High illegal downloading rates and a whole network of young, powerless culprits to put the pressure on - for the Recording Industry Association of America, it seems that college students are the perfect criminals. The RIAA has pushed yet another onslaught of lawsuits against students over the last six months, with over 3,000 pre-litigation letters sent out to college campuses across the country.

Freshman year includes many collective rites of passage: NSO Convocation, taking a writing seminar, the meal plan. But some people miss NSO events; many people ditched last year's convocation due to the pouring rain; and some people don't take a writing seminar until sophomore year.

The Quadrangle is undergoing minor external renovations, highlighted by the replacement of the original wraught-iron fence that was erected in 1954. The $1.2 million project is scheduled for completion in mid-December and includes the complete replacement of the fence and its brick and sandstone foundations.

For Janne Taskinen, the chance to study at Penn meant a year away from his home university in Finland, but also a year away from hockey. Or so he thought. Taskinen packed his pads in his bag anyway, hoping to find an opportunity to play the sport he's been at for 14 years.

The Undergraduate Assembly held its first meeting on Sunday night, taking care of internal business and implementing new ways of reaching out to the undergraduate community, especially freshmen. n Members passed a proposal to allow any member of the student body to speak to any issue or concern during a 10-minute Open Forum at every UA meeting.

After growing up in a family of Hawkeyes fans in Ames, Iowa and with a brother that played tailback at Iowa, Nate Greving knew he would join the ranks of Big 10 athletics. "He's always liked the Hawkeyes, even as a younger kid," Nate's father, Steve Greving, said.

University officials are continuing to help the Penn community cope with the death of College sophomore Anne Ryan. At a Penn community gathering yesterday afternoon, about 15 administrators milled around Houston Hall's Bodek Lounge, nibbling at trays of fruit and cookies and waiting to help any students that needed them.

Members of the College Republicans, joined by other student volunteers, planted 2,977 flags out on College Green last night - one for each life lost in the attacks.

Despite goalkeeper Drew Healy's solid play during the Quakers' weekend road trip to California, coach Rudy Fuller is not completely set on who will start against Hartwick on Friday. Kevin Sweetland was originally penned in at No. 1 on the chart for the two-game set out west.

A fire occurred on the 3900 block of Delancey Street at about 12:30 a.m. yesterday, forcing residents of four houses on the block to be temporarily displaced and injuring one student.

Penn is one of just five schools nationwide to sport a sprint squad. It differs in only one way from what Penn coach Bill Wagner calls the "fat boy team": all players must weigh 172 pounds or fewer.

Twenty-three national fraternities and sororities have joined a new hotline, 1-888-NOT-HAZE, designed to prevent hazing in fraternities and sororities. Callers are automatically forwarded to a voicemail, where they can leave messages reporting hazing either anonymously or with contact information.

Congress passed a new financial-aid bill Friday that will overhaul federal student-aid programs, including increases in grants and the slashing of interest rates on some student loans. The program, which was approved by both houses of Congress, constitutes a major increase in the Pell Grant Scholarships, raising them from a current maximum of $4,050 to $5,400 by 2012.

It's been a few years in the making, but LUKoil is now officially omnipresent. Or so it seemed two weeks ago as I was anxiously driving around New Jersey, looking for a gas station to fill up my minivan. Stubbornly ignoring my angry orange light, which had been glowering at me for the past 15 miles, I zoomed past the clean-looking red-and-white station.

Wharton student Irina Malinovskaya will begin her third trial Thursday for allegedly murdering her ex-lover's girlfriend. Malinovskaya is accused of bludgeoning Temple University graduate student Irina Zlotnikov to death in the victim's boyfriend's Delaware apartment in December 2004.

About once a week, I hear the same complaint about our dear University: no one has ever heard of it. We form facebook groups proclaiming our inclusion in the Ivy League, we buy shirts that not-so-subtly differentiate us from Penn State, and we bitch and moan every time Princeton gets a media mention and we don't.

Just as Penn students are graded on multiple exams, papers and participation, universities are also judged on a variety of factors. U.S. News & World Report puts out an annual ranking of the nation's universities and colleges in an effort to guide readers through the process of choosing which schools to consider.