Smart reads: real life on campus

Viewbook and Web sites will paint a fairly utopian picture of what life is like at college, but to get the real picture you have to hear from the students themselves. A number of books give you an insider's perspective.

College Prowler (A series of about 200 thin guides, each one covering a specific campus, $5.95, www.collegeprowler.com). Each book gives hundreds of quotes from students on what they think of their schools. Created by 23-year-old Luke Skurman, who came up with the idea as part of an entrepreneurship project at Carnegie Mellon, the books are definitely in rune with their young audience.

STUDENT ON UNIVERISTY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA, "People here are easier-going and less competitive, so not everyone is killing one another to make the grade."

The Insider's Guide to the Colleges, 2005 (St. Martin's Press, $17.99, www.stmartins.com). Compiled and edited by the staff of the Yale Daily News, this reference book gives revealing profiles of more than 300 top schools, all written by students who have grilled hundreds of fellow undergrads on professors, housing, diversity, social activities, etc.

STUDENT ON UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: "Smart to the point of geeky is what I heard and what I expected and what I see."

The Best 357 Colleges (Princeton Review, $21.95, www.princetonreview.com). Every year, the Princeton Review asks more than 100,000 students what they think about their schools and compiles their responses in this guide.

STUDENT ON THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO "Boulder is the world in a nutshell, served with alfalfa sprouts."

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