Better Resource - Fiske Guide or Rugg's Reccomendations?

I’ve heard good things about both, if I could only get one which would be better?

Fiske

No need to limit yourself–any decent public library will have all the major college guides. Your school guidance office may also have copies.

Loren Pope’s books “Colleges that Change Lives” and “Looking Beyond the Ivies” are great books. I also like “Creative Colleges.”

Ruggs is a good resource, but IIRC only available on line now.

Rugg’s focuses on specific academic departments and programs and lists facts and figures, while Fiske provides a subjective narrative overview of the flavor and strengths of whole institutions. I don’t think the two books serve the same purpose, really.

If you know exactly what program you are looking for, Rugg’s is a good resource to compare different offerings, but if your search is more general (i.e. what is life like at University of X?), then Fiske is more useful.

Why do you have to pick one or the other? They both can be useful resources. I have not used Ruggs myself but as noted above Ruggs seems to be more department based and Fiske provides more of an overview of the university.

I prefer “The Best 380 Colleges” 2016 edition.

Fiske. Going to be honest, I have found Rugg’s to be of limited value. The lists honestly often don’t seem right to me based on having visited and looked at some of the departments they are evaluating. I’d say Fiske with your own hard look at the department website – # and research interests/specialties of profs, courses offered, # of students in the major. You can ask the department where past students have ended up, too.

Another vote for Princeton Review’s “The Best 380 Colleges”, but I agree that there’s no need to limit yourself to one opinion, particularly once you’ve narrowed down your list a bit.

Fiske. I checked Ruggs out of the library and didn’t like it at all.

Ruggs was useful for identifying places that offered Happykid’s less common major. She didn’t need anything touchy-feely, just a list.

The Insiders Guide used to be wonderful. But it badly needs updating.

Does anyone know about the Princeton Review’s The Complete Book of Colleges? Thanks!

Both.
Ruggs was very valuable because DS wanted to find colleges that had both superior Music and Geology programs.
The back of Ruggs has a list of colleges, in alphabetical order, specifying both the majors offered and the SAT scores of accepted students.
that helped us further refine the colleges to apply to.

The complete book of colleges is pointless nowadays since we have the internet :slight_smile:
I agree Fiske or Princeton Review’s Best Colleges would be best. PR’s Best 380 really is updated frequently and with student comments and it’s easy to use. Fiske is more thorough.
I recommend reading Colleges that change lives first (used copies can be had for about $1 on amazon or your local used book store). Then borrow the above at the library.

Fiske is the gold standard for me.

Rugg’s lists seem bogus to me, and therefore worse than nothing at all.

^^ well, it is NOT bogus.
It is a comprehensive compilation of the best colleges for hundreds of majors and a great tool for some students.

Re #18, the best-colleges-for-certain-majors lists in that source seem to have been compiled without meaningful, disciplined analysis. That’s my more carefully worded assessment in response to the OP’s inquiry; The original comment in post #17 was not intended as a reaction to the viewpoint you expressed earlier in the thread.