The Unofficial, Unbiased Guide to the 328 Most Interesting Colleges

By Trent Anderson and Seppy Basili
Published by Kaplan
August 2003; $20.00$US/$31.50CAN; 0-7432-4145-2

Dear Reader:

The college admissions process can be overwhelming—so many choices, so little guidance. We’re here to help. Our Unofficial, Unbiased Guide to the 328 Most Interesting Colleges cuts through the hype and the blizzard of admissions stats with exclusive insider’s information organized in a user-friendly format. This guidance offers practical advice you won’t find anywhere else:

• Current students and recent grads tell you what life on campus is REALLY like.


• Guidance counselors share their choices for "Most Overrated," "Most Underrated," "Best Value," and other valuable lists.


• We’ve added our own observations and recommendations based on years of experience helping students navigate the college admissions process.

How many times have you heard, "It’s one of the most important decisions you’ll ever make"? Nothing like a little pressure! Having the facts at hand will help you choose the schools that best match your needs, so that you can feel confident about making your final decision.

Open the book. Let’s get started!

Check out the Schools in Each of These Categories:

• Best Value


• Hidden Treasure


• Hot & Trendy


• Revenge of the Nerds


• Valedictorians

Plus

• Underrated/Overrated


• Beautiful Campus


• Animal House


• Class President


• Peter Pan


• Outside the Box


• Drug/Alcohol Free


• Changed for the Better

Author

Trent Anderson is the Vice President for Education at Cablevision, Inc., where he oversees the ‘Power to Learn’ initiative. Before joining Cablevision, Trent was the Vice President of Publishing for Kaplan, Inc., where he developed book projects for the education market. During his 10 years with Kaplan, Trent was a test prep instructor, admissions advisor, financial aid expert, and author and contributing editor of several books, including Once Upon a Campus, Straight Talk on Paying for College, and Kaplan’s precollege and pregrad school test prep titles. Trent spent his college years in Southern California, where he earned his bachelor’s degree at UCLA and his J.D. and M.B.A. at the University of Southern California. Prior to working at Kaplan, Inc., Trent taught undergraduate business law at the University of Southern California.

Seppy Basili, Kaplan’s resident "College Guru," has been analyzing college trends for more than 15 years. During his Kaplan career, Seppy has overseen Kaplan’s test preparation programs and publications for the SAT, ACT, and PSAT exams as well as college admissions services. Along with Trent Anderson, he is the co-author of Once Upon a Campus and Straight Talk on Paying for College. He also founded the Kaplan-Newsweek imprint publications, which include the annual How to Get Into College guide. Seppy has spent many years on college campuses, receiving his B.A. from Kenyon College, M.Ed. from the University of California—Berkeley, and J.D. from Emory University.

For more information, please visit the author’s website at: SimonSays.com or visit writtenvoices.com

Excerpt

The following is an excerpt from the book The Unofficial, Unbiased Guide to the 328 Most Interesting Colleges

by Trent Anderson and Seppy Basili

Published by Kaplan; August 2003; $20.00$US/$31.50CAN; 0-7432-4145-2

Copyright © 2003 Kaplan, Inc.

Chapter One: Advice from the Experts

Choosing a college is not easy. The key is to find out all you can about a school before you apply. By buying this guide, you’ve taken the first step towards finding the right school for you. You’ll find inside information on 328 select colleges and universities, covering admissions, selectivity, financial aid, student life, and academics. But numbers don’t tell the whole story. Which school really has that "special something" that will make it the best school for you?

Enter the guidance counselor. Your own high school guidance counselor can give you lots of information about various colleges, including qualities most college guides don’t measure. But even your guidance counselor’s knowledge may be limited to those schools he or she has visited or dealt with in the past.

To give you the scoop on schools your guidance counselor may not be familiar with, Kaplan presents its 2003 National Guidance Counselor Survey. We surveyed guidance counselors around the country, from both public and private high schools, and asked them to tell us about the colleges they know best. They agreed to share their specialized knowledge with you just as they would with one of their own high school students.

Lists of Recommended Schools

In this section, you will find lists of colleges and universities that guidance counselors have recommended for their special characteristics. Each list of schools pertains to a specific quality:

• Schools that are "hot" or "trendy"


• Schools that offer the best value (quality of education vs. cost) for your tuition dollar


• Schools that are "hidden treasures," or not as well known as they should be


• School that could be a present-day "Animal House"


• Schools where "nerdy" students can thrive


• Schools where students try to extend their stay beyond four years


• Schools that are innovative and unconventional


• Schools offering drug-and alcohol-free activities


• Schools chosen by high school valedictorians


• Schools chosen by high school class presidents


• Underrated schools


• Overrated schools


• Schools with a beautiful urban campus


• Schools with a beautiful rural or suburban campus


• Schools that have changed for the better

How Was the National Guidance Counselor Survey Conducted?

Kaplan’s National Guidance Counselor Survey is based upon a telephone survey done by Market Measurement, Inc., of hundreds of guidance counselors selected from a random sample of all U.S. high schools. The scientifically developed random sample was obtained from Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. Survey data reflect the national population distribution of high school-aged children 14-18 years old.

Trent’s and Seppy’s Lists

To arm you with even more interesting and useful information comparing the colleges in this book, we’ve included a list of our own on a related topic following each guidance counselor list.

Counselor Comments

Guidance counselors were also asked to share positive and negative features of the colleges most familiar to them. We’ve included their comments in the profiles we’ve written in Section II. These comments can help give you insight into the schools you are considering for your college choice.

Use these lists and the guidance counselor comments to help start your college search, then check out the college profiles in Section II for a comprehensive picture of each school. Chances are, you’ll find a number of schools that are right for you. Good luck!

Copyright © 2003 by Kaplan, Inc.

For more information, please visit the author’s Web site at: SimonSays.com