The Truth About Getting In: A Top College Advisor Tells You Everything You Need to Know
by Katherine Cohen

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Book Reviews of The Truth About Getting In: A Top College Advisor Tells You Everything You Need to Know

Book Review: Excellent book. This book is worth $32K! Read why.
Summary: 5 Stars

This is an excellent book on the subject. The author has a rich and diverse background on the topic, and it shows. She approaches the subject from many different angles. There are a lot of good books on college admissions. They typically cover all the basics well, including the quantitative factors (GPAs, tests) and the qualitative ones (extra curricular activities, essays, letters of recommendations, interviews).

But, with this book the author went the extra mile on every aspects. For instance, on GPAs, she gives you so many interesting insights that you realize there are many qualitative dimensions to the GPA itself. A 4.0 is not always equal to another 4.0. Sometimes a 3.5 makes for a stronger candidate than a 4.0. It depends on the difficulty of the classes the student has taken. It also depends from what high school the student graduated. The trends in grade is also really important. And, class rank can also play a material role.

She also explains all the different admission channels such as Early Action, Early Decision, and Rolling Admission (I had never read of this last one in any other books). She goes on explaining clearly when to use these specific entry channels and when not to. If a student is fully ready, prepared, and committed to a first choice school, and the family has adequate college financing in place, the Early Decision channel may be very advantageous. But, the reverse is true too. She also explains why colleges love Early Decision programs. Such programs allow universities to boost their student yield (Enrolled students/Accepted students) and increase their selectivity with lower acceptance rates (Accepted students/Applying students). The student yield and acceptance rates are metrics that play a key role in many college rankings, including U.S. News.

The book has also an invaluable section on college information on the Web. There you will learn about a company who sells objective 1 hour tapes on college tours of specific schools. So, you can get the down and dirty about many schools, and really learn a whole lot about them without having to spend thousands of dollars on a coast to coast family campus visit tour. These videos are not advertising, they are almost more like a "60 minutes" reportage on a school. I will definitely buy four or five such videos to visit some far away campuses in the comfort of our living room. Other recommended website let you find out in an instant if your family financial profile make you eligible for "need based" financial aid or not. In short, if 12% of the parents net worth (including home equity) plus 35% of the applicant's assets exceed the college cost, you are out of luck. You will not received "need based" financial aid. The applicant can still receive "merit based" financial aid. But, that is a whole different story, and a lot more competitive one at that.

Regarding tests, the book gives you tips on how to improve your score on any test. Additionally, that was the first book I read which when it was published back in 2001 and 2002, announced that the SAT I was getting overhauled in 2005 with a new written verbal section, including an essay worth an extra 800 points. So, now a perfect score on the SAT I will be 2400 (1600 formerly).

The book is also big on the interview section. Many other authors treat the interview as the least important link in the college admission process. This author thinks differently. To the contrary, she feels that one should get prepared for the college admission process in a very similar way as the job hunting process. Thus, the interview is key in making a strong personal impression. In her experience, she indicated that good or bad interviews did make a difference in the college admission process.

To conclude, any family with college bound kids will greatly benefit from learning the information within this book.

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