The 2021 Fiske Guide to Colleges: Your Essential Resource for Finding the Right College

VEENA: Got admission and lot of information for my son

India on Sep 11, 2023

Anthony: Its all there

United Kingdom on Sep 10, 2020

Amazon Customer: 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

United Kingdom on Oct 27, 2019

Vinod Shivaji Rakte: A guide to 320+ four-year schools, including quotes from real students and information you won't find on college websites. .

India on Oct 21, 2019

elaine: 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.

Canada on Oct 09, 2017

Murali: 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 the
Average Net Price" included in the side bar, too!

One of my pet peeves about this book is the er... "alphabetical order" of the schools....

United States on Nov 17, 2016

Andrea Polk: After reading the product description and taking a peek with 'Look Inside', I was not disappointed. It's clear that it only covers 300 schools which is approximately 1/10th of all the colleges and universities in the US. Knowing that going in, and taking a look before I bought the book helped a lot to keep my expectations in check.

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WHY I BOUGHT THIS BOOK

There are so many college guides, but this one stood out to me as one I could easily look at with my college bound daughter and discuss the 'feel' of each college. I made sure that the main ones she's is interested in attending: Reed, Occidental, Lewis and Clark, Willamette and University of San Francisco, were all in the book (something you can do with the 'Look Inside' option) and knew that anything more was just good for conversation - or maybe a whole new plan.

The book was to get our conversation rolling and keep it moving in a positive, proactive direction. She's an excellent student, but if you ask her 'what do you want to study' she says "everything". This makes it tough to choose a major. I like that this book talks about what the students are like on each campus as well...

United States on Apr 08, 2015

gaffy: 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...

United States on Oct 03, 2014