Recommended College Handbooks

Look for these BOOKS in your Guidance Office, Aspirations Lab,  or Library. Books are a great and EASY way to search for colleges.

The Princeton Review Best 376 Colleges, 2012 edition

Look at the middle side bar on the right hand page of each college description. If you like the college described, it tells you where else students who applied to a school submitted other applications. This is a great way also to get an idea of reach, likely and safety schools. Any recent edition is fine.

Peterson’s Complete Four Year (or Two Year) College Guide 2012 or any recent edition

These guides contain every college and university in the country. Pay particular attention to the last line in the paragraph in the Financial Aid paragraph. It will tell you the average debt their graduates have accumulated by graduation, which may be a deal breaker for you!

The Insider’s Guide to College, 2012 or any recent edition.

Similar to the web site Unigo, this book is written by students at the colleges and therefore gives you a good idea of the social scene at a college, how much drinking goes on, what students do for fun, and how rigorous the academics are.