College Planning Resources

Books and websites to help you through the college process.

  • Coburn & Treeger. Letting Go: A Parents’ Guide to Understanding the College Years. Harper Perennial.
  • Faber & Mazlish. How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk. Quill Press.
  • MarileeJones and Kenneth R. Ginzburg. Less Stress, More Success: A New Approach to Guiding Your Teen Through College Admissions and Beyond .
  • McIntire, Roger W., College Keys: getting in, doing well, and avoiding the 4 big mistakes, Summit Crossroads Press, ISBN 0-9640558-7-2.
  • Moses, Henry C., Inside College, The College Board, ISBN 0-87447-383-7.
  • Pasick, Patricia. Almost Grown: Launching Your Child from High School to College. Norton & Co.
  • Patricia Quinn. ADD and the College Student.
  • Steinberg, Jacques. The Gatekeepers.
  • Weissbourd, Richard. The Parents We Meant To Be. How Well-Intentioned Adults Undermine Children’s Moral and Emotional Development. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
  • Woodacre, Bane, Margo E., and Bane, Steffany, Doors Open From Both Sides, American Literary Press, Inc., ISBN 1-56167-680-2.

General College Search

  • Donald Asher. Cool Colleges for the Hyper-Intelligent, Self-Directed, Late Blooming, and Just Plain Different. Ten Speed Press.
  • Edward B. Fiske. The Fiske Guide to Colleges. Sourcebooks, Inc.
  • Edward B. Fiske. The Fiske Guide to Getting into the Right College. Sourcebooks, Inc.
  • The College Board. College Handbook.
  • Howard Greene. The Public Ivies. Cliff Street Books. Also check out Greene’s The Hidden Ivies.
  • Jay Matthews. Harvard Schmarvard: Getting Beyond the Ivy League to the College That Is Best for You. Three Rivers Press.
  • Octameron Associates of Alexandria publish a series of books on the college process. See especially, “Don’t Miss Out,” an excellent intro to financial aid.
  • Peterson’s Guide.
  • Loren Pope. Colleges That Change Lives. Penguin Books.
  • http://www.nacacnet.org Click on “Students” in side bar to access “Web resources for the College-Bound”. The National Association for College Admission Counseling has put together this mother lode of web resources for the college bound.
  • http://www.Petersons.com Centralized college search from Peterson’s.
  • http://www.ucan-network.org/ A great site for finding the latest admissions data for a large number of private colleges.
  • http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cool/ College Opportunities OnLine is a free site sponsored by the U.S. Dept. of Education. No cost, no registration. Just lots of valuable info.
  • http://www.google.com/options/universities.html A great way to get into and search within individual college websites.
  • http://www.campustours.com/ Can’t visit? Take virtual tour.
  • https://apply.commonapp.org/ Another exceptionally useful site. You can fill out an online application to send to many schools at once. Furthermore, if you click on “College Info” (under “Member Colleges”) you get links to supplements. If you click on “Download Forms,” you can access a helpful table of deadlines, fees, and application requirements.
  • http://www.library.uiuc.edu/edx/rankings.htm Colleges ranked in any way you can imagine.

Other College Matters Resources