“You’ll find evaluations of each school’s program and ‘personality,’ as Pope puts it. You’ll also get the inside scoop from real students (one of my favorite sources of college truth) as well as faculty and administrators’ opinions. One of the more important aspects of the book is the attention paid to what happens to the colleges’ graduates and what they thought of their experiences at their respective alma maters.

“Pope comes from the be-a-good-consumer school of higher education shopping, much like you’ll find our opinions here at College Confidential. As he notes, America’s higher education system is the envy of the world. Every year, legions of students from other lands hope to make the trek to America to find their college destiny at one of the huge group of top quality schools that most of us just take for granted. Pope pokes us and reminds us of the treasures we often overlook or, in fact, know nothing about. This is an inspiring book.”

—Dave Berry, Director of Counseling, Senior Contributing Editor, and CollegeConfidential.com Ivy League Admissions Expert

“Many home educators are concerned about their children’s ability to gain entrance to a college. We are confident our children can meet the academic challenges, but the school-designed documentation and testing can be worrisome. Pope’s comments are reassuring. [On page 18] he says, ‘The colleges that change lives are eager to have homeschoolers apply. All these colleges will view them sympathetically and very carefully; in other words, as favorably as those with high school transcripts, and in some cases more favorably.’ Several Admissions Directors are quoted concerning what they look for in homeschool applicants, both personally and in the area of documentation.

“… Those of you with a child nearing college age will find the information in Colleges That Change Lives very reassuring and helpful. I enjoyed reading about the many different college environments and picturing which would best fit each of my children. This book would have been very welcome when I was planning to go to college and will certainly be referred to in the coming years as my children look to college and the future.”

—Karen M. Gibson, Home Education Learning Magazine

“Two years ago, Kim Franwick was hunting for the college of her dreams. But unlike her friends, she decided not to use the popular U.S. News & World Report’s America’s Best Colleges rankings to help her choose.

“Instead, she used a small guidebook called Colleges That Change Lives—and ended up at Beloit College in Wisconsin. Today, the sophomore Russian major is happy—especially that she didn’t rely on rankings.

“‘The quality of the teaching and learning here is incredible,’ she says. ‘I don’t know if I would have found Beloit through those rankings.’”

—Mark Clayton, The Christian Science Monitor, “Best in Which Show?”

“In the book, former New York Times education editor Loren Pope singles out several dozen schools. ‘They are distinct,’ he says, ‘because they are small, friendly places where students develop close relationships with faculty, enjoy enormous flexibility in shaping their courses of study, and grow as individuals as much outside the classroom as in.’ … To research Colleges That Change Lives, his third book, Pope spent months canvassing college campuses, knocking on the doors of students and faculty to chat.…

“‘There were a bunch of schools in there that I didn’t ever see in the every-college-in-the world guidebooks,’ said Brendan Butler, a high school senior from Bethesda. ‘It should have been titled The Book of Schools Brendan Wants to Go To.’”

—David Green, The Baltimore Sun, “Small Colleges Find Strength in Numbers”

“Pope discusses 40 colleges, mostly in the Northeast, South, and Midwest. What makes this book different from other guides is that it highlights schools that select students who have a wide range of abilities, not necessarily the cream of the crop academically, but who exhibit a desire to learn. The atmosphere at these institutions is collaborative rather than competitive, and they feature close interaction between students and faculty … Overviews of academic standings, admission requirements, quotes by faculty and students, points of geographic interest, and strengths in relation to other schools are given for each selection.”

—Rebecca C. Burgee, Langley High School, McLean, Virginia, from The School Library Journal, copyright 1996, Cahners Business Information, Inc.