Too Early For Books

[nickel]

So, I've made my decision and accepted my offer to start grad school in August.  Now I've officially changed gears from application season to preparing to switch back to student life (daunting!).  I started looking into courses I want to take and started thinking about books.  One of the courses I know I will have to take (it is a first semester requirement for anyone in the program) already has its book list published online for the Fall 2013 semester.

 

Does anyone know if it is too early to start buying books?  I want to make sure I get the best deals before some of these places/people run out of stock and I'm stuck purchasing from the campus bookstore at exorbitant prices.  Is it safe to assume that the book list is finalized?  I checked a few other courses and they haven't published their book lists yet.

[Monochrome Spring]

I think you should email the coordinator for the course to see what materials will be needed and if the list is up to date.

[ion_exchanger]

I like buying my books early. I plan on purchasing some of my grad school books in June. I understand that you want to make sure they are in stock, but you may want to wait just a little bit. Are you going to buy used books? I ask because the semester isn't over for current students, so they may still be using their books. Usually the more books that are available, the lower the prices will be as everyone will try to be lower than their competition. That's usually what I wait for, of course the choice is ultimately yours.

[nickel]

I like buying my books early. I plan on purchasing some of my grad school books in June. I understand that you want to make sure they are in stock, but you may want to wait just a little bit. Are you going to buy used books? I ask because the semester isn't over for current students, so they may still be using their books. Usually the more books that are available, the lower the prices will be as everyone will try to be lower than their competition. That's usually what I wait for, of course the choice is ultimately yours.

 

Great point, I didn't think of that.  Yeah, definitely looking for used books to bring the price down.  Guess I need to brush up on my economics, simple supply and demand!  I was focused more on the demand side of things...

[rising_star]

You might be surprised at the campus bookstore. Ours matches prices to Amazon if you show them your receipt and the printed out Amazon page for a book in the same condition. They also don't charge sales tax and TAs get like a 5% discount on purchases. So, if you were coming here, my answer would be that you'll save money by waiting until you get here to get your books.

[nickel]

You might be surprised at the campus bookstore. Ours matches prices to Amazon if you show them your receipt and the printed out Amazon page for a book in the same condition. They also don't charge sales tax and TAs get like a 5% discount on purchases. So, if you were coming here, my answer would be that you'll save money by waiting until you get here to get your books.

I appreciate the information but even Amazon is priced a bit over some competitors.

[rising_star]

I realize that. My point was that my bookstore price matches to basically everything AND they don't charge sales tax or shipping AND they give grad students (TAs and RAs) a discount. So for me, it's almost always either cheaper or the same price to just buy everything at the bookstore.