Colleges and Departments Books

An absolute "must-read" for anyone contemplating educational options in this industry. Very easy to read but dense with useful and practical advice.

Would have appreciated more coverage of undergraduate options, though. While the authors make the case for undergraduate school as a time of broad educational exposure, it is conceivable to do that within a context of film.

For a young person interested in film, it is hard for them to delay their involvement until graduate school. They can certainly get a liberal arts degree (and thus the broad exposure) with a film/film studies major and then decide if they want to continue on to grad school (and if so, what particular emphasis). However, there are also undergrad options that are more concentrated on the actual production side of things. Some coverage of the undergrad options would have been very much appreciated.

The book has its value for discussing in detail several schools throughout the country. I would even say it is a must-have before you visit ANY film school (even if's not in the book). The grudge I have is how the authors sometimes weigh in with their personal preferences while discussing school facts (eg, they call Valencia, CA "depressing to live" - while that may be true it is highly subjective and should not be mentioned in a section which is supposed to inform an applicant). The introductory chapters are helpful, but the authors on occasion fall for juvenile foot-in-mouth comments like minimizing the work of McKee and Field by arguing they haven't had any produced screenplays (which is ridiculous - that's like saying a Superbowl team coach sucks because he can't throw a ball like Joe Montana). The glossary is tongue in cheek but is obviously filler, no substance. Other than that, if one ignores these annoyances the book can be helpful.

Overview of the top graduate film programs: gives good insight into each program and their respective strengths and characteristics. Very helpful in understanding the 'signature' of a school. Would be great to have an equivalent for undergrad film programs!

Does say what it claims to do. Excellant guide, helped me choose Chapman U due to its excellant equipment and policies.

Excellent- great discussion of the value proposition of film school. One thing I found odd though- they estimated one year rent and living expenses in New York at $20k. Living where, in a cardboard box, eating ramen noodles? Anyway, I highly recommend the TV reality show series "Film School," on DVD. As for the question of whether to go, I think it says a lot that the #1 reason to go is the contacts you'll make. Do you need to spend three years and god only knows how much money to make some friends/contacts? Anytime that's used as a justification for the cost of grad school, watch out! They say the same thing about business school, and I don't know a single person who wouldn't be where they are today if it weren't for b-school.

I have used Kaplan study products for many different exams, and I like their approach and the fact that they have a CD-ROM with extra features. But it doesn't work with either my PC (which has Vista) or my Mac laptop!! This seems ridiculous for a 2009 version. I am very sorry I paid the extra money for the CD-ROM.

The GRE Premier Program 2009 Edition is a fantastic study guide for the GRE tests. Having the groups of words and math examples in the back of the book make it a lot easier to study.

I would suggest that those word groups and math examples be pages that can be torn out so that they can be used as notecards!

I purchased this book because I wanted to be well-prepared for the GRE. This book is easy-to-understand and very thorough. I especially appreciate their test tips. Kaplan gives explicit information about how the GRE is written and points out pitfalls to avoid. They train students how to easily eliminate certain answer choices to increase their odds of choosing the correct answer. There are practice tests both in the book and on the disk and there is a wealth of additional information on their web site. I highly recommend this book.

The strategies and practice are good. The CD-ROM is a disaster. I was doing one of the 3 CAT included in the CD-ROM and my time expired after 10 minutes of the issue essay. The same thing happened with the quantitative section. It's worthless. Also, I found more productive and interesting the analytical writing tips in Princeton review.
I don't recommend it.

I bought this book to get an overview on the GRE (which I could have got on ETS page) and to increase my Verbal and AW scores.

After three week of learning words, the Verbal scores didn't improve and the AW skill is simply unmeasurable.

Their verbal CD tests are pretty limited, after making them twice I get maximum score because of learning the answers by heart, not because any improvement actually occurs. The Math was no challenge except the probabilities, whose I had to review once again. Sadly, no probabilities problems occurred in the test, but statistics (distributions, percentile, standard deviation), which I had barely remembered (I have a 10 year old CS/Math undergraduate degree).

I scored 800 Quantitative (with very less preparation) 480 on Verbal and 3.5 on AW. Same score, (at least after my appreciation, I had the official test only once) as when I have acquired the book.

The book may be good to give an image about what GRE is, this is the reason I gave two stars, but if you wish to improve your score, you may look elsewhere.

This book is generally good. However, the examples are quite old. They submitted their forms in 1980s or 1990s. The book pay too much attention to dramatic approach in which candidates should tell their personal stories like thriller or drama ones. Not many ones have such experience in their lives. Nonetheless, in overall, the book show you the right way to write SOP.

There was nothing unique about this book. I bought 4 different books to help me write my personal statement. They all said the same thing with the same insight. Talk about plagarism. They weren't word-for-word, but the gist was the same.

Save your money and buy only 1 book!

This book was EXCELLENT. I had read two other books before this one, and was disappointed. Though they claimed to be good for grad apps, they were clearly geared toward undergraduate application essays. This book asks thought-provoking questions that help to bring to light relevant experiences and skills that you may have left out. It is great as far as taking you through the process of brainstorming, writing, and revising, but also explains how to write a good essay even if the deadline is looming. It was very good at helping me to organize my thoughts and feel like a good essay was just around the corner - which did wonders for calming my anxiety about the process. The examples in the book were also very helpful, and this is the first book I have seen that had sections dedicated to specific programs (medical, law, business, etc.) THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

In "How to Write a Winning Personal Statement for Graduate and Professional School", Mr. Stelzer concisely elucidates how one must bring out an original yet refreshing personal statement. 90% of the sample essays are geared towards the Big 3- Law, Medical, and Business. For students interested in other programs like myself, there are several takeaways one could get from this book. I would strongly suggest using the questionnaires in the Appendix. I learned several things from the pages on advice from admissions representatives. I would also suggest reading all the sample essays first and then the introductory chapter which would help one lay out the groundwork for an original personal statement. Real Essays for College and Grad School by Anne McKinney is another helpful book. Good Luck!

Of all the tasks we usually face when applying to graduate and professional schools, from choosing universities to preparing for and taking admission and standardized tests, from soliciting recommendations to having transcripts send out, writing a good personal essay is among the most important and difficult to accomplish. The strong competition for admissions to grad schools, the personal statement often becomes a crucial element of your application package. It is the one element that can set you apart from the competition and open the door to your successful application.

This book describes the mistakes that applicants commonly make, and offer advice on how to make your statements as effective as possible. The book dedicates 60 pages to display 40 winning personal statements, as practical examples of what should be included and what not in order to write the essay that could give you the unconditional acceptance to the grad school or program of your choice.

Absolutely a must have for anyone applying to graduate and professional school.

Princeton Review: Gourman Report of Graduate Programs, 8th Edition: A Rating of Graduate and Professional Programs in American and International Uni versities ... in American and International Universities)Princeton Review: Gourman Report of Undergraduate Programs, 10th Edition: A Rating of Undergraduate Programs in American and International Universities ... in American and International Universities) As an educational professional for over thirty-years, I have used Dr. Jack Gourman's guides to select my graduate schools, to help my children select their undergraduate and graduate schools, and to help my students choose their colleges and universities. As consumers of collegiate products, most parents just accept what a school says about how good they are. Dr. Gourman (Univ of MI) furnishes us accurate information to measure school quality vs. price. Given the impact of these decisions on a child's education, Gourman has done a great public service by publishing his evaluation. It shows how far from accurate are the evaluations contained in popular "news" magazines which many depend on to make this momentous decision. Gourman's guidea are easy to use but they also contain a discussion of the methodology he uses in his analysis. This is key information for parents concerned about getting what they pay for.

I've used several major ranking references. I have found the Gourman Report to be the most accurate in rating educational institutions in terms of faculty quality and library - an often over-looked yet the MOST important resource for research in graduate schools and professional schools such as med schools, business schools and law schools.

By contrast, other ranking reports tend to put too much emphasis on subjective opinions (mostly gathered via opinion polls) in their ranking calculations. Some put almost no emphasis on the size of the library; and some calculate a "library size to student population ratio", making a lousy library of a small school seems better than a good library of a big school.

I have encountered many disenchanted students at small private universities who are disappointed at the lack of library resources and the small selection of classes in their particular programs. Their research is slowed down or made impossible because of the inadequacy of these resources. They would have avoided such disenchantment if they had used the Gourman Report.

Jack Gourman is a former professor from the University of Michigan who compiles his rankings by calling professors in various departments at different schools and asking them which programs they think are the best in their field. Not a bad way to rank schools and programs if your sampling is statistically valid, but since Jack is vague about his methodology, we'll never know that. What we do know is that his rankings are noticeably skewed in favor of large state universities and especially the University of Michigan. For instance, most observers rank Harvard Stanford and Yale among the top three law schools, with Michigan between fifth and ninth, but Jack consistently ranks the Wolverines in the top three. (Hey! They've got a great football program, haven't they?)

This approach produces ludicrous results in his rankings of undergraduate institutions (a separate book), but is less of a problem with graduate programs which are (1) the province of larger universities, and (2) subject to fewer constraints in their acceptance of out-of-state residents.

The book is especially useful as a checklist of all of the major players in a particular discipline. Just remember to move all Big Ten schools down one to two notches, and the University of Michigan down three to four, and you'll end up with some pretty decent rankings.

Jack, you really should make your ranking available online. Otherwise, many people will not refer to it and they will miss the opportunity to access the most objective and accurate college ranking!

As an educational professional myself, I can assure that the rating provided by Dr. Gourman is certainly the most objective and well prepared of its kind. Of course, there is no equal to the National Research Council study conducted every 10 years, but the Gourman Report certainly fills the gap.

This book is perfect to give you a first glance of what is grad school like, how the admission process works and which are or are not good reasons to seek a higher degree. There is information, specifically about the admission process, which does not exist anywhere else. The only problem with this book (and others of this kind) is that it intends to cover too much and does not go deep into any topic. For example, it goes through Med school admissions, for which there is better information on many other specialized books. On the other hand, if what you're looking for is a true overview, this might be perfect for you.

If you're looking for the real thing in Ph.D.'s and M.S.'s the book you need is Robert L. Peter's "Getting what you came for". It is even recommended by the authors of the Grad School Handbook.

I just happened to find this very book written by such a very experienced educator and professor. I have not yet got a chance to read this book, but I know the authors so well that I believe this book must be great! The authors had extensive experience in grad school education and had recruited and taught many bright, outstanding students, some of whom are among the best of our days now. I was lucky to be the one he picked up among hundreds of candidates and he had unfailing confidence on me so that I could perform exceptionally well, partly due to his far-sightedness in recruiting and continual support and partly due to my advisor's strong support. I am so glad to know the author could share his experience with us and I believe his book should be a must read! I will definitely read it and provide more comments later. Please feel free to write to me if you have any questions about the authors.

I just happened to find this very book written by such a very experienced educator and professor. I have not yet got a chance to read this book, but I know the authors so well that I believe this book must be great! The authors had extensive experience in grad school education and had recruited and taught many bright, outstanding students, some of whom are among the best of our days now. I was lucky to be the one he picked up among hundreds of candidates and he had unfailing confidence on me so that I could perform exceptionally well, partly due to his far-sightedness in recruiting and continual support and partly due to my advisor's strong support. I am so glad to know the author could share his experience with us and I believe his book should be a must read! I will definitely read it and provide more comments later. Please feel free to write to me if you have any questions about the authors.

It goes without saying that deciding to take graduate course is one of the most serious decisions in your life. It means you decide the path the rest o life will follow. For such a critical matter, any amount of information shouldn¡¯t be enough. You should do your best in collecting information to decide whether to enter the graduate program, which school you would enroll, how you could get into that school. It¡¯s not easy task at all and demands your time and money. This book is written to help you in that process. This book opens with recommending reconsidering whether the graduate program is the right one you should choose Once you are determined, you should think what will lie in your way such as how to fund your course, how to choose the right school. And then you should prepare to documents such as application form, the statement of purpose (SOP) or essay, transcript, recommendation and GRE or GMAT score. These papers are decisive in whether you could get into wanted school and there are some rules you should keep.
This book offers you how to start the process. Yep other similar material would help you get through it. But the beauty of this book is this: this book show you how those papers would be considered in the department. In other word, this book illustrates the process from the insider¡¯s view: who read the papers and how they evaluate them. Knowing the criteria of your reader is definitely helpful to win the admission notice. And that, authors took interviews of professors and students to depict the real process.
This is a small book and you need other books to win the process. For example, you¡¯d better read some other book on writing SOP. But this is ultimately the right place to begin with.

I was disappointed to find this book geared more towards students who were returning to school rather than to the undergraduate seeking a higher degree. There were certain areas that were extremely helpful, while other sections were almost discouraging to the prospective student. There were sections that provided some insight into writing the statement of purpose and financial aid sources, but still seemed to be geared towards either students seeking Ph.D's or students returning to school after a period of time. I have to say I was a disappointed.

This book was exactly what I needed. I haven't taken the test yet, but it's a great resource for studying and I have confidence that it will help give me at least a basic idea of what to expect. Shipped quickly. I'm very satisfied.

This book is accessible and covers much of the exam material in the depth you need to know it. However, it glosses over plant biology (a very major component of the exam) as well as much of the animal physiology and evolution material it contains. It was very frustrating on exam day to see all kinds of information not covered in this book -- and I'm not talking specifics here but GENERAL CONCEPTS. If your undergraduate biology study was more focused (i.e. you haven't had development or plant bio or physiology or evolution or cell bio), you're probably better off taking an in-depth review of the Campbell general biology textbook (an older edition of which I'm sure you could get cheaply and not feel bad marking up). Also, if inconsistent diagrams and lapses in text editing aren't really your cup of tea, this book might not be for you.

After taking the exam in December 2006, you would be better off buying and reviewing the latest version of Campbell Reece 'Biology' textbook to study for the GRE Biology Exam. This Kaplan book needs a revision as it is misrepresenting a lot of the information that was presented on the exam.

I would say that this book is good reference for a high school biology teacher.

You might as well buy any version you want for a test you will take soon, but I did find this book very helpful for reviewing without much time to do so. The situation will change when the test goes electronic, however. In that case the old versions will likely be obsolete.

This is one of the best GRE subject books for any person trying to score high on the GRE exam in Biology. It covers everything you need to know in detail. The illustrations, the diagrams, the graphs, the charts, are all very helpful too. They even show you some basic math to help you understand everything better and for it to make sense for you. It has three sections Cellular and Molecular Biology, Organismal Biology, and Ecology and Evolution. I could not put it down it was so helpful and I understood everything that they wrote down. This book is very specific and as mentioned above and thorougly explains everything without you saying this is too much. There are about 14-15 practice questions at the end of each section and the answers are explained fully. The end of the book there are 200 questions that cover everything that you read in the book and the answers are again fully explained at the end. I am not a good multiple choice test taker but after reading about 10 pages on a certain topic I answered the question correctly at the end. I highly recommend this book you will definately score higher on the GRE subject. Even if you are not a good test taker you will most likely get a higher score! The book might I add is interesting to read too and is very thought provoking.

This book has some great advice for those considering grad school. But, if you're already in a program, you won't find it very useful.

To my knowledge, there is no other book of its kind. It is easy reading and practical! If you are even considering going to grad school, this book is a must. Find out if you have what it takes to get in and complete grad school by reading this book.

I got this book when I was a senior in college and thinking about grad school. I didn't know what to expect and the book offered a great overview. I really liked the quotes from other grad students, too. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who's trying to make a decision about grad school and wants the inside track.

Despite its pleasant tone and occasional bits of helpful information, this book is far too basic to be of much use to anyone. It tries to cover an incredible amount of territory -- Finding the Right University (Ch. 1) all the way to Your Thesis/Dissertation (Ch. 8) and Getting a Job (Ch. 10) -- in barely 200 pages. Simple is not better in this case. Anyone above a college sophomore should read Robert Peters' "Getting What You Came For" instead.

The Spanish have a colorful saying, `Antes de te cases, mira lo que haces', which literally means- before getting married, look at what you are doing. Figuratively speaking, this expression is a Latin version of our own cautionary admonition- look before you leap.

Ms. Mitchell's The Ultimate Graduate School Survival Guide offers thoughtful advice to those motivated students interested in critically evaluating the decision to pursue and attain an advanced degree. The book is excellent and extremely valuable because it forces the prospective grad student to focus on the most important things before, during and after taking the grad school plunge. The book elaborates on the right way and the wrong way to approach prospective schools, choose which school to attend, play the graduate school game, and navigate the treacherous, shark-infested waters of academe. It also offers useful, practical advice on grant and proposal writing, publications, and time management. Additionally, the author has included a bibliography full of useful books to help grad students achieve their degree goals.

Many students do not realize that by deciding to attend graduate school, they often lose control over their own fate, as your advisers dictate both your course of study and the possible career choices in academe and the professional workplace- long after you have left the ivory tower. Although I balk at the book's wholehearted endorsement of conformity to the prevailing regime and using sycophancy at every opportunity in the face of tyrannical faculty, this book provides the real deal, the inside story on the realities of graduate training. The book covers everything important, and tries to provide helpful hints and suggestions geared to successful navigation of the capricious politics in the ivory tower. Additionally, the author manages to cover even the more objectionable topics, such as romantic liaisons between students and faculty, the theft of student ideas and research by faculty, the fickle favoritism for some students over others by faculty, and the thorny politics of inclusion.

However, there are a couple of noticeable caveats in the book. First, the author neglected to add that a student, in deciding which school to attend, should consider the cost of living in and around the school environment, and the difficulty of attaining minimum lifestyle requirements. Even when a student receives generous financial aid, it may not be enough to cover the cost of living. If the aid given is not in line with the cost of living in the particular environment, the student will be forced to depend on loans for some or most of his or her living expenses. Moreover, many campus environments face housing shortages, and as can be expected, rents are bid upward when housing is scarce. Not only is the cost of living exorbitant in many environments, housing for students tends to be scarce and costly. If working professionals living in these areas are paying five hundred to one thousand dollars for the privilege of sleeping in someone's attic (or in more than a few cases, a closet), one can imagine the difficulty students would face.

Moreover, in recent years, given the generally dismal economic outlook, many students increasingly look upon graduate school as a safe harbor from both social and economic turmoil. One should bear in mind that one may give up much more than one gains in attending graduate school, as the cost of graduate study, whether paid for by loans or by fellowships, and the income foregone by not working, quickly mount. Also, these costs worsen the longer it takes to complete the degree. Therefore, given the hidden, though very real costs of a graduate education, I suggest one consider working part or full-time (for pay), preferably in a field related to one's studies while pursuing the graduate degree, or having one's place of work foot the bill for graduate study. Otherwise, one just might be better off substituting practical, on the job experience for advanced education, as many graduate programs are not geared to providing students with marketable skills.

Second, one should make certain that whatever body of knowledge one acquires, this knowledge should be transferable to other endeavors, or at least something that one can build upon. Too many students have pursued graduate degrees, in the process learning obscure concepts, methodologies and techniques, only to learn after completing their studies that their knowledge is either impractical or obsolete (or in many cases both)- a situation which not only makes them ill-prepared for the realities of the workforce, but also forces them to play catch-up and spend valuable time and money picking up other skills. Being in such a situation is never pretty- especially when one has a family to support. Therefore, it behooves the prospective student to consider the expected payoff from an investment in advanced education very critically.

This book, along with RL Peters' Getting What You Came For and PJ Feibelman's A PhD Is Not Enough, should be required reading for all graduate students.

If your having trouble finding which business school to attend this can greatly help you. Very detailed and ranks schools within given regions.

This was the first book we purchased on the subject, but is was similar to the top 300 undergraduate schools books - Princeton Review, etc.

This was very helpful in narrowing the field of possible schools and informative on the types of students.

The average graduate's salary was also very helpful.

This is a great resource for the money. I found the reviews of the business schools to be very helpful, and when compared to my other research on the subject to be right on point.

This book gives some information that can be helpful
1. A whole lot of stats (Academic rating, GPA ave, GMAT ave, # of students, student faculty ratio, joint degress, financial facts, and a lot more!)
2. A short description/info on academics, career and placement, student life environment, admissions, + more of every school.

Why I don't like it:
1. Most are just US schools. I expected more schools from Europe, Asia, Australia.. There are still a number of non-US schools. But I bought this book to have an idea of how other schools outside US are.

2. They are all MBA programs. I chose this book among others because it said "Best 282 Business Schools," not "Best 282 MBA programs." I intentionally excluded books with "MBA" on their title from my shopping list. There are a lot more programs than the MBA(Ms Finance, Ms Marketing, Ms International Business etcetc.) Business schools are not just about MBA programs. I was expecting see more of them from the book. The only non-MBA programs that they list are the joint-degrees available per school. If you're looking for an MBA program, this won't be a problem.

3. Academic rankings are........ absurd. I couldn't believe they gave University of Chicago just 78 points in academic ranking. Businessweek ranked that school #1, ahead of Harvard/Wharton/Stanford. They could have at least given Chicago an 85.

One final note, if you plan to use this book to gather research information for your essays in top 30 schools, this won't be enough. You'll still need to interview/talk to the adcom, teachers, students or alumnus/alumna.

This book is fine for people looking to get into a US school. If you are also considering a European or Asian school, spend your money on the Economist (EIU) review.

Feels good with the information that was discerned with an initial review ...

The information is up to date and useful for potential applicants

This book is not for the quant jocks. tells a story not a lot of numbers but gives the important stuff that every other book has.

While it does have some helpful ideas, most citations are four to twenty years old (with more of the latter). As a result, some of the advice given is questionable, as the research cited to support it is very out of date. I realize some organizational "truths" remain as true today as they were two decades ago, but there have been many changes in the academic scene since, and many changes in the typical job of the department chair.

Some generic advice from a series of papers and presentations. Nothing all that new or useful.

This book on Managing People is outstanding; I urge you to order a copy, put it somewhere nearby. That way you'll be able get your hands on it quickly. Just make off with a copy, if you must, though I warn you not to touch the Provost's copy, which is presuming that he or she has one, and I find that not too difficult to imagine! This is a book you're sure to use time and time again. It's that good.

Dr. Russell Smith

This is a valuable book and whether you're a dean or a department chair--or for that matter, anyone who "manages" people--it needs to be somewhere you can get your hands on it immediately. Its contributors offer some useful, practical advice not found in enough books that are written primarily for educators.