The Best 378 Colleges, 2014 Edition (College Admissions Guides) 1st Edition

So happy I got this book. It's proven invaluable in my child's college searches, and it's the book I rely on the most. Our college visits have shown much of the info in the book to be accurate. I like how the important college details are prominently featured in shaded areas in the margins of each page, so it's easy to determine right away if the college fits your child's search criteria. (Of course, nothing can substitute for a personal college visit!)

compared to 2013, not much updating but it is a pretty good reference source to understand admissions, deadlines and demographics. The campus life section is somewhat biased upon those they interviewed and should not be taken as a consensus for the whole school. Useful as a good starting point in your search.

I just bought the book, and I like the fact that the colleges are rated under various categories. In the comments column on the left, it says "Most classes have x - y students per class". The maximum 'y' is listed as 29. I know for certain that UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Berkeley have about 400 students in their popular classes, and the teachers talk with a microphone. For this book to say that University of California - San Diego "Most classes have 10 - 19 students" is VERY wrong. Same goes for UCLA and UCB.Also, the book should mention how many undergraduate classes are taught by Teaching Assistants.

We are just starting the college search for our daughter and we would truly be lost without this book. Even though we purchased the 2014 book, it has all the important information we need presented in an easy to read format. It is well organized and provides a quick snapshot of the top schools with information we did not even realize was important to know until we read about it. We know this will be an important resource as we continue our search.

I wasn't terribly impressed with this book, and if I had been able to 'look inside' I wouldn't have purchased it. This sort of information is best obtained online - for free.The first few pages have list after list after list, e.g. "Most weed smoked" and "Happiest campiest" (which, coincidentally, overlapped quite a bit). The problem is that they are hard copy, so you have to manually scan page after page to find the schools in which you're interested. How nice it would have been to have those results listed on the school's individual pages!In the middle section, each college has a two-page layout, with stastistics and factoids on the edge columns. Since most statistics are outdated as they go to press, I much prefer to go to the college's website, or scour the Common Data Set for the information I need.Some of the paragraphs in the center are boiler plate, such as the 'how to get accepted' paragaph: 'Get good grades; have strong extra-curriculars, and score well on the tests' (Thank you, Captain Obvious!) which reads the same for all schools. And there is a section on the bottom which is taken verbatim from the college website.The comments from the students begin to look very much alike, and again, you can get more recent information from such online sites as Niche, StudentReview, CollegeConfidential, and Unigo (caveat: unigo comments are not dated).I think the time has long past for books like these, when better information is available online.

Really helpful. Has a lot of good information. It includes what a teen would wonder about but not really considered when looking at colleges. My daughter loves it. She is only in 10th grade but she looks at it all the time. Now she has already decided size of campus, location, weather, etc. I can see cost and the ratio of students excepted. Very well done.

I bought this years ago when I was looking at colleges. Now I have bought the updated version for my sons. It is a must have. Shows all the stats, college rankings, and insider information. A much broader selection that the Best Value guide which is 150 of the 378. If you are only buying one, by this one.

My daughter and I have referred back to this book so many times, we feel we could test on the colleges listed and get A's! But it is a very helpful book to have in your college search.