Princeton Review

As a volunteer at a high school writing center, I've read a number of college essay books, and this is the worst. The essays, which are held up as examples of good writing, are dull, plodding, confused, and often ungrammatical. That these students got into great schools with poor essays is perplexing and could lead one to the erroneous conclusion that the essay matters not one whit. The book is full of examples of mistakes other college essay books warn against, such as writing an essay show more about the application process or using something "clever" such as a cartoon for your essay unless it's very good (the cartoon in the book is not). Not only are the essays mediocre, the book itself is thrown together. The Q&A with college admissions officers is completely unhelpful. The race and gender information provided about each student reveals that the applicants featured are overwhelmingly white. It's ok that the editors left the grammatical mistakes the students made, but their own editorial errors are inexcusable. It's sloppy and careless to introduce a female student's essay with: "Caroline used the following essay in his applications to the schools listed above." And while other books provide helpful analysis of essays and point out what worked and what could have been improved, this book does not bother to. If you want guidance on the college essay, save your time and money and choose a different book. show less

I suppose I shouldn't rate this until I see how I actually do on the test, but I feel like it has been helpful, and I liked the tone. It was actually fun to read, especially compared to other prep books.

I skimmed through this 700+ page tome. If a family was just starting to look into college and post-high school opportunities for their youth, this might prove helpful, but I've already spent hundreds of hours researching the subject online and I found this book didn't offer anything new. As the authors rely on colleges to respond and provide information, it's not even a comprehensive listing, as there are major colleges that are absent and some programs that are not included. The authors did show more undertake a major effort to update the book in 2021--I can only imagine how brain-draining that was--to update things such as SAT and ACT requirements or if they were optional for the 2021 entry year alone.

Get this book as an initial starting point, but if you already have done groundwork research, then it probably won't aid you further. show less

The TOEFL actually being more about cracking very specific tasks than testing language ability, it always pays to come to the test well prepared. This book provides a good insight in the ways the bizarre minds of the TOEFL experts work and how to answer what they want to hear. It contains a summary of the four parts of the test, provides examples and methods to prepare for it. Too bad it doesn't come with a CD-ROM containing actual practice questions (there's only an audio CD included). I show more would recommend pairing it with other books containing good practice material, such as the Longman TOEFL preparation CD-ROM by Deborah Phillips. show less