are called sorcerers. A few have been privileged to see Umcherrel, the
soul of the forest, and they are known as spirit masters. But none have
seen a box with hundreds of legs that looked at them without eyes, and they
are known as idio--"
The interruption was caused by a sudden screaming noise and a flurry
of snow and sparks that blew the fire across the dark hut; there was a brief
blurred vision and then the opposite wall was blasted aside and the
apparition vanished.
There was a long silence. Then a slightly shorter silence. Then
the old shaman said carefully, "You didn't just see two men go through
upside down on a broomstick, shouting and screaming at each other, did you?"
The boy looked at him levelly. "Certainly not," he said.
The old man heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness for that," he
said. "Neither did I."
-- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"