Rating: 
Summary: I could have really liked this book, but...
Review: The author has some good information, and answers questions that most college-bound students and their parents don't even know to ask. Unfortunately, it is quite obvious that the author lives and works in one area of the country and has little real knowledge of the rest of the world. I found the fact that he repeatedly belittles the qualifications of high school counselors (he once was one) and college admissions officers, yet never reveals his own qualifications, to be highly questionable. Did he go to a selective or competitive school? The editing is atrocious, his efforts to impress with extensive vocabulary often seem pretentious, and his attempts at humor fell flat or bordered on offensive. The author repeatedly states that a student should seek to stay on the good side of the high school counselor, then tells them to do things that will quickly alienate any overworked and underpaid counselor. I read extensively in an attempt to know what my students are reading and what kind of advice they are getting from other sources. I try to steer students and parents to additional resources with good information - but I cannot honestly say that I could recommend this book to any person or group without serious reservations. I could only read a few pages at a time before I was distracted by poor editing, disturbed by gross inaccuracy - MIT does not have Early Decision, PSAT is not scored to give a result of 1150, etc. - or just plain fed up with all of it. I believe that this is a vanity press book that might have been accepted by a major publishing house, but only after extensive re-working by the author to remove some of these glaring problems. I hope that students or parents who read this book will have the sense and skills to pick out the contradictions and work around them. I will be able to use some of the information in this book, but I will have to do a great deal of value-added packaging first. It will not go on a shelf to be checked out by students.
Rating: 
Summary: A must read!
Review: This book has a ton of secrets and tips in it that I didn't find anywhere else -- plus it has a lot of interesting facts and lists. I read a few college admissions books before applying, and this one was -- by far -- the best. Don't apply to college without reading this book!
Rating: 
Summary: Too Abstract, Not Enough Concrete Information
Review: This book is a good starting point for introducing the world of college admissions to someone who knows nothing about the system, how it works, or what will be required of them. The problem is that there is too little usable information. The author gives lists of factors that do matter in choosing a college and ones that really don't but he doesn't give very many examples. I was looking for a book that would give me some starting information about how to look at colleges and how to choose, as well as how to apply successfully. This particular book does not have colleges to start looking at if you fit into certain categories academically, just the top 10 or so for the most elite. He also doesn't address how to know if you have a chance at the colleges you are applying to or how to fix past mistakes. I bought this book in the last quarter of my freshman year in high school and I was already behind in the process. I don't believe that high school should be overshadowed or consumed by the pursuit of getting into an Ivy League school. High school is an education in itself and asking someone to start looking at colleges in 8th grade and planning the next four years of your life around one application is ridiculous. I come from a high school of about 350 students and the way that the author of this book talks about extracurriculars it seems like I won't have a chance at an elite university, just because my school doesn't have most of the clubs and activities that larger schools do. It is very discouraging, so if you are from a small high school like myself, you'd probably be better off buying a different book. My advice: live out high school the way that you want to, as long as you're not a slug and don't follow any application guide word-for-word.
Rating:
Summary: Very Helpful!
Review: This is the most helpful book I've read on college admissions. I recommend it to everyone I know who's applying to college. It's filled with suggestions and strategies that can really improve your chances of being admitted. One word of advice: the sooner you read this book, the better. A lot of the tips in this book are for 10th and 11th graders.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent.
Review: Truly the best book on the subject of college admissions. You will probably know much more than your college counselor once you've finished this book. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Too Good To Ignore
Review: Two observations have been consistently made about this book: (1) it has a few typos and (2) it has a few opinions. Both are true. If you can't handle typos and opinions, then don't buy this book. There are several other college admissions books that are perfectly proofread and vanilla. (Caveat: I don't think that there are many error-free college books. I recall a Princeton Review book from a few years ago that listed U. Hawaii as a black college. And most admissions books say that "SAT" stands for "Scholastic Aptitude Test" or "Scholastic Assessment Test" when in fact, it stands for neither one-Allen at least knows that.) However, if you can take a few typos and opinions, then you'd be foolish to ignore this book. I haven't read every admissions book (only read three), but this book has tons of information that I didn't see anywhere else (even my college counselor didn't know a lot of this stuff). I bought and used this book last year, and I can say that you'd be doing yourself a huge disservice by not knowing the advice contained in Trade Secrets. The typos are annoying, but I wouldn't risk your college application because of them. (As for the opinions, I actually appreciated them--they kept the book entertaining and readable.)
Rating: 
Summary: UPDATE
Review: We're happy to say we've gone 2 for 2 at one of the author's least favorite Ivy League schools and though that certainly doesn't qualify us to write a book on the subject, we do feel more comfortable knowing which books we've read were helpful and which weren't. This book offers no real secrets and in no small part, it's not fully accurate. The author "borrows" liberally from elsewhere*, and much of what is original is flawed. He has a strong dislike of Harvard and Princeton and this is overly obvious all too often. Also, suggestions such as not applying to colleges that "stoop" to asking you whether you had help in preparing your essay (such as Duke) are self-serving; in this instance, the author knows the colleges are checking not to see if the work has been reviewed by parents, teachers or friends (which they assume it has been), but rather to see whether you have hired a "professional college counselor" to do your work for you (the author is one of these). We bought this book as we prepared our 2nd child's application on the off chance that some hidden pearl would be worth the price of admission; none was present. Instead, I suggest the original (*) "A is for Admission", written by someone who has actually been on the AdComm at an Ivy.
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