Alumni Directories Books

This book is an encyclopedia listing some of the earliest African-American graduates from a large public university, namely the University of Michigan. Many readers would be surprised to learn that Black students were on the medical campus
in the 1880's, years before Brown versus the Board of Education.
Dr. Johnson conducted exhaustive research to pull together the details of the physicians included in this volume. Especially moving is the author's own tale of struggle and ultimately success after graduating from South Haven High School, attending Western Michigan University, then attending the University of Michigan Medical School after completing just 3 years of undergraduate study. Dr. Johnson and the other physicians described within the book are role models for current and further medical students of all races and backgrounds.

A MUST-HAVE for anyone interested in Black History or for people studying the history of minorities in the health care field.

This is the book I've used as a substitute for visiting law schools because--let's get real--not EVERYONE can afford to go on all those trips to different law schools. Being someone who applied to 10+ schools, none of which are located any closer than 6 hours by car and most being much farther than that, it was essential for me to get information from students and to learn more about various points of interest when one is choosing a law school. To be real again, when you speak to current students/alumni or when they contact you out the blue, these people are going to have a biased assessment--you know these are the people who like the school and will be nothing but positive about most, if not all, aspects.

"The Buzz Book" was a way for me to see what students and alumni who weren't necessarily part of the schools' new admits welcoming committee have to say about five basic but essential areas: Admissions, Academics, Career Prospects, Quality of Life and Social Life. At the time I bought this book, I was past admissions--I was looking for something to help me make a choice. However, if you're looking to read students' viewpoints on what matters in admissions to a particular school, this book is very helpful with that and, I would say, is pretty much correct for every school that I read up on. This book is also helpful if you want to know what schools are hard, what schools use the Socratic Method and how, what schools are laidback, which ones have great career service offices/workers, which ones have crappy dorms and which ones have a good social scene. Some students even go as far as to tell you who the best professors are to take courses from and where the best food is (as well as who and where to stay away from).

Two problems with this book: 1) if you're looking at top law schools, they are, pretty much, all going to be here...but not every school is. And the lower in the rankings you go, the less it seems like students filled out surveys. So, you can have, maybe 7 or 8 surveys for each of those five areas covered with schools like Harvard, Boalt and Georgetown, but you might catch only 2 or 3 for a school like the University of Colorado or DePaul. This book might not be great for those not looking at the top 20 or 30 schools; 2) a lot of the students and alumni who filled out these surveys didn't exactly put enough care and thought into them. So some surveys will be one-liners or a couple lines that are not the most helpful or as helpful as you would have wanted. This is fine for the schools that have several surveys under them, but this is another reason why people who are looking at more "realistic" schools don't really need this book.

Basically, admissions tells you, from their viewpoints, how to strengthen your application or what the schools are looking for. Academics tells you about the professors, the courses, the grading, and the teaching/Socratic Method. Career prospects tells you about the career service office and how helpful (or not) they are at certain schools, as well as where do most of the students seem to get jobs and if students have a hard time finding them during summers and after graduation. Quality of life tells you about housing, dining and location. Social life tells you about the students, different activities on campus, dating, what to do/where to go in the area for fun or if there even is a social life.

Overall, a very helpful source. I'm not sure it's the kind of book you read and definitively make up your mind about where you want to go to school, but it provides keen insight and tips that will get you on that path.