College Viewbook and Other Literature

One of the earliest literatures you will receive from colleges is the viewbook. You get this viewbook when you make an inquiry on their website, sign a card at a college fair, or visit their campus. Always keep in mind that whenever you read a viewbook, you are actually seeing the college as intended by their marketing department. Don't build a college list just because a college sent you an apparently personal letter inviting you to apply. On the other hand, college viewbooks and similar literature can be a good starter to begin with.

How Do You Get College Viewbooks, Brochures, Catalogs and Publications?

When you take the SAT , PSAT , or ACT you are asked to answer some questions about yourself. If you took the ACT one of the questions is whether you want to receive the Student Search Service for the SAT, or the Educational Opportunity Service information. If you answer yes, you are giving the College Board the right to forward your personal information to any college that requests it and you will undoubtedly receive their publications (this is also a tip, if you don't want your information to be shared, best answer: no).

College Viewbooks

The viewbook can give some general information about the school so that you can get a feel of what type of school it is. Some of the colleges viewbooks contain statistics or profiles of the incoming class, which would be useful if you want to measure how comfortable you will be academically at that particular college. It can be a starting point to initiate contact with schools that you may be interested in, but remember, doing that will ecourage even more mail and brochures being sent to your home.

College Catalogs - Getting the Real Picture

Personally I feel that viewbooks are the least useful items. It’s all marketing and advertisement glitz. You should instead take a look at the college catalog. They provide you a more down to earth list of their faculty and courses, without the glitzy advertising. A catalog is merely informative without trying to sell anything to you. Most catalogs are big and expensive to print, so colleges usually reserve them for the serious customers who request them. Some will ask you to pay a small fee, while others require you to provide your name and address.

Let’s say you are interested in the humanities and social sciences. You go to your guidance office and browse through the catalogs of different schools on the shelves there. You see, you don't need to worry if you cannot decide what your major is going to be. The college catalog can give you suggestions. Back to our hypothetical story, you are browsing through the catalog from J College and you see one that says “global development studies”.

What’s that? Then the catalog says that they combine anthropology, Chinese, English, French, South African history, politics, Spanish and economics. Quite a combination for someone who is into humanities, don't you think? Without the college catalog, you may never have heard of “global developmental studies”.

What's the purpose of college catalogs? The main purpose of the college catalogs, to me at least, is to help you answer the question “Why do you want to come to XY University?”. It is your responsibility to explain to the deans of admissions why you are such a great match for his particular school, and the course catalogs can help greatly. A note of caution: college viewbooks usually say more about the marketing skills of the firm engaged by the schools, but if you read the book with a critical eye, you can learn a few good things about the college, their faculty, student body and curricula from them.