<p>I’ve received a couple of recommendations to buy his books, though I see some of the comments on amazon.com suggest some of his college choices are very outdated (quality has gone way downhill since the 60’s and 70’s). </p>
<p>What say you?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Well, IMHO without too much independent research, I think those Amazon comments are a little over the top. The reviews and comments are dated, there’s no getting around that – but by 10 years, not 30+ years. I liked both of his books, but with reservations. To quote from my own reviews at Amazon (I assume it’s not infringement if I wrote the darn things in the first place!)</p>
<p>Colleges That Change Lives:
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<p>Beyond the Ivy League:
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<p>To return to your original question – yes, the information is somewhat dated. I would especially take Mr. Pope’s comments on SAT scores and how financial aid works with huge grain of salt. But as I said in my reviews, these are still good resources to learn about some very good schools that aren’t talked about much. I would recommend them as good supplements to other, more in-depth guides. </p>
<p>FWIW, Mr. Pope will apparently have a new edition of CTCL out in Summer 2006.</p>
<p>sushi–use Pope’s books as a starting point, and do your own research. Some of the schools may have seen better days, but others have flourished and are just as good or better than when he wrote his books.</p>
<p>It’s important to understand the real value of ANY college guide book (or these forums). The real value is not to have someone else say “this is where you should go to school”. Instead, the goal should be to identify schools that are worth doing your own investigation. To that end, Pope’s recommendations would be good candidates for consideration, many of which might not immediately pop into mind. </p>
<p>Many of his schools stand out in, for example, producing a high percentage of future PhDs per graduate – especially relative to the median SATs of the student body. I think this is a legitimate indication of value-added academics and a campus culture that is academically oriented. That’s valuable information.</p>
<p>I mean, really, do we need a guidebook to tell us that Harvard or MIT or Stanford are “good” schools? But, as we alll know, not everyone is going to get into Harvard or MIT or Stanford. In many ways, a guidebook that offers less-selective options is pretty darn useful.</p>
<p>Are some of Pope’s schools a litte worn around the edges as far as gleaming facilities? Sure. If they had mega-endowments, they’d be on the USNEWS/Dick Clark American Top-40 list and you’d have to have 1500+ SATs and a stellar high school transcript to get in. What’s the difference between Earlham and Swarthmore? Or Hendrix and Amherst? About a billion dollars of endowment. </p>
<p>They may not have the sushi bar student lounges and country-club landscaping, but Earlham and Hendrix are clearly getting the basics right. They offer a top-flight academic experience and they offer that experience to kids for whom the mega-endowment schools may not be a realistic option. Pope does a valuable service highlighting these schools for consideration because USNEWs certainly isn’t doing it.</p>
<p>I think the books are also valuable to encourage people to look at schools beyond the usual suspects. Even if none of the specific schools profiled end up being of interest to you, they can get you thinking about different criteria, or a different type of school, than you might have otherwise thought of.</p>
<p>My daughter and I have visited several of the schools covered in the Colleges that Change Lives book, and, in fact, 6 out of the 8 schools she has applied to are CTCL schools. </p>
<p>While some of the information in the book is definitely outdated, we have found the underlying substance to be remarkably on target. </p>
<p>We have visited 25 schools in the past year and researched countless others. We have definitely noticed that the CTCL schools really do have a special quality. We have found the faculty to be more excited about teaching and students more engaged about learning at the 10 or so CTCL schools we’ve visited than at other institutions of similar size and selectivity. That’s not to say there aren’t other schools out there that aren’t in the CTCL book where this isn’t true, just that we have found this to be consistently more true at CTCL schools than others we have picked at random to visit.</p>
<p>Of course, the schools in the CTCL book are very varied — I doubt there is a student who would like them all or feel comfortable at all of them. My daughter certainly ruled out a few of them rather quickly for one reason or another — but at every one we’ve visited where she’s sat in on classes and talked with faculty, she’s come away impressed even if she ultimately didn’t feel the school was a fit. That has not been the case at most of the other schools we’ve visited, some of which are higher ranked than many of the CTCL schools or received glowing reviews in other guidebooks.</p>
<p>My main complaint with the CTCL books isn’t that they are outdated but that they tend to be a little too rah=rah cheerleaderish for me. I like guidebooks that point out the warts while they’re also pointing out the beauty. 
The CTCL book also does not do a good job of explaining the differences between campus cultures at the various schools, something I believe a good guidebook should do. </p>
<p>However, in terms of spotlighting some fine schools - at all levels of selectivity - that aren’t always household names, I think the CTCL book is a must read, if only because it gives you some idea of what a college could and should be. Pope’s other book, Beyond the Ivy League, is, in my opinion, a little less reliable about the information it provides but still has some good ideas and suggestions. </p>
<p>However, As mentioned by others, no guidebook can determine whether a particular school will be right for a particular student — it can only point towards a few suggestions — so everyone needs to do their own due diligence and dig beyond the guidebooks and glossy viewbooks in making the choice of where to apply and where to, ultimately, attend.</p>
<p>interestedad, what’s your point? CTLC is about identifying schools that one can make a difference in a more distinctive way than at other good schools.</p>
<p>There is a newly revised edition of the CTCL books coming out soon, though I really don’t know when. But depending where you are in the college selection process, it might be worthwhile to wait. (Too late for seniors, but maybe this years juniors can hold off the purchase). Or you can just cheat, skip the book, and get the basic data about each college off the web site.</p>
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<p>My point is that Loren Pope’s books do a valuable service in identifying a selection of schools that stand out as being worthy of consideration by academically-minded students.</p>
<p>calmom, I e-mailed the CTCL website and asked that very question a few weeks ago. They said the new edition is scheduled for Summer 2006.</p>
<p>I cannot overstate the impact that book (CTCL) had on our college search. I read it cover to cover and found hope where there had been little. I did get tired of the Ivy and large Uni - bashing, although I appreciate his analogy that rating schools based on the quality of students they enroll is like rating hospitals on the health of patients they admit! </p>
<p>I think the book does a great job of identifying the type of school that might be a good fit for a student with less than top stats. The 40 schools in the book should not be viewed as an all-inclusive list, and you still have to do your own research. We visited about 18 colleges and 6 were from the CTCL book. None were disappointing. My son applied to 4 schools, 3 from the book and was admitted to those 3. (Waitlisted at the 4th and withdrew his app).</p>
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<p>Is this a suggestion that it is mistake to consider the statistics related to number of PhD produced by a certain school - and especially the highly dubious extrapolation of PhD per student enrollment- to be mostly irrelevant?</p>
<p>What is the percentage of PHD annual production when compared to the well-over 3,000,000 students graduating from high school every year? The reality is that the number of PhD is insignificant in the overall scope of colleges. Further, isn’t the statistic more relevant to the GRADUATE school than to the undergraduate college? </p>
<p>Pretending that “academically oriented” or “academically-minded” has to be defined by the pursuit of a career in research or academia represents a questionable proposition. </p>
<p>Does this mean that only students who have doctoral ambitions are academically minded? I am wondering what is then on the mind of millions of college students.</p>
<p>Xiggi:</p>
<p>As I’m sure you are aware, academics (i.e. going to class, actually doing the assignments, etc.) is often pretty low on the priority list for many college students – as long as they get the degree.</p>
<p>When searching for colleges with less selective admissions, that becomes an issue worth considering. From what I can tell, many of the schools on Loren Pope’s list seem to have a particular strong culture of actually giving a “shoot” about the academic side of college. To me, that could be a positive feature of an educational institution and not one that is necessarily universal at all schools with acceptance rates above 50%.</p>
<p>The PhD production-rate is certainly an imperfect measure of academic engagement on a campus. But, for better or worse, it is the ONLY widespread, long-term measure in place for us to see a snapshot of a broad range of colleges. What do you suggest using? The BS “med school admissions rate” numbers colleges toss around? In the history of the universe, no two schools have ever reported that number the same way. Maybe we could tell by judging how “earnest” the students look in the viewbook classroom photos? Why don’t they ever show the kids who are still passed out from shots at the frat pledge event in those photos?</p>
<p>I’m just saying that many of Pope’s schools really jump off the page on the PhD production rates in various fields. For example, Kalamazoo and Earlham are both in the top-25 per capita PhD producers in the US over the most recent 10-year period. Beloit, Lawrence, St. Olaf, Hendrix, Hampshire, Knox, and Occidental are all in the top-50 and top-10 in certain fields. I believe that all of these schools have median SATs below 1300 and outperform (at least on one imperfect measure) similarly sized schools that are far more selective.</p>
<p>Doesn’t make any of them the right choice for an individual student. However, they are certainly worth adding to a preliminary shopping list. Would I pick Earlham over an acceptance to Davidson, Dartmouth, or Washington U that are not in the top-50 PhD producers? Probably not. You know my motto, “follow the [endowment] money”. But, by and large, the kids applying to Earlham or Occidental don’t have Davidson, Dartmouth, or Washingon U. as options. The fact that Earlham has a more “academic” focus than other similarly selective schools might well be relevent to some kids.</p>
<p>I’d like to say that while the Pope book does have some “less selective” schools in it, it also has some schools that are pretty darn competitive when it comes to admissions. Grinnell, St. Olaf, Whitman, Southwestern, Denison, Reed, Earlham, Lawrence, Rhodes and Beloit, among other schools in the CTCL books are NOT “easy admits” for “lesser students,” and the competition to get in is growing every year.</p>
<p>These books are like christmas catalogs, you look to see what is out there, then when you start to make your list if you are looking at chainsaws you narrow the make and model down based upon its match with what you are specifically looking for…</p>
<p>Some people will start their list process looking at Lands End and then hear there is something similar in LLBean, others might start their list with Macy’s and find there is something else like it in </p>
<p>The Pope book is a good list starter…to be supplemented by other list books, web sites and personal visits. All of these books are outdated the day they are published, and many are not as well tuned to the applicant’s needs as they could be. I would still reccomend it.</p>
<p>Love the Christmas catalog analogy!</p>