Students and Parents:
- Colleges That Change Lives (by Loren Pope): “40 schools that will change the way you think about colleges.”
- Admission Matters (by Sally Springer and Marion Franck): “The truth about rankings, understanding the new SAT, how colleges decide, assessing your chances, making smart choices, preparing strong applications, getting financial aid, and lots of tips and tools.”
- The College Hook (by Pam Proctor) “A comprehensive guide to the powerful packaging tool called the ‘Hook’–a special talent or achievement that leaps off the page of a college application and catches the eye of admissions officers.”
- Getting in Without Freaking Out: The Official College Admissions Guide for Overwhelmed Parents (by Arlene Matthews): “College consultant Matthews offers a helpful and humorous look at the process of college admission from the parents’ perspective. Her 101 truths cover the gamut from researching colleges, to SAT test preparation, to touring colleges, to sending the freshman off to college.”
Parents:
- Less Stress, More Success: A New Approach to Guiding Your Teen Through College Admissions and Beyond (by Marilee Jones and Kenneth Ginsburg): “Co-written by a top college admissions dean and a leading pediatrician, this book delivers strategies for surviving the admissions process while strengthening parent-child relationships, managing the stress of applying to college, and building resilience to meet challenges today and in the future.”
- The Price of Privilege (by Madeline Levine): “How parental pressures and material advantage are creating a generation of disconnected and unhappy kids.”
More General Guides frequently recommended:
- The Gatekeepers by Jacques Steinberg (the college admissions process seen from inside the college admissions office)
- The Fiske Guide to Colleges, Fiske AND The Fiske Guide to Getting Into the Right College, ed. Fiske and Hammond
- Harvard Schmarvard by Jay Mathews
- College Admission Mystique by Mayher
- Admission Matters by Springer and Franck
- Excellence Without A Soul by Harry Lewis
- Looking Beyond The Ivies by Loren Pope (author of Colleges that Change Lives)
