Email Answer

Hey guys,
I've received a couple of emails regarding buying books, and I'm going to post them (with the authors' permission) so that they may help clarify questions other readers have from my posts. I've slightly edited the emails to remove identifying characteristics about the writers.

Dear April,

I just found your blog and thought of getting in touch with you. Thanks a lot for taking that initiative!

I am [retracted] from [retracted] and I'll be a freshman at Gtown this fall. You're very right about how little prepared I feel about moving in. I'll be arriving to campus on August 24th. So I have less than 2 weeks to go. I am worried about how to get my books and so I thought I'd just get them from the school's book store but it seems that this is not the best thing to do. As an international student, I am very ignorant about how I should go about the books and other stuff. I've never bought books online and if I would, I don't know how to go about the shipping. What do you advise me to do?

By the way, I heard about http://www.chegg.com/ being a good place to rent books... Anyway, what do you recommend?

So far, I know for sure that my fall courses are the following:
[retracted]

Thanks for your help

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Glad to help!

First, you need to find the list of books that you need. I'll do a demo with your first class, [retracted].
AUTHOR:[retracted]
EDITION:11th
COPYRIGHT YEAR:2009
PUBLISHER:Pearson Education
ISBN:[retracted]
NEW:$222.50
USED:$167.00

If you buy the book used on Amazon, you can get it for about 60$ less than Georgetown offers it brand new. You can also search campusbooks.com. This site compares other sites for you. For instance, campus books returns a lot of cheap options for your book, including chegg.

I have heard mixed reviews on Chegg, and I don't know anyone who has used it. I think there are somewhat hidden costs in shipping the book around, and you can't make any money by selling the book back (since you are only renting it), however, the book you need for this class in particular is listed quite cheaply on that site. You should probably google for reviews on the site at things like ripoff report because there are a few bad reports on chegg there. I try to stick to half.com and amazon.com simply because I know the providers are legit. Be careful about using your credit/debit card information on sites that are not well known because they may be scams. Always check reports.

As far as shipping goes, you can either ship your books home and then pack them to bring to campus, or you can order them when you get to campus, or you can send them ahead to a friend. The trouble with shipping them home is that you'll have to pack them, which takes up room/weight in your suitcase; the trouble with buying them at campus is that they wont necessarily be here on the first day of classes. If you want, you can have me pick up your books until you get here (of course, I'm a complete stranger, but you're welcome to do that if you'd like to). My package address for the academic year is:

[retracted]

Just let me know what you are sending and when it should be arriving. I'd be glad to hang onto your books until you get here. I don't want to be financially liable for the books when they arrive (sometimes Georgetown manages to lose track of packages coming in for a while...it's a bit frustrating) but it's definitely an option. Alternatively, you can ship the package to the RHO under your name; however, it may arrive early, and if you don't pick it up on time, they may return the package to sender.
Does that help?

April