If you get one book on college planning, this one should be at the top of your list. It's helpful without being overwhelming. With sections on all aspects of college planning, this guide can be an indispensible addition to navigating the college admissions puzzle.

This comprehensive guide to colleges has data on each of the roughly 3000 colleges throughout the country. With information such as admissions rates, GPA and test scores, male to female ratios, popular majors, this guide is extremely helpful to students as they begin their college search process.

This book features some of the biggest names in colleges in an easy to read format that provides a snapshot of each of the schools profiled. This provides a system for matching the student to the college based on several categories - "Big Brain", "Big Idea", "Big Plan", "Big Choice", "Big Perspective", "Big Research", "Big Hand", "Big Job" or "Big World" and defines what these mean, and why the schools fit these descriptions. Fun and easy to read.

The "Fiske Guide" is one of my favorite tools to understand a college in a little more depth than some of the other guides on the market. Having visited many colleges throughout the years, I am always amazed how Mr. Fiske and his staff nails what the colleges are really like. This book has been one of my student's go-to titles for many years.

Katherine Cohen is a high priced admissions consultant and charges in the tens of thousands of dollars to assist students in getting into the school of their choice. This book provides an in-depth look at the method that she uses with her students. One of the most interesting parts of this book is the essay section, which has actual college essays and commentary on why they worked or not.

There are hundreds of titles of standardized testing books on the market. This one is a fun approach to the ACT, which is rapidly becoming the test of choice for students who are college-bound.