Any sage advice for buying textbooks for college?

[scfr]

The latest issue of Costco magazine had an article on getting ready for college. Here are some sites they recommended checking for textbooks: www.cheapesttextbooks.com, www.chegg.com, www.bigwords.com, www.textbooks.com Sounds like your daughter is already set for the first semester, but maybe she can use these sites next semester to broaden her comparison shopping.

[maryadavies]

Mind, I went to college before ebooks even came into their own, that said..

1. Don't be afraid of online sources, but make sure you get the right edition, especially of science and math books. I noticed this with a Anatomy class I had to retake a lot; the newer edition we had to buy actually changed the chapters all around!!!! Uh, so yeah. Make sure you are friendly with the prof/syllabus so ya won't make a bad mistake there.
2. Don't be afraid of used books. You can sometimes get a good deal on them, but make sure the book's in good shape.
3. Shop around. There were two bookstores by my college; one was unofficial, one official. The official one was more expensive. On the other paw tho, the unofficial one didn't have the selection the official one had..But I assume you could find what you needed on amazon too now a days. Or other places...

[Permanent Temp]

Thats great that you figured it all out! For the future though it really depends on the class. When I was taking gen eds some teachers said they listed the book but we didn't really need it etc. That was annoying because class had started and I had already bought the book so unless I was lucky I would have to wait til the next semester for the book to sell online. For math and science it was different.

I comparison shopped and bought for as cheaply as possible. I did buy an international edition or two. Those are hard to re-sell I usually had the best luck on ebay. I had a few editions change on me from one semester to the next which is the only time I bought the international editions. This is because they are usually soft covers and my books were science books which were often hundreds of pages. I knew these international editions didn't have lasting power and I held on to almost all my basic science texts. These texts came in handy as references in upper level classes when I needed clarification on something. And some I still have to this day and use as references since the basics don't really change and I know right where it is in the book rather than scouring google for a reliable science source that isn't too diluted or overly technical. When a new edition of a book comes out international editions are almost the only way to go to save money if you want a physical edition of the book and don't care too much about its durability.

While saving money is important the bottom line is that she will need to books for her education. So don't be too cheap or do anything crazy to add more stress. I never rented because I wanted to make sure I had the book for as long as I needed it. I didn't rely solely on library copies because I didn't want to wait in line for the only 3 copies of the book and have time limit on how long I could study. Although there were a few times I got to the library without the book by accident and would take the one on hold out to study with.

I always made sure to have the correct edition because even though more often than not they did things like change pictures on a page, sometimes they did things like rearrange chapters. This made it made it difficult to keep up with the assigned reading material. In math you could have different problems on the page. So I didn't find having an edition back worth the $$ savings due to the headaches it could cause. One time a prof forgot to update his syllabus based on the new edition which is the one he listed and we were all confused.

Another issue is that a book can be packaged with inserts, disks and workbooks that come with a new book but don't always come with a used one. That is a case where you would have to wait to find out whether the teacher wants you to have these or not and then purchase.

Another cruel trick I found was that a school will release a school specific version of the book. These are pretty much impossible to sell on the internet and since it only happened once I had no idea as to whether it matched the original book or not. I think I was able to sell that one to someone on campus.

And the last dirty trick I encountered was with a physics book. They sold it in "volumes" according to which section of the course they were going to use in that course. The argument was that it saves money and was easier to carry because you are only buying the part of the course that you need for that class. After buying the first "volume" for a physics course which I ended up needing to drop later I got hip to that trick. I sold the volume to a student on campus, after repairing it with rubber cement as it was a cheap soft cover book and went online to track down the original text. I bought the entire book which was fantastic since I made one cheap purchase and I had the other sections to be able to reference to later in case I needed a refresher. I still own that book to this day since basic physics hasn't changed much in the last few centuries.

There is no perfect art to buying textbooks but it gets better with time.

[Thrif-t]

I have a college freshman also and we checked the prices at the bookstore and amazon. I was surprised to find Amazon was not much cheaper than the book store. Plus some of the books even though I put in the correct ISB # when I brought it up on Amazon it looked the same but the author was different? I didn't want to take the chance of getting the wrong books and thought for the first time we're going the bookstore route. My dd is taking engineering and has a lot of web access with her books and I"m not savy enough in all this to know if we're getting the right stuff. We bought some books new and rented some thru the bookstore. I will tell you that since we ordered her books on Sat, that now going on the bookstore site the books are more expensive. SO I guess her school raises the prices the closer they get to school start. I"m glad we got our order in before the price hike. And if she gets to class and finds out she doesn't need the book or has the wrong one, she has 7 days after the start of class to take them back for a full refund.

[disneysteve]

Plus some of the books even though I put in the correct ISB # when I brought it up on Amazon it looked the same but the author was different?

Unlike a novel, many textbooks have multiple authors, so the bookstore might list "History 101 by Johnson" and Amazon might list the same book as "History 101 by Smith" because the book is actually History 101 by Johnson and Smith.

[txex86]

As many have mentioned, Amazon is great for lower textbook prices and you can either resell them to a classmate on campus or set up an account and sell them on Amazon. Keep in mind, though, that many university professors nowadays use books that they have written and are only available through the university bookstore.

Case in point, my daughter was recently admitted into the Integrated Master in Professional Accounting Program at the University of Texas at Austin. Her Tax Accounting professor's book is "custom" and only available at the university bookstore to the tune of $260. Her Financial Reporting and Research Accounting "book" is really just copied parts of many books, but is much cheaper, $95, compared to her Tax Accounting book. Again, it is only available through the school. Point being, as your daughter progresses to upper division courses, the ability to buy at Amazon tends to lessen, at least if my daughter's and her UT classmates' experiences are any indication.

Just food for thought.

[txex86]

As many have mentioned, Amazon is great for lower textbook prices and you can either resell them on campus to a classmate or set up an account and sell them on Amazon. Keep in mind, though, that many university professors nowadays use books that they have written and are only available through the university bookstore.

Case in point, my daughter was recently admitted into the Integrated Master in Professional Accounting Program at the University of Texas at Austin. Her Tax Accounting professor's book is "custom" and only available at the university bookstore to the tune of $260. Her Financial Reporting and Research Accounting "book" is really just copied parts of many books, but is much cheaper, $95, compared to her Tax Accounting book. Again,, only available through the school. Point being, as your daughter progresses to upper division courses, the ability to buy at Amazon tends to lessen, at least if my daughter's and her UT classmates' experiences are any indication.

Just food for thought.

[moneysma]

I would buy used books on half for my major and would rent books for any non-major course. This is because 9 times out of 10, the non-major course wasn't of great interest to me, so the odds I would want to keep the book was rare.

For my major however, I still have many of the books. By buying used, I got a good deal over the "new" price. For those that I didn't keep, I just sold on half myself, sometimes for more than I bought them for!