Grad School Guides

Graduate School Companion by Princeton Review, Graduate School for the Twenty-First Century by Gregory Colon Semenza, Getting What You Came For by Robert Peters, The Chicago Guide to Your Academic Career by John A. Goldsmith, et. al.
I used to help direct a program for students interested in academia. These are the main texts I used. The Grad School Companion has some useful information, but alone it is not worth using. I do like some of the ways it helps students to consider what issues are important in making their informed choice of the best graduate program for their needs. Similarly, the Chicago Guide is co-written by three different academics and suffers from the lack of a single voice. Some of their roundtable discussions are useful, but it is probably better for those already in grad school. Getting What You Came For is a good book, but it is rather dated and written for students interested in the sciences. For my money, and from the responses of my former students, Semenza is the best of the bunch. Having said that, he is writing for humanists and to a lesser degree students in the social sciences. However, I do think he touches on a variety of topics that even students in the sciences can profit from considering.
Grad school is a grind, but with some of these resources, you will have a step up on your peers.
Czar