Description:
Since 1964, Barron's Profiles of American Colleges has been helping students choose the school just right for their personal interests and price range. Newly updated for the 2000-2001 school year, it has listings for more than 1,600 schools, along with suggestions on majors, applying for financial aid, and how to best increase your chances of acceptance. Colleges are arranged alphabetically by state, and each one includes basic statistics on the student body and faculty. You'll learn what percentage of students are from in-state or overseas, what types of social groups are offered, the student-teacher ratio, and the average SAT scores of last year's freshman class. Detail on topics like housing, admission procedures, financial aid, sports, and available majors are provided as well, giving you a total of nearly one page of information per institution. The tinted pages at the beginning are an excellent place to start your search, as the index of majors can save you hours of hunting for your chosen specialty. General fields like liberal arts and marketing are offered at hundreds of colleges; some areas, such as geophysical engineering, are found at only a few. It's considerably easier to search this way than by state if you've already decided on a course of study. Searching by cost is also possible in this first section, which covers a price range of $2,000 to "over $18,000" per year. Parents will appreciate this quick method of deciding whether a particular school is feasible. The accompanying disk is of limited value, but it does offer a speedy way for students to write numerous letters of interest in a short amount of time, and it has a few general tips for students with little experience in essay writing. --Jill Lightner
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