Colleges and Departments Books

Book is good guide for those who are not sure which schools they would like to attend, so this book provide short list about schools.
Problem with this book is its accuracy, it has many mistakes, especially with numbers.
Advice don't relay on it, check first on school web sites. Good luck.

I originally bought this book to have a text that I could easily check through--rather than going online--to find graduate programs in the humanities that interested me. On that score, I wasn't disappointed, although by now (2005), some or much of the specific information has changed. In short, this kind of book is a good place to start for those who are interested in exploring the wide range of programs that are available in the humanities.

That said, there are some shortcomings. If, like me, you don't have easy online access, the book's frequent referrals to more detailed online information is not all that helpful. Moreover, in the fast paced world of online communication, web sites and email addresses change, well, not quite with the speed of light, but almost. Second, they say that their information comes from the colleges themselves, but I am not 100% convinced. One university sent me its brochure, dated 2001, that was almost completely different from what appears in the guidebook. Related to this is my third point, the question of deadlines. If you miss a deadline, you've missed it, as I found out to my dismay after submitting two applications with the application fee (online). In the guidebook, the deadlines for these schools were listed as May 15 and June 1, but in fact they were April 15 and April 1, respectively. This confusion over deadlines is perhaps the worst feature of the book.

Overall, the Peterson's Guide to Graduate Programs is a helpful indicator of what programs are available. For someone not sure how to get started, this kind of book can show the way. Just keep in mind it's only a book, not The Book, after all.

Financing Graduate School by Patricia McWade is both well written and straight forward in its' approach to provide insight to many of the sources to aid students in their search for graduate financial aid. While Ms. McWade provides a host of leads for women, minorities, veterans, and international students she did manage to overlook potential sources of funding for male students. Had she selected another title for her work, I believe more women would find it earlier in their searches.

This CD is good only if you are looking for a lot of pictures and items NOT related specifically to the military. It does contain a lot of photos of World government military items, like the UN, etc. etc. Not so many specifically oriented to our US military. We expected more related to US ships insignias etc. Also, the 20,000 pic. counts the same pictures twice in different formats so you really are not getting what is advertised.

This book is not worth buying. Buyer beware! Don't waste your hard-earned money on this book. Anker Publishing Company has many good leadership books, but this is not one of them. I don't understand why Anker chose to publish this book. Once again, don't waste your money on this book.

Chu extols the details surrounding all the important job characteristics of department chairs. A practical guide, it should be on every college administrator's book shelf. Definitely a must read for those in the business of higher education!

Patrick Maloney

I think that says it all. Don't waste your money on this book; it's not worth a dime, or even a token.

Dr. Phillip R. Roberts, Jr.

An excellent and succinct insight into the requirements, conflicts, and leadership needs of university chairs and deans. In fact, this should be required reading for ALL in such positions. The paradigm shift from faculty to admnistration and the bi-directional demands are clearly addressed, illustrated, and suggestions provided. Short scenarios put you in the "hot seat" and stimulates one to consider the dilemmas that might occur. This volume provides an ample foundation to become a successful leader among leaders. READ THIS BOOK!

I am sorry I didn't review this book earlier; don't waste your money on it!

Worth the price of the book alone are the key straategies for raising your score. They work!

This is by far the worst book I have used to prepare for the MCAT. I have found that many of the answers in the practice tests are wrong, there are many typos, and the verbal reasoning passages sound like they were written by high school students. Also, the biological sciences section of the MCAT is supposed to be 50% biology and 50% organic chemistry, but the biological sciences practice tests in this book contain no organic chemistry questions whatsoever.

This book is too simplistic. The areas that Peterson's is reviewing should be common sense to anyone planning on taking the MCAT. The only reason to purchase this book is to use its practice tests. They are not AAMC tests by any means. However, practice tests are important in quantity even if they lack the quality.

Its worth it for the price, but you better have other studying materials. Somewhat common sense, but good review.

I'm not surprised to see Martinson make some of the same mistakes in this book as are made in his GMAT CAT prep books from ARCO. The questions in those books don't always match up to real questions on the GMAT, just as the commentaries on getting into B-school don't go much further than stating the obvious.

I am a MBA applicant. This book give me a hand in writing the essay on time. Thank you for your on-line help.

As a business school professor, I am constantly surprised at the number of unhelpful books about getting into B-school. I often read reviews crediting the writer's acceptance at a big-name school to a book. Really, it is your own intelligence, abilities, and persistence that have the strongest impact on getting you in; what's in even the best book is mostly fine-tuning.

This is not one of the best books, however. This book will add nothing meaningful to the skills you already have. There is very little in this book that you the applicant do not know instinctively. The advice on how to beef up your resume, for example, is pretty standard stuff that you will find in any "get a job" book. There is no school-specific content (i.e., what does Kellogg look for, vs. Wharton, vs. Chicago, etc.) to help you tailor your application to the particular hot-buttons of the school.

Furthermore, although copyright date on this book is 2000, it is based on an earlier edition and its age shows. So it's really out of date. For example, virtually no mention is made of the on-line application process.

There is more information about the application process--in Montauk's book "How to Get Into the Top MBA Programs." Even better, application advice ALONG WITH information about specific schools--is plentiful in the Business Week "Guide to the Best Business Schools" book (make sure you get the most recent (7th) edition of that one).

Good luck!

Vaguely written, without focus, this book is of no use to any b-school applicant who has any common sense and has bothered to familiarize him/herself with the application process. For example, the author states "a weak personal statement is almost sure to compromise an applicant's chance for success." Is this not obvious to any reasonable adult? This book may be useful to someone who has no idea what is entailed in applying to business school, but a quick look at several b-school applications will tell you everything this book has to say. I recommend you spend your time and money on another source. I found "Marketing Yourself to the Top Business Schools," by Phil and Carol Carpenter much more insightful and helpful.

The book cover was very promising but what is inside is very disappointing. This book is only a collection of school's statistic (some are outdated) and the book covers mainly schools that you will never apply to. Bottom line, you end up only with about 20 pages that are of some interest for you!!

This annually updated guide to business schools sets out to be a comprehensive resource by profiling 372 business programmes in the USA as well as in Canada, Europe, China and several other countries, all accredited by the International Association for Management Education. It also features several chapters of advice on choosing, gaining admission to, succeeding at, and financing a business school education.

Each business school profile includes institutional and admissions information, tuition and financial aid facts, descriptions of degrees offered, computer and research facilities, and employment information.

There are several interviews with admissions officers at several business schools who share their first-hand insights on what they are looking for. The eight most commonly asked essay questions (and what's behind them) are discussed as are 12 essays by applicants who had successfully gained admission to Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth and other business schools.

Especially useful for aspiring MBA candidates are the tips on the Graduate Management Aptitude Test (GMAT) in which the author shows you how to score well on it. She offers dos and don'ts for interviews, and tips for getting the best possible recommendations from your referees.

To get you on the inside track of MBA jargon, the author explains 50 terms in a glossary of business school lingo.

Since 1985, Nedda Gilbert has counselled thousands of people on admission to MBA programs, and conducted GMAT courses for employees at Fortune 500 companies. She is a business career development consultant based in New Jersey with degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University.

See also my review of BusinessWeek GUIDE TO THE BEST BUSINESS SCHOOLS, Sixth Edition, BusinessWeek McGraw-Hill, New York, March 1999, ISBN: 0-07-134259-1

If you are still considering an MBA education, or still at the beginning of the application process, this book will be very useful to you. It gives you an overall picture of the admission process, helps you calculate return on investment (if you are not sure you can do it yourself), lists things to consider when choosing the right business school, gives you hints on what you should and should not write in your essays, etc.

But if you are interested in learning more about the schools, this is not the book you are looking for. The 372 school profiles (which take up 78% of the book's pages) are nothing but a mere collection of the same old statistic data, such as average GMAT, % of minorities and average age (and some as irrelevant as % of female faculty). Most of the data is even outdated, as TOEFL's statistics still using the paper-based scale -- a disappointment if you were looking for the most recent book on b-schools. Even the most sought after MBAs are listed under the same framework.

In the profiles, each school is listed on a separate page, half of which is usually blank. Some 10% of them, randomly, have placed a two-page ad beside their profile, with catalog-like promotion text. If you want an insight into the specifics of the most reputable MBAs, a better option is the Business Week Guide To The Best Business Schools (you'd better wait for its 7th edition, though).

The best features about this book are its science review sections that summarize concepts in Chemistry, Physics, Biology, and Organic Chemistry. At least for the 2003 MCAT, the book did a good job of condensing a huge amount of science material into a number of chapters that are easily readable within a few weeks. If you run into any completely new concepts, though, you'll have to refer to outside resources for more explanation.

The verbal and writing review sections are not too helpful, as they're easier than what you'll find on the MCAT. You'll need other resources.

Overall, this review book and set of practice tests definitely can help you prepare for the MCAT, though not as much as more commercial (and pricey) test-prep materials, such as from Kaplan, Princeton Review, or ExamKrackers. I'd recommend NOT BUYING this book, but instead borrowing it from your local library. Also, supplement this book with harder practice tests so you get used to more difficult items.

I already took the MCAT and decided to retake it. This book gives a cursory glance at important info. and sometimes completely leaves out vital concepts. The examples are a little too easy especially for the verbal section. Also, the verbal section has not been updated for the 2003 test as advertised (they have 65 ques. instead of 60). Despite this, I did like the study tips that they give, most of which you can find in the AAMC student manual. It's an "OK" book to have, but the MCAT is way too important for you to risk depending solely on this book.

I don't know how this book got published. I've read some bad books, and this is seriously the worst I have ever seen, ever. The writing, the characterization, the plot, are all horrible. Then they all merge together to make it even worse. I would try to say something nice like "Well, at least the author seems to be a native English speaker!" except that the author keeps having characters say random things in German, and the line "Dumbstruck am I" (page 77) has got to compete with "Ya know that guy off in whose camper they were whacking" for its awkwardness, but it's worse because you know it was supposed to sound formal whereas "off they were whacking" was from the Beavis and Butthead movie.

The plot is that a woman is murdered and everyone's immediate reaction is to worry they will be the top suspect, then they stand around and complain for 164 pages, and then they have a seance that is successful in calling up the spirit of the dead woman to reveal the killer, even though the only suspension of disbelief previously required by the reader was to believe that there would really be so many lesbians all working together in the same department of the same school in Texas. There are I think 5 characters total, all minor, who aren't lesbians; and two of those are gay men. But the plot: on about page 15 I imagined the worst, stupidest possible ending to the story that could possibly occur, AND THAT WAS WHAT HAPPENED. They hadn't even introduced the characters who did it yet.
The book is also written confusingly in an imaginary 3rd person by an imaginary 1st person who puts editor's notes in the middle of the imagined text for no reason and there are also entries from someone else's diary as well. Yes, yes, it makes about as much sense while you're reading it. I can only imagine the author did this because she realized the book was terrible and wanted to shift the blame onto a poor helpless figment of her imagination. The 3rd person segments don't read like a person would write an autobiography, the diary segments read nothing like a diary -- in fact, most of the people don't even act like people. They act like someone wrote down a single word to describe the character's function and personality (i.e. "Paula - black." Oh, I'm not kidding. There's also "Lester - male," which means that he hates all women who won't have sex with him.)
This book is tagged as being Lesbian Interest, but I can't see how this would interest lesbians aside from the fact that a lot of the characters are lesbians. Like cop stories must all interest cops and histories all interest dead people. And by the system reported above, "Lesbian" is always their main personality trait, which means they have to start doing romantic/sexual things with each other at weird times, like in the middle of grave conversations. Example:

H.& I in my house. In bed, sipping wine. "I have a student who is a potential problem."
Her round face looks sympathetic. "Poor dear. Boy? Girl?"
"Her name is Reggie."
"A crush, do you think?" Hannah puts her finger in her wineglass & drips a few drops between my breasts. Then she licks them. "Um," she says.

If this were a conversation with a male/female, I would be demanding the girl take that wine bottle and smack this inattentive jerk over the head with it. Also, that above piece is supposed to be from a diary -- Samuel Pepys himself would not have been so formal, I tell you.
There is also a weird habit -- made even more weird by the fact that the book is supposed to have been written by one of the characters within it, that instead of describing important actions occuring in a scene, the author instead starts describing the locations of furniture. Characters' thoughts are never explored, in fact they don't even seem to listen to each other when talking face to face. They are good or evil as blatantly as if this were an old-fashioned melodrama, with villains cackling and twirling their mustaches -- which they have because they are men -- and the good guys faults only existing out of bad luck or misunderstandings.

The author is a college professor in a drama department, and maybe if this were a play instead of a book it wouldn't be half so bad. The way that scenery and every single little movement of the characters, including every single time someone licks their lips, which happens a lot it would seem, has to interrupt any existing action in order to be described might then be sensible. And that's about the only compliment or forgiving thing I can say about it.

"A Shedunit"

Miller, Lynn C., "Death of a Department Chair". Terrace Books, 2006

Amos Lassen and Literary Pride

Lynn Miller is a mystery writer who has done a bang up job with "Death of a Department Chair". This is one of the fastest moving murder mysteries I have ever read and boy did it pack a wallop. Academia is always fun to read about and throw in a gay theme, it is twice as fun. And then are twice as many villains here. Those of you who have been to college will feel right at home with this cozy book. It is witty and a real page turner. It is not just a "whodunit" but a "who woulda done it if they coulda".
Margaret Held, our heroine, tells the reader of the previous year when she was the chief suspect in the murder of her former lover and department chair, Isabel Vittorio. Vittorio was not all that clean herself; she had been involved in hanky panky regarding the hire of a new female professor who happened to be African American and was at odds with the majority of the faculty. Miriam, on the other hand, was forced into acting in the opposite direction and therefore had to defend both her reputation and her life. In her quest for the truth, Miriam gathers evidence that seems to incriminate all of her friends and colleagues. What develops is an atmosphere and mistrust and a new look at departments of literature that few of us have ever seen before.
Cleverly and wittedly, written there are enough twists and turns to made heads spin and what emerges is a clever satire of the academic world. Miller's characters are so finely created that there were times that I felt that if I looked up from the pages of the book, I would find one of them sitting in the room with me. Combined that with clear and lucid prose, a wonderful story and outrageous goings on, you are set for a wonderful read.
Miler has written one other book, "The Fool's Journey" which I can't wait to read and co-edited "Voices Made Flesh: Performing Women's Autobiography." What she has done for me is create a fan that is anxious to explore her writing. I have never really liked what is referred to as "Lesbian Lit" but this book sure made me change my mind.