The Insider’s Guide to the Colleges, 2007 33rd Edition
Compiled and edited by the staff of the Yale Daily News
St. Martin’s Press (New York, NY) 2006
$19.99, 1,082 pages, soft cover
Reviewed by Joe A. Edun
Counselor/College Adviser
Walter Johnson High School (MD)
The authors of this guide profile 323 four-year institutions in the U.S. and Canada, selecting schools based on the quality of academics. Theirs is a diverse list, covering small but top liberal arts colleges and outstanding technical and creative/performing arts institutions.
While the guide’s organization—listing institutions by state—makes it easy to use, the 2007 Guide adds a new section, “A Note About Some Statistics We Do Not Include.” This brief section explains that the authors omitted student-faculty ratios because large universities often count graduate teaching assistants as faculty. Other institutions include, in their list of faculty members, adjunct faculty, full-time researchers and emeritus faculty, which distorts the student/faculty ratio. Another change is that the Guide eliminates mean SAT and ACT scores because most schools list the middle 50 percent range of their scores instead.
For every school profiled (when information is available), the editors list the following information:
-
Web site URL and email address
-
Private or Public
-
Religious affiliation
-
Location
-
Undergraduate enrollment and popular majors
-
Male/Female percent
-
Percentage of on-campus students from African-American, Asian, Hispanic, and Native-American backgrounds
-
Percentage of in-sate and out-of-state students
-
Percentage of public high school students
-
Percentage accepted
-
Early Decision or Early Action Acceptance Rate
-
Middle 50 percent SAT and ACT range
-
Retention and graduation rate
Because the Guide is based on research and interviews with current undergraduates of the colleges and universities profiled, it provides insightful details to help high school students decide on applying to a particular college. By spotlighting certain aspects of institutions, this book covers aspects of the school that students might not know about. Some examples from Duke (NC) include (p. 726):
-
“grading difficulty at Duke varies by major”
-
“economics courses supposedly have no grade inflation at all”
-
“best majors are said to be Economics and Public Policy and the least favored are English and foreign languages—a testament to the intellectual dedication of Duke undergraduates.”
At Kalamazoo College (MI), under its unique K-Plan, 85 percent of juniors spend at least part of their third year abroad. The 26 different programs sponsored by the college on six continents provide students opportunities to study abroad “from three to nine months anywhere from Ecuador to Thailand” (p. 508). Eighty percent of students participate in career development internships after sophomore year.
The editors of the Guide also zero in on the social scene and campus life at most of the institutions. For example, at Florida Tech, a student reports that “people will bend over backwards to help you” (p. 249).
This edition of the Guide is well-organized and is a useful aid to any college-bound senior and college adviser.
Back to NACAC's Current Book Reviews.