Enjoyable, concise, but possibly unecessary
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A 'meaty' book if there ever was one, the Push guide to which university is full of concise information, with healthy dollops of humour spread throughout. Covering all of the universities of Britian, it's certainly not something to read start-to-finish, and most probably only contains about 30 pages that are personally relevent to you. This makes it a blessing for reference in a library, but possibly a slight waste of time for anybody at home. The fact that far more information can be obtained for free, by requesting a prospectus from your favoured university, further hampens the purpose of bothering with this book. Still, as always with Amazon, it's dirt cheap, and it's an enjoyable read that will make you feel more confident in whatever decision you ultimately make.
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As good as guides get
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Push manages to cover all the aspects you should be looking for from a University, and does so in a concise and straightforward manner and manages to offer opinion without being vindictive. What makes Push stand out is that it appears to give each University a fair crack of the whip; some other University guides on the market cut corners and get current students to review their own Universities, which may at first seem to make sense but all too often results in a rather predictable (and usually positive) review and can furthermore mean it's the ability of the reviewer rather than the attributes of the University which is most striking. Push however offers independent and consistent reviews, offering the same pieces of information about each institution and dedicating roughly the same amount of pages to each one so you can make as meaningful a comparison as a book allows. The scope of information on offer is truly impressive (and Push states it is thoroughly checked) and is conveyed via accessible and entertaining language for its target audience without being condescending. Choosing a University requires a lot more thought than which University guide to consult, but of those on offer I consider Push to be the most reliable and thorough.
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Like it is!
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The Push people say they 'tell it like it is' and that's is what they seem to do. It's a really fun book to read. Lots of info about each uni - at least 6 pages on each I think, it even tells you how many men and women students there are at each place (handy for those who go to uni to pull!). It could've been really dry and dull, but some bits made me laugh out loud. They've also got a section on the bottom of some pages with a funny bit of info about each uni. My parent's bought mine, I'll be applying later this year and look forward to reading the book in depth then.
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By far the best of its kind
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I'm a head of sixth at a school in Berkshire and we have been using The Push Guide since it first came out. Compared to any of the other university guides, this is quite simply far and away the best.
It covers details that my students are actually interested in - like sex ratios, the price of a pint, even student clubs and societies. It also covers more serious information too, like costs, accommodation and academic standards.
It's much more detailed than any of the other guides (a quick comparison: The Push Guide has 800 pages and averages what looks like about 6 pages per university; The Times Guide has about 400 and averages 3 pages), but is the same price or cheaper. It also seems to be a lot more reliable -Â in the past, I've found virtually nothing wrong in The Push Guide, but the others seem to be riddled with mistakes or regurgitated propaganda from the universities' own websites. (I mean, what's the point in that?)
The Push Guide's independence is one of the main things that our students respond to, but mostly it's the attitude of the writing which is very easy-going, not at all patronising, and occasonally laugh-out loud funny (e.g. "If variety is the spice of life, the Birmingham is the vindaloo").
They didn't do a guide last year, I think, and I was worried they wouldn't do it any more, which would have been a real shame, but it's back with a vengeance and seems a lot bigger than before, so maybe they were just out researching! They seem to have two other books out now too, which I will be checking out and will review on Amazon too. The website's not much to look at, but has stacks of information and nifty features if you ignore the design.
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