3.5 Stars... Worthwhile reading for/re incoming college freshmen   July 8, 2005

A disgrace to Harvard   June 15, 2005

Excellent book for well prepared students.   July 4, 2003

My guess is other schools with students who will be attending many different colleges, especially stronger colleges, will be able to put many of the excellent ideas from this book into practice. The author's arguments seem well documented. It is well worth reading for any good student, and probably for their parents too. I will be asking our faculty members, and all seniors and juniors, to read it this coming year.


Not really for students...   June 3, 2003
  19 out of 19 found this review helpful

As a professor, I found the book excellent, both for its many insightful suggestions and as a reminder of the student experience. If I were evaluating this book for faculty, I'd give it five stars.

But the book's title and marketing indicate that this is a how-to book for college students. That's deceptive: It is a summary of findings by Harvard's self-assessment team. Suggestions for students are good when they come, but they're spread between suggestions more useful to college faculty and administration. As an example, one idea is to schedule discussion classes just before dinner, so that students in the class could eat together afterward and possibly continue discussion. That's a great idea for administrators, but students can't make much use of it. The book would be stronger if it were separated for the two potential audiences.

The book also suffers from not being up-front about its origins: It summarizes findings of an assessment project at Harvard, but you won't find it described until you reach the appendix. I realize that fewer copies would be sold if they admitted this in the introduction. But until I reached the appendix, where the project's major questions were finally described, I was left wondering why the book's organization was so lopsided. Particularly, the part on campus diversity was much longer than I expected; it wasn't until I reached the appendix that I learned why. (The appendix was one of the best parts. In fact, I recommend reading it first.)

I'd certainly recommend the book to faculty and administrators from any college. The work is clearly based on extensive, well-done interviews, and the analysis is both well-organized and rich in ideas. Just recognize it for what it is.


For all first year students at Drake - - required reading.   August 29, 2002
  0 out of 3 found this review helpful

Working with a group of Deans, we chose this book as a common reading for all of our new, first year students for academic year 2002 -2003.

Our goal is to have groups of 20 first year students, led by regular faculty members, all reading and discussing "Making the Most of College." Our curriculum committee reviewed about eight competitors and decided this was the most useful book for new college students. Professor Light will speak to all of our new first years when he visits here in the fall.

So far student response has been very enthusiastic. Our honors students seem especially captivated by the various suggestions.

The particular suggestion in this book that many students seem to "resonate" to is the author's suggestion that students find classes where they are able to "make some connections" between what may sometimes be relatively abstract academic work in classes, and something in their own backgrounds or personal lives.

This suggestion has seemed to encourage faculty to plan their classes to cover all of the usual substantive topics, yet to try to "build in" some time for students to relate the readings to their own experiences as well. This may be not at all easy in certain classes in math or the sciences, yet certainly we believe any faculty member in the social sciences or humanities will help students by making this effort.

So far the adoption of this book has been a success on campus, and I am very pleased that many students have actually "re-named" it, and now refer to it as "Making the Most of Drake." The author should take that as a great compliment.