The Princeton Review

As I turned the corner to peruse the greeting cards at CVS a mother and daughter were locked in a conversation that had nothing to do with sentimental thoughts printed on folded cardboard. I overheard the daughter to say to her Mom:  If the Princeton review says the school sucks—it sucks. They know what they are talking about. I don’t care what your friend told you. I am not going there.

And upon hearing those words I am positively sure that I grinned and nodded. Because I could feel the mother’s eyes cast on me when she responded This is not the time and place for this—we’ll discuss it later.

But the daughter got the last words in: Oh no we won’t.

And I watched the two of them walk away in silence.

The very first step in the college process is purchasing and studying the big book: The Princeton Review of the Best Colleges. It is from that source that one assembles a list of potential schools. It not only gives quantitative information like standardized test scores, size of student body and tuition, it also gives  a window into the demographic it attracts as well as living conditions. The book describes whether the student body is preppy or artsy. It informs the reader whether the campus attracts staunch republicans or liberals. It rates the campus food and describes what the party scene is like.

And upon visiting the small list of schools we derived from the Princeton review and further research on the individual schools’ website I can say that the information from the big book was absolutely spot on. The dorm rooms at Loyola were indeed palaces. The cafeteria food at Fordham was awful. There was no cohesive social life at NYU. Boston College was a bar school. Everyone at Bucknell had blond hair and wore J. Crew. And Emory had one of the most spectacular campuses I had ever seen and was correctly dubbed “Coca-Cola University”.

The book told no lies.

And 3 days after dropping off Samantha at Lehigh her freshman year, the newly published 2006 Princeton review rated Lehigh as the number one drinking school. The student body had the “work hard, play hard” ethic down pat.

I was so proud.

And if I could go back in time I would tell the mother who was locked in disagreement with her daughter over colleges to just let it go—stop pushing the issue---you are never going to win the argument. The Princeton Review does their homework. And even if the debated school truly does not suck, the daughter thinks it does and the damage cannot be undone no matter what you do. Unless of course a wise president of a University reads how its school is ranked number for drinking and promptly makes the appropriate changes so that the following year it is not so highly ranked. Which further goes to show how influential the big book is--and why it should be believed. Even the colleges understand the big book is their best and worst advertisement.