AmericanUGirl

Hi guys! I know a couple of other people offered tis but since I used College Confidential to get my questions answered I thought I should pay it forward and answer yours!

I'll be a Sophomore next year. Majoring in Sociology. I'll live on North Side. I've participated in a Learning Community and lots of other things!

Ask away, I think I can offer a pretty fair assessment of the school!

kcreative

When should my S start buying books? Where? Did you have advice as to where to get the best deal on new and used books?

AmericanUGirl

I bought my books in the bookstore my first semester. It was obviously not the cheapest option at all but I was significantly less stressed about it. You can order them from the bookstore ahead of time and they'll gather them all together for you. But the lines are kind of crazy.

After first semester I started using Half.com, amazon.com, and even barnes and nobel (bn.com) to buy used books. The only catch is you pretty much have to have the ISB number of the book and not all professors post that--it takes some searching to make sure you have the right edition (the companies like to come out with new editions with small changes all the time so you have to buy the book new!).

The bookstore does buy books back at the end of the semester but for some novels for college writing I literally got 75 cents! Some of the newer, more expensive books I got $60-80 but really it was painful.

Oh college, you are wonderful but expensive.

Oh and I forgot: all the books for your classes will be listed on your sons my.american account (not sure if the freshman/transfers have those accounts yet). The biggest pain is that sometimes professors list books and then don't even use them! Very annoying. So some people hold off on buying books until a week into classes. That would have stressed me out as a new student though!

kcreative

Thanks for your kind answer. I'll share your response with my son. :-)