Rating: 
Summary: For all first year students at Drake - - required reading.
Review: I found this book to be dismal. I recieved it as a gift, but I found the advice to be narrow...perhaps "Making the best of Harvard" would have been a better title. The opinions stated are fully based on research there, and allow no room for other teaching/housing/living styles.
Rating: 
Summary: An utter disapointment
Review: I found this book to be dismal. I recieved it as a gift, but I found the advice to be narrow...perhaps "Making the best of Harvard" would have been a better title. The opinions stated are fully based on research there, and allow no room for other teaching/housing/living styles.
Rating:
Summary: Superb book - a scientist writes clearly about education.
Review: I read "Making the Most of "College" both as a faculty member at a major university, and also as the parent of three children. It is great. I recommend it highly and especially appreciate Light's capacity to write about college in a way I have never seen before.My own interest is in helping undergraduates to succeed at my university. I have heard Light present his work several times at higher education Conferences, yet they were always full of survey details and regression equations and crosstabs. Great science, yet not always accessible to readers like me who are not statistically trained. In this book, Light has clearly made the effort to write in a way that presents all his findings, and does so in a way that is easily and enoyably readable to a history professor like me. His anecdotes are full of both wisdom and insights about why some classes work especially well, what students can do to choose classes and professors and activities wisely, and what professors like me can do to facilitate the whole process. For me the key finding is how faculty can help students to connect their academic work in classrooms with their 'real-world' interests. Light offers specific suggestions and examples both for me as a professor, and also for my students. Thank you Professor Light! I especially love the anecdotes throughout the book. And while all of my colleagues have recommended this book to me, I notice a couple of reviewers seem to think those anecdotes aren't 'scientific' enough. They seem to want an academic, research report written for statisticians. Full of equations and survey details. My reaction is, with great respect, exactly the opposite. Having seen several reports and an earlier book Light has published that are full of graphs and equations and survey details, I was so pleased to encounter a wise, readable book. Without equations. This is not a research report - - its strength is precisely that it is based on solid research, yet is now a beautifully written book about the college experience. I bought a copy of this book for each of my own children, and also have urged our president to get a copy for each faculty member. The author may be at Harvard, yet his suggestions for choices that both students and faculty can implement to "Make the Most of College" certainly apply at my university, and I suspect they apply at most others. The book's excellence reflects how finally a scientist has figured out how to write clearly for non-scientists about the most important experience they might have -- their years at college. Light has turned survey data and interviews into a highly readable book. I recommend it strongly.
Rating:
Summary: A faculty member at Marian College found this book great.
Review: I teach biology at Marian College. This is a small liberal arts college in Wisconsin, with many first generation college students. Very different from Harvard. Friends recommended this book, and so I got it and found it incredibly helpful and fujll of many ideas. At our college we struggle with retention. About half of our students end up graduating. We are trying to improve our student retention level, especially in the sciences. I found Richard Light's suggestions for helping students to really dig in to their work, especially in the sciences, wonderful advice. One, specific suggestion from this book that I plan to implement immediately is the "one minute paper" idea that Light presents. It is easy, no cost for students or for me, and will give me immediate feedback about what students do understand and don't understand. My strong impression is that my students will benefit enormously. I would make this required reading for faculty. And students would certainly benefit since many suggestions are directed to them. It is enormously helpful.
Rating:
Summary: I Coulda Used This
Review: I was a horrible student at a mediocre college. But with a few directions as found in "Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds," I might've had a much more successful time. I wasted time. I avoided my teachers. I didn't utilize the resources we had abundantly available. I didn't talk with academic advisors. I chose my classes at the last minute. Sure, my experience, in many ways, might be considered typical, but at megabucks per semester, your experience should be better. Buy this book. Sneak away from your parents, teachers... but read it. Apply Richard Light's ideas and methods, and ensure that college is more than high school. I fully recommend "Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds." Anthony Trendl
Rating: 
Summary: Not helpful to most students
Review: I was required to read some of this book as part of the U. of Washington's "Freshman Interest Group" program, and I find it difficult to believe that it is getting so many good reviews. Though I'm sure Prof. Light means well, it is little more than a summary of statistics gathered during his student interviews, and many parts of the book don't even seem to be addressed to students. The only "advice" offered is based on statistical trends from his research with the result that it is extremely vague. Furthermore, the book is so impersonal in tone that there was nearly nothing I could relate to as an entering college student. Some accounts of individual students' experiences are used, as well as direct quotes from the interviews, but for the most part, these are chosen just because they enthusiastically back up one of Light's points. If these heavily sugar-coated quotes reflect the majority of the student interviews, I have a hard time believing they were very candid. Though I don't mean to completely lambast this book, because it could be of value to college teachers or administrators, and it does have a few interesting sections, I can't imagine it actually helping very many students. The sections on diversity, effective classes, and effective mentoring are completely useless from most students' perspective.
Rating:
Summary: Not helpful to most students
Review: I was required to read some of this book as part of the U. of Washington's "Freshman Interest Group" program, and I find it difficult to believe that it is getting so many good reviews. Though I'm sure Prof. Light means well, it is little more than a summary of statistics gathered during his student interviews, and many parts of the book don't even seem to be addressed to students. The only "advice" offered is based on statistical trends from his research with the result that it is extremely vague. Furthermore, the book is so impersonal in tone that there was nearly nothing I could relate to as an entering college student. Some accounts of individual students' experiences are used, as well as direct quotes from the interviews, but for the most part, these are chosen just because they enthusiastically back up one of Light's points. If these heavily sugar-coated quotes reflect the majority of the student interviews, I have a hard time believing they were very candid. Though I don't mean to completely lambast this book, because it could be of value to college teachers or administrators, and it does have a few interesting sections, I can't imagine it actually helping very many students. The sections on diversity, effective classes, and effective mentoring are completely useless from most students' perspective.
Rating: 
Summary: This book has good and bad parts.
Review: In Chapters 1 - 6, the author makes practical suggestions for succeeding in college. The most important of these are developing writing skills, participating in extracurricular activities, and connecting with professors. These suggestions are well worth the discounted price of the book. But in Chapters 7 - 9, the author makes a political pitch for ³diversity², i.e. racial quotas, affirmative action, and political correctness. His evidence does not support his assertions. He lumps all minorities together. But Asian students neither need nor want special treatment. The author misclassifies all students of Hispanic decent as ³Latinos² even though Hispanics students from Cuba or South America are materially different from those from Mexico or Puerto Rico. Apparently, all ³Latinos² look alike to him. Stripped of the political rhetoric, the author is referring to black students. , The underlying major premise of his argument is that black students have a right to special treatment. He ignores the fact that such preferences are unlawful and unconstitutional. He accepts the racial fantasies of Henry Louis Gates and other black radical professors at Harvard. This would have been a better book if the author had limited his discussion to education. His argument that a good education means acceptance of the values of the left wing of the Democratic Party is rubbish.
Rating:
Summary: A Must and a Good Read
Review: It is hard to characterize this book without using cliches:
A must read, should be on every college professor's bookshelf, should be required reading. But these are all true for this book. In simple terms, Light's research as summarized in this highly readable book provides the much needed substance to unite academic and student affairs in a way that will allow professors and administrators to IMPROVE STUDENT LEARNING AND COLLEGE SUCCESS.
About 12-15 years ago I attended a workshop by Dr. Light and it changed my professorial life. Now as a dean, I am going to try to find a way to buy a copy of this book for every faculty member in my college.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderfully helpful book for me as a first year student.
Review: My college suggested all new students at my university buy this book. I am thrilled they did. The author gives many suggestions for taking the best advantage of opportunities to get a good start in the choices I will make. The three best ideas in this book are: 1. Make sure to make an effort to take at least one small class each term, and to get know at least one professor each term. I am amazed how obvious this is, yet I see that many of my friends who arrived here at college do not actually do it. This book gives several suggestions for how to get to know professors. 2. Connect the classes that I choose to take here at college with some of my personal interests in life beyond college. I love the example in this book of the young woman who did ballet dancing before college, and was therefore encouraged to study biology when she was struggling to deal with her own stress fractures in her legs. I found this example actually inspiring. 3. Choose professors who give lots of opportunities to make, in the author's words, "mid-course corrections." Thanks to reading this book, I chose an English class where I am asked to write a short paper each week, and I get feedback so I can improve my writing. Some of my friends ignored the advice and instead are choosing courses that only require one, final paper at the end of the term. There is no way they can "improve" the way they write because the only feedback they will get comes after the course ends. Overall, my guess is that the advice from Making the Most of College will apply to just about any student at any type of college. There is certainly nothing in this book that applies to specific places - - just an enormous number of suggestions that I found very helpful. A great book, fun to read for me as a new,first year student. It gave me more advice, and better advice, than my advisor here at my college. I hope all my professors read it too.
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