[College Unranked] is a collection of essays by some of the most thoughtful people working in college admissions today...[Thacker] has an unusual perspective, an irresistible writing style and a passion to help students.
   --Jay Mathews, Washington Post

These college-insider contributors deride the 'commercialization of college admissions,' the obsession with college 'rankings' and the 'test prep industry' in a compelling critique of college admissions today.
   --Eric Arnesen, Chicago Tribune

The truth could set you free! This collection of essays adds real insight to the search for college and re-centers the focus to the student's development and well-being. Full of excellent observations and advice.
   --Richard H. Shaw, Dean of Admission and Financial Aid, Stanford University

This book is welcome, if not overdue. The leading figures in college administration and admissions articulate with insight, candor, and compassion what the college admissions process should and should not be. This book is required reading for every parent, counselor, and aspiring student. It is more honest, helpful, and important than any guidebook or ranking magazine that exploits the misplaced anxiety concerning college admissions among students and their families.
   --Leon Botstein, President, Bard College

College Unranked is the most important effort yet to yank back the college application/admission process from the grasp of college rankings, commercial guidebooks, and expensive private consultants, and to restore it where it belongs: in the hands of students and their parents. The voices of the book's contributors are a calm, thoughtful force propelling us through the national blast of anxiety that dominates college selection and admission.
   --Bob Laird, former Director of Undergraduate Admission, University of California, Berkeley

A thirty-year veteran of the college admission and college counseling professions, Lloyd Thacker is executive director of The Education Conservancy. Thacker lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife and their two sons.