Nelson's Complete Guide To Colleges & Universities For Christians

Rating:
Summary: Would be useful...
Review: This book is not poorly written. It has many useful statistics and much useful information, and has helped me greatly in my college search. However, the following problems severely limit the book's usefulness:
1. Major misprints and inaccuracies. For example, the book stated that the average ACT (American College Test) Composite Score of admitted freshman was 27, the average SAT (which the College Board recently announced stands for nothing) combined score of admitted freshman was 1210, and that the average GPA of admitted freshman is 2.0. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that something doesn't add up there. Upon contacting the school in question for further details, the average GPA was indeed significantly higher than stated in the book. This is just one example of many that I have found of significant misprints in average SAT and ACT scores and average GPA of admitted freshman, errors in cost of tuition and room and board,
and many other important statistics. I have even found errors in religious affiliation, which is kind of the point of the book. Many of these errors were very significant, and enough to limit the usefulness of this book.
2. Many colleges - especially smaller colleges - aren't listed. Although this is not surprising considering that it would be impossible to list EVERY college in the country, I have noticed that several colleges and universities were omitted that shouldn't have been omitted.
3. Only "dry" statistics are provided. No information is provided about the school itself.

I would NOT recommend this book as your only or primary college resource, nor would I rely too heavily on the statistics provided in this book. I would, however, recommend it as a "secondary" resource, especially for Christians, as, in spite of its limitations, it still has some amount of usefulness. If you do get this book, make sure that you double-check all the statistics in this book with another source - prefrably the schools themselves - before you make any big decision or rule anything out.