<p>The Old College Try
Which reference guides will help you find the right school?
By Jay Mathews
Posted Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2005, at 8:38 AM PT
<a href=“http://www.slate.com/id/2127455/[/url]”>http://www.slate.com/id/2127455/</a></p>
<p>I’m very disappointed with Mr. Matthews. </p>
<p>I had an email conversation with him where I pointed out how many of the supposed student “quotes” in the Kaplan Guide (including some of the ones he actually used in his review) were lifted directly from websites like studentsreview.com and eopinions.com, in spite of the fact that the Kaplan guide makes a big point of saying the quotes were from a "national student survey. There’s no way of verifying the veracity of quotes lifted from such sites (and indeed in several cases I have found quotes that were lifted from reviews written by alumni who attended the school MORE THAN FIVE years ago). And, I personally have a bit of a problem with a guidebook that claims it does its own research but so blantantly does not. </p>
<p>But, even though Mr. Matthews wrote back and said he’d look at the links I’d sent him proving all of this, he clearly didn’t. Or maybe he was restrained by the fact that the book was published by the Post’s parent company. Too bad, he could have done students a good service by reviewing the books HONESTLY, warts and all.</p>
<p>I have been struck by how repetitive Fiske, the Yale Daily News, and Princeton Review are year after year; same quotes, same stereotypes, nuggets of useful information strewn among the duplications. Mr. Matthews has an enviable reputation, but that Slate article fails to dazzle–or even impress.</p>
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<p>That is downright slimy, if you ask me. Not that anyone did.</p>
<p>That’s a very nice bit of detective work Carolyn!<br>
Ironic isn’t it? Quotes lifted from websites??? They could be quoting complete ■■■■■■! And then claiming they come from a national student survey? That type of shoddy journalism might even be considered “plagiarism” if it was the work of a student.</p>
<p>I’m a big fan of Jay, which I think makes me a distinct minority on this board – but this article really doesn’t add much to the subject, even though I generally agree with his worst-to-best list.</p>
<p>“I’m very disappointed with Mr. Matthews.”</p>
<p>Carolyn, dear Jay never disappoints me. I EXPECT him to deliver shoddy reports, poorly researched articles, and blatantly erroneous advice. I have to admit that he might be the Karl Malone of journalists as he never fails to deliver. </p>
<p>He is another proof that simplistic and tabloid-like reporting must sell better than boring yet factually correct versions. </p>
<p>PS Sorry Lderochi! :)</p>
<p>That’s okay Xiggi, I long ago agreed to disagree with you on this one.</p>
<p>I’m disappointed he didn’t review my favorite guidebook, Donald Asher’s
“Cool Colleges for the Hyper-Intelligent, Self-Directed, Late Blooming, and Just Plain Different.”</p>
<p>I suppose it would lost points in the “depth” category, since it only covers 40 colleges, but it would have cleaned up in verve, details, and student perspectives. And I think it’s a great book to get students thinking outside the box about what they want from college, even if none of those 40 colleges are exactly the right fit for them.</p>
<p>I agree with Carolyn, both because the lifting of quotes is smarmy, AND because quotes are worthless. Even “legitimate” quotes haven’t helped our family. For example, on the “rate your professors” website, often the same prof is rated the best AND the worst on campus - probably because one kid got an A and one kid failed. Similar things happen regarding everything else, from how responsive the adminsitration is to how easy it is to get needed materials from the library - the quotes often reflect one person’s bad (or good) mood following as little as ONE experience.</p>
<p>After looking through his list I was reminded of why I bought the Barrons book. Give me just the hard facts simply organized by state anyday.</p>
<p>I just hate all that phony posturing and stereotypes of many of these books. I think you need to find a college based on real data — and then be sure to visit, visit again, talk to people you know, get information on here, in short, do your own research. </p>
<p>How can you believe the nonsense in one book? Some of it is so old that you go back to ancient editions of the book and there it is!</p>
<p>I like that book too wisteria- along with Loren Popes guides to colleges for other than A students.
This might be interesting for those who follow despite themselves Jay Mathews rankings of high schools according AP/IB classes offered.
Mr Mathews is a firm believer of rankings and says that in essence, intelligent people won’t take rankings for granted and asks for more rankings.
<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/04/AR2005100400388.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/04/AR2005100400388.html</a></p>
<p>That’s a very nice bit of detective work Carolyn! </p>
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<p>Not really detective work – I just started to realize that certain school reviews in the Kaplan guided sounded very familiar. One day while reading eopinions for a particular school, it hit me like a ton of bricks that I had read this all somewhere “official” like a guidebook. I looked at Fiske, PR, and Kaplan’s review of that school and BINGO, the Kaplan guide had not only lifted quotes from eopinions for this particular school, they had actually just re-worded the eopinion review a bit but otherwise that pretty much WAS their “review” of the school. </p>
<p>I started looking at other school reviews and comparing them to eopinions and studentreviews and BINGO again! Worse, it appears that they often just lifted the quotes without even looking to see who the person who wrote them on the net identified as — there are quotes in the book attributed to “students” that were written by alumni and even, in one case, just by a prospective student writing about her impressions during a campus tour.</p>
<p>While I haven’t even tried to pinpoint the quotes from every “review” in Kaplan, there are some that I haven’t been able to track to the internet BUT there are at least ten schools that I’ve found in the book where this was clearly done.</p>
<p>Of course, I’m sure Kaplan has protected itself by saying that in addition to their “research survey” that they also used “a number of media sources” to write their reviews. So, when you write about various colleges here or elsewhere on the net, don’t be surprised to read your own words in Kaplan in some updated edition down the road.
But, overall, I wouldn’t put much stock in Kaplan’s “research” as offering anything that you couldn’t find for free with a google search.</p>
<p>I’m disappointed he didn’t review my favorite guidebook, Donald Asher’s
“Cool Colleges for the Hyper-Intelligent, Self-Directed, Late Blooming, and Just Plain Different.”</p>
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<p>One of my favorite guidebooks too Wisteria. He probably didn’t include it because I think it is no longer in print (although you can still get used copies from Amazon). It is a great book though – one of the only guides my daughter actually read cover to cover and found helpful in figuring out what she was looking for in a college.</p>
<p>“Cool Colleges…” is no longer in print, but new copies are available online from [Powell’s</a> Books](<a href=“http://www.powells.com%5DPowell’s”>www.powells.com) and [Barnes</a> and Noble](<a href=“http://www.bn.com%5DBarnes”>www.bn.com).</p>
<p>Thanks Mootmom!!!</p>
<p>I just ordered a copy! (The “cool colleges etc” guide). Does it only cover 40 colleges? Matthews states in his “methodology”
</p>
<p>NJres, The Cool Colleges book is not like any other guidebook. Other guidebooks are very linear. This book zig zags all over the place (which probably is why it appealed to my very non-linear daughter). While it only profiles 40 schools in depth (and even then not in the normal “guidebook” fashion) it lists and briefly describes hundreds of others. What it does is describe one school in depth as an example of a type of school (i.e., schools with no core requirements, schools that are all core requirements, etc.) and then lists others like it to also consider. It is indeed a cool book (although linear thinkers may not like it), with lots of interesting and quirky snatches of information throughout.</p>