Admission Matters: What Students and Parents Need to Know About Getting into College Paperback – January 1, 2017

If you have a question about college, the fourth edition of Admission Matters has all the current information and answers! It’s an outstanding resource for students applying to college and their families and offers clear, concise information about the entire college application process from looking at colleges and making college lists all the way through applying for financial aid and scholarships and making the decision about which college to attend. The list of resources is very complete and even includes new mobile apps. In addition, the authors maintain a new website with updates. As a college consultant, I give a copy of Admission Matters to each of my students because it provides such great information, complements my work, and offers such good advice to their families. Chapter 15 “What Matters Most” contains heartfelt messages to both parents and students to help keep them centered and reassured that the process is doable and will work out.

This is the 3rd copy I've bought, as my kids have prepared for college. After reading this, I can't see why anyone would pay $$$$ for private counselors or coaches. Really useful advice, not just how to prepare and when, but for stepping back and deciding which colleges are a good fit - and avoiding the rankings nonsense. Plenty of evidence now that the highest ranked colleges are just harder to get into, not any better at preparing your kid for success.

Very helpful and easy to read.

This book is a must read for parents of juniors (or parents who like to prepare in advance). It is both encouraging and realistic, giving a truthful and wise assessment of the state of the college admissions process and how to navigate it. The uplifting overall message - that there are tons if excellent schools and many for each student to choose from that will be a great fit - will hopefully ease the fear that parents face that if their kid doesn't go to Stanford they've failed. Not so! Read this. It will make you feel better *and* give you concrete advice on how to wade into the college admissions process (including how best to apply to schools like Stanford).

This book was required reading for my college consulting class at UCLA. It is the best overall book on the college admissions process that I have read. It offers practical and thoughtful advise for high school students and their parents. This book is often referenced in other books about college admissions — it’s that good. Highly, highly recommended.

If you know next to nothing about the college admissions process, you may find this to be a good resource. It does address the pertinent topics. If, however, you've already been around the block (we have...one child already off to college), you are not going to learn anything new. Our second child is applying to highly competitive East Coast schools and there was little strategy offered in the book. If you have any nuanced questions, I don't think you will find the answers here. Here are a few examples of what they might have included in a really good book: What is your child's school does not offer particular AP science classes -- what do you do if they need those SAT Subject tests (they are not going to kill the test when the other kids take AP)? Do kids who do not take "recommended" Subject Tests get in? How will the major that you select -- let's say Chemical Engineering vs. Chemistry, which are probably in two different colleges at a big university -- affect getting in? There was a section on test prep with which I totally disagreed; our experience is that you can get very different things out of online prep vs. tutors (and this varies by the aptitude of the test-taker -- do you know the content on the tests and simply need coaching on strategy, or are you are trying to get basic concepts under your belt?). I think the premise here was that there is all sorts of prep...it's all good. Weak. Frankly, I have learned much more by reading threads on College Confidential, which is free. This is only an "invaluable resource" if you need a general framework and want to skim the surface. I am sending this back.

the book gave me a good overview of what college admission is looking for 1. the development of the interest 2. and the potential of a student with their career

Bought this for my daughter as she and my granddaughter were working on college applications. I asked her how she liked it and she said, "There are all kinds of good hints in there."