The very first few pages are where Seppy and Trent describe their personal experiences matching up with real life scenarios. This provides a method of a reality check, showing everyone that anyone and everyone can make mistakes by applying to the wrong colleges or not knowing what to do to even apply for college.

This book offers a dynamically changing yearly list of colleges that are deemed “most interesting”. What makes a college “most interesting” could be many things such as the prestige of the school, the academics offered, how inexpensive a college tuition is, if there are any unique programs offered at that college, and many more dynamically changing criteria. All of the information for this list of colleges they will choose to deem “most interesting,” is polled from inside sources of each college such as past graduates, and the guidance counselors. Once they have their list of colleges, they use extensive open-ended surveys (no multiple choice answers, all paragraph answers) and get some information from past and present students, and college officials.

The book breaks down the schools into categories that you might look for in a college such as hot and trendy, the best value, small colleges that deserve wider recognition, colleges that party hard and pull pranks, colleges where “nerds” will strive and fit in, colleges that have such a great campus life that students wish to extend their stay past 4 years, schools that are innovative and unconventional with academic learning, schools that have drug/alcohol free facilities, and more. This book even goes into which TV shows (such as CSI, ER, Boston Public, etc) have influence on teenagers on what career they may want to go into.

The main section (that takes up most of the pages in the 710 page book) is the individual school profiles. There is an extensive “guide” to reading the profiles located at the beginning of the profile’s section. Some of the topics covered for each college are: General info about the school such as type of school (all men, all women, coed, etc), the setting (urban, rural), the academic calendar (semestered or other), what the student body consists of, full time undergrads, part time undergrads, the population in percent of Latino, native American, Caucasian, the costs that year for tuition and fees, room & board, and more.

All school profiles have 3 main sections titled: Inside the Classroom, Campus Environment, and Student Life. These provide a vague yet satisfactory outline to the school. Taking into consideration that each college has enough information to write one of these books per college, Trent and Seppy have done a good job in outlining the 3 sections. Of course the description is vague but this book gives you the basis to start your in-depth search for colleges.

For each College, Trent & Seppy have their own little box of what they think about the college. These are their opinions and they range from being funny, to serious.

Overall the book is quite good. It gives a very good idea about each college, enough to figure out if you want to go there or not, or at least research the college more. I recommend this book as a first resource book to any high school or prospective college student.

“The Unofficial Biased Guild to the 328 Most Interesting Colleges” is a book like no other that I’ve seen. This book goes behind the scenes and takes a look at things that no brochures would ever tell you. Who knew that at places like Cooper Union, 100% of the undergrads receive free money? Who knew that if you go to a college like Albertson College of Idaho or Drew University gave out laptops free to their students? This book is filled with great facts like this and more. The book even gets the students involved, and you get the point of view from fellow students from the school. But this book does have a downside.

This book isn’t for those looking into what majors the schools have available. The book is based around what students and councilors think of the school, a few facts, and that’s about it. The book gives you some facts like what the most popular majors are (most have biology on the list), how many students receive grants, how many students there are, and average cost to go to the school. There is very little information on the school, only 2 pages per school, so this book is only for those who want to take a wide look at a bunch of colleges and get the behind the scenes look at each other them.

Over all, this book is very interesting, and very helpful. It lacks some of the more important details that I am interested in, but besides that the book is great. Every high school junior/senior or anyone who is thinking about college should have this book. Its well worth it.

I received “The Unofficial Biased Guild to the 328 Most Interesting Colleges” and thought it was going to be just another college directory book, I was totally wrong. This book tells you the things you want and need to know, for example the majors in the colleges. This book does not drone on and on about the college and it’s history. There is around a page or two for each college which I find very good. This book also gives information on the community size and some general information of the community that the college is in.

There are however drawbacks, some colleges are not listed for example Western Kentucky University wasn’t listed, this is a college I plan on attending and I was rather disappointed to find that this college was not in this book.

All in all this book is a great addition to any high school junior or seniors collection. A must for an upcoming college student.

As with the other reviewers of The Unofficial, Biased Guide to the 328 Most Interesting Colleges I expected this thick volume of information to be nothing more than page after page of average SAT scores, GPAs, and tuition for incoming students to the most prominent colleges in the nation. However Trent Anderson and Seppy Basili have certainly enlightened me since that day. Though it certainly describes the ever-important aspects of average GPAs and SAT scores, it goes much further. This book has proven itself to me as an invaluable resource to a high school student looking for the correct college to spend their next 4 years at, as I go through this process myself.

This guide goes in depth to what a student should truly look for in a college, what they want. Instead of picking a college simply based on its landscape, admission rate, or tuition as most college guides use, this book catalogs colleges based on such things as unconventional teaching methods (Outside the Box: Innovative Schools), relaxing and entertaining campuses (“Peter Pan” Schools), or what everyone knows is truly most important: “Animal House” Schools.

Starting with advice directly from the authors, coming from their own experience, this book details how to properly asses a college from a visit to its campus, as well as information for a proper application process. The majority of this book however contains a breakdown of the 328 most interesting colleges. The breakdown details numerous things, including student bodies, for those looking to not be out of place, or to stand out in for that matter, common practices of the school in the classroom, as well as actual comments from students of the college about their life and why they feel their college deserves your attention. All of this information comes together to provide you with a detailed look inside some of the best colleges in the country to help you out with your important decision. I would highly recommend it as a bible to those looking for a college.