We all know Amazon sells books. You may also know you can get bargains on books from independent sellers on Amazon.  But be careful!  Some sellers will give the condition of a book as ‘NEW’ but will add something like ‘remainder mark‘ or ‘has shelfwear‘ and other imperfections.  Consider this.  If the book is TRULY “new,” how can it have imperfections unless the book was manufactured with imperfections.  It shouldn’t require a course in critical thinking or logic to realize there’s a contradiction here.  Thus, be careful when purchasing books on Amazon, particularly if you are seeking one that is truly new, clean, and unmarked.  Read the specific description of the copy.  If it adds a statement that indicates it’s worn a bit, or it’s missing a dust jacket, or its an ex-library book, how can it be ‘New’?

 Your parents just signed you up for an SAT course.  Maybe it didn’t cost you anything, but how much did your parents pay?  Whatever the amount, you might be wasting money–somebody’s money.  Latest research shows increase in scores after taking a preparation test or even getting private tutoring might result in an increase of a total of 20 points–which might not be statistically significant anyway. Not to belabor the point as to whether your score can predict anything beyond what you’d get on the next score, but it’s your time and money (or your parent’s).  And if you’re an adult who hasn’t been in school in a while, it truly might be yours.  And if that’s the case for the SAT’s, what about for the equally “important” (or should the word be “meaningless”) GRE test.

Can you pay to Raise SAT Scores?

In the April 29, 2009 edition of Wall Street Journal Online, Peter King write about the advantages of renting college textbooks rather than buying them.  Here is the article. Watch out McGraw-Hill et al.!

Oh, those text charges. No, not the fees for pecking out text messages on a cellphone, but the cost of every college student’s must-buy: textbooks.

Students spend about $1,000 a year on their texts, according to the College Board. And that most likely will increase: Over the past 20 years, textbook prices have increased at twice the inflation rate, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office*. One solution may be renting. Several companies offer textbook rentals that could save cash-poor college students more than 50% of the cost of a book.

To see how the process works, we ordered textbooks from three rental companies: Book Renter, Campus Book Rentals and Chegg; and one textbook seller, Textbooks.com, which doesn’t rent books, but offers guaranteed buybacks on some texts, making those books a quasi-rental.

We decided to check prices and availability of a randomly selected text for an advanced course, “Fraud Management” (third edition list price, new: $177.95). The book is required for advanced accounting courses in about 300 colleges. We evaluated the ease of ordering and returning, and compared prices for our test textbook and the condition of the books. We used the benchmark of buying the text at a college bookstore and selling it after the semester to see if renting would in fact save money.

So why rent when you can buy? In almost all cases, renting is cheaper than buying the book either used or new. True, if you buy the book you may be able to recoup some money by selling it at the end of the term. But textbooks are continually updated, so a student who waits to sell an old textbook could find no buyers if a new edition is coming out. (Indeed, when we contacted Steve Albrecht, the author of “Fraud Management,” he told us he is working on a fourth edition due out next year.)

When we checked the Web sites of our four vendors, each said they could get us the book for a summer term. Rental prices vary according to semester, with a book for the shorter summer session generally less expensive than the fall or spring term.

We ordered the books on a Monday afternoon and all were on our doorstep by Saturday. None of the books had any pages missing, and all contained the companion CD.

Book Renter had the lowest rental price, but the 30-day period we selected might be a bit tight for some summer sessions. The company offers longer periods that are slightly more expensive. For example, a 45-day rental would have cost us an additional $3.97, which would still make Book Renter the best-priced rental in this instance. Return shipping is free as long as you print out a prepaid label from the Web site.

The next two shipments were a bit of a puzzle. Both came in packages with the return address “Distribution Services, River Grove, IL.” But inside each book was a slip telling us to return it to textbooksNow.com, a company we didn’t order from. Only by matching the shipping tracking numbers with our email invoices could we figure out these were the books we ordered from Campus Book Rentals and Chegg. Campus Book Rentals subsequently sent us a prepaid mailer with the correct return address. When we called Chegg to ask if we should return the book to them or textbooksNow.com, we were told we should send it back to Chegg.

A Chegg spokeswoman later told us the company sometimes uses “strategic partners” if the book isn’t in its warehouse. Similarly, Campus Books says it sometimes uses a third-party textbook supplier. But after ordering from several companies, frazzled students could lose track of where to return books at the semester, especially if they follow the instructions of the slip inside the book telling them the wrong address. By the time the error is sorted out, the student could face late charges. The companies say they contact their renters before the end of the term to remind them to send their books back.

Chegg was our most expensive rental. The company was also the only one that charged sales tax. And the book from Chegg’s third-party supplier was the only one that had underlinings and highlighting, courtesy of previous users. When we complained, Chegg sent us a pristine replacement via overnight shipping.

The sites offer books that are generally used but are promised to be in good or close to new condition. Chegg said that the company typically avoids sending out books with heavy highlighting and underlining.

With book seller Textbooks.com, the book has to be returned by a set deadline to get the guaranteed buyback. We were promised a $76.38 buyback if we returned the book within 90 days. While the final cost of $41.12 made this a good option, that upfront payout of $117.50 might give a college student less to spend during the semester.

In contrast, buying a used copy at the ASU bookstore costs $125.25. Subtracting the bookstore’s estimated buyback price of $55 would leave us with a net cost of $70.25.

A word of caution: If the books are damaged during your rental, you could be charged the full retail value. Check the Web sites for each company’s policy on what constitutes damage.

For our test textbook, Book Renter gave us the best price. But other titles will yield different results. We did a spot check of prices for the “Norton Field Guide to Writing” (list price, new: $48), which is widely assigned for English composition courses. Chegg would rent it for $9.99 for 60 days. Campus Book Rentals offered a 55-day rental for $20.09. Book Renter doesn’t rent it at all. (Book Renter’s chief executive, Colin Barceloux, later told us the company’s rental model works better with more expensive texts, although they do stock many less expensive books.) Textbooks.com would sell us a used Norton for $24, but there is no “guaranteed buyback” on this title. In fact, Textbooks.com isn’t buying back this book at any price right now. At the ASU bookstore, a used Norton was selling for $34.50. The bookstore didn’t have an estimated buyback price yet.

Overall, we found students could save money by renting, although if they need the book for longer than our summer rental the savings may start to dissipate. And don’t forget to get those books back as soon as the semester ends, because you are on borrowed time.

*My emphasisIncrease SAT Scores?

The Harvard Crimson reported recently that for the class of 2007, 58 percent of male graduates and 43 percent of women entering the workforce did so in the finance and consulting industries.  OK, now that was May 2007; the American economy went into free fall in August 2008.  Apparently, not too many of these graduates had 14 month foresight. Of course, when they selected their majors, it was a few years before 2007, but I wonder if any saw it coming?  Not that Harvard students should be seen as the avatars of good judgment. I know quite a few, including a bio major who believes in ‘creative design’ theory and an architecture graduate who was afraid his buildings would fall down. But such a small sample size isn’t going to get us much power in our correlation.

However, Eduardo Padron, an educator and columnist, uses this figure to address the possibility that college students are not doing what inspires them, but rather choosing fields that promise the possibility of quick cash.  I wonder if we could administer an MMPI to these graduates and see if they correlate in any useful way with people who buy lots of lottery tickets or would be writers who just “know” their manuscript is going to be a best seller.

Apparently, the plethora of graduates across the nation who majored in subjects that would be impressive to executive recruiters who scan Monster for the next big thingee, have never heard of, or at least not taken into consideration that old saying in Hollywood about “Nobody knows anything” when it comes to predicting a hit.

Another popular concept the financial service graduates apparently passed by was the one that Joseph Campbell made about a decade ago, which was to “Follow Your Bliss” (although I’m not sure if he would have included Jews among those to whom he recommend this).

In any case, Eduardo Padron has written a concise, humanistic essay concerning what college students may be missing out on by trying to follow the money in the May 2009 issue of Hispanic.  See if you agree in THE QUICKENING

BTW, any psychology majors around?  What’s that word ANACLITIC refer to?

While I still have time to operate this blog (it’s been going on about three years now), I want to update this list of  ‘famous English majors.’  Preferably the persons you mention are alive, and actually ARE or WERE English majors. I’ve deleted some famous ones who have recently died.  Please submit your entry, and I’ll check it out.

Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)

Alan Alda (actor, writer)

Russell Baker (journalist)

Dave Barry (humorist, writer, actor)

Joy Behar (writer, comedienne, co-host of “The View”)

Gwendolyn Brooks (“We Real Cool”)

Carol Browner (head of the Environmental Protection Agency)

Edward Burns (actor, director, producer, writer)

James Cameron (director, editor, producer, screenwriter of “Titanic”)

Johnny Carson (talk show host)

Chevy Chase (comedian, actor, writer)

Tom Clancy (writer)

Mario Cuomo (former governor of New York)

Joan Cusack (actress)

Matt Damon (actor, screenwriter)

Vin Diesel (actor, director, producer, screenwriter)

David Duchovny (actor, “X-Files”)

Michael Eisner (Walt Disney CEO)

Harrison Ford (actor)

Jodi Foster (actress, filmmaker)

Kathryn Fuller (World Wildlife Fund CEO)

Heather Graham (actress, model)

Cathy Guisewite (cartoonist of “Cathy”)

Don Henley (singer for The Eagles, songwriter, musician, environmental activist)

David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly)

Chris Isaak (songwriter, singer)

Famke Janssen (actress, model)

Catherine Keener (actress)

Garrison Keiler (Beats me!)

Stephen King (novelist)

Kris Kristofferson (singer, songwriter, musician, actor)

Tommy Lee Jones (actor)

John Mahoney (actor, Marty on “Frasier”)

Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman)

Toni Morrison (Beloved)

Joyce Carol Oates (You Must Remember This )

Conan O’Brien (talk show host, writer)

Randy Owen (singer, songwriter, musician)

Joe Paterno (football coach, Penn State)

David Hyde Pierce (actor who plays Niles on “Frasier“)

Sally Ride (astronaut)

Geoffrey Rush (actor, director, playwright, musician)

Susan Sarandon (actress)

Fred Savage (actor from “The Wonder Years”)

Diane Sawyer (broadcast journalist)

Martin Scorsese (director)

Paul Simon (songwriter, singer)

Sting (singer, songwriter, musician, actor, environmental activist)

Steven Spielberg (filmmaker)

Amy Tan (Joy Luck Club)

Clarence Thomas (U.S. Supreme Court Justice)

Emma Thompson (actress, producer, screenwriter)

Harold Varmus (Nobel laureate in medicine, Director of National Institute of Health)

Barbara Walters (broadcast journalist)

Sigourney Weaver (actress)

Pete Wilson (former governor of California)

Reese Witherspoon (actress)

Bob Woodward (journalist, writer of All the President’s Men)

Renee Zellweger (actress)

Senior athletes, defined as any track and field athlete over the age of 45–meeting at the Penn Relays this year– saw  the senio outdoor high jump record broken by alan john gerstle, who managed a jump of 6 feet, 11 1/2 inches or 2.12 meters.   Gerstle broke the record on his third attempt, and although the crossbar wobbled slightly it did not get knocked off.  Gerstle’s personal best is 7′ 2″ which he obtained 16 years ago at the age of 34.  Gerstle attributed his success to increased sprint workouts and a focus on arching the body sufficiently to avoid hitting the bar with his trailing foot, a habit that has been plaguing him for a number of years. He also claimed that the wind factor had by chance leveled off just prior to his attempt.    Gerstle plans to compete in future  senior events. BTW, the world’s senior high jump mark is held by Gaston Minot of France with a jump of 7′ 1/4″ or 2.14 meters.