The high school sophomores taking the PSATs used to be the ones getting an early start on SAT preparations. But now, a new test from the College Board is putting pressure on students to start preparing as early as middle school. Readistep - a pre-SAT test announced by the College Board last week - aims to help eighth-grade students begin preparing for high school and college.

For many Penn students, Sunday morning doesn't start until at least noon. Not so, however, for 10 brothers from the Sigma Nu fraternity. Using only bed sheets, spray paint and determination, the brothers woke up early Sunday morning to build a community haunted house for the People's Emergency Center, a social service agency located on 39th Street just north of Powelton Avenue that provides housing and assistance for families facing homelessness and poverty.

In the midst of the economic crisis, relations between the U.S. and China - a growing economic superpower - may play a crucial role. Zhou Wenzhong, who has been China's ambassador to the U.S. since 2005, discussed this relationship yesterday in a lecture

What's your anti-drug? For many targets of the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign - a five-year, $1 billion effort by the federal government to promote drug-resistance skills, alternatives and negative consequences - it doesn't seem to matter. A recent evaluation led by the Annenberg School for Communication found little correlation between exposure to anti-drug advertisements and anti-drug beliefs.

Leadership, according to journalist Chris Satullo, "can be boiled down to six Yoda-esque, pithy statements." Satullo, longtime columnist and former editorial page editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, spoke to a group of about a dozen students and faculty yesterday over dinner as part of the Fox Leadership Speakers Forum.

Last Friday, Philadelphia Police captains, community members and proud parents alike gathered in Temple University's McGonigle Hall to recognize the Police Academy's newest graduates. The 91 officers, after spending this week on traffic control during the World Series, will then be deployed to districts across the city - including several that will require them to work closely with Philadelphia universities.

This is the last semester that students will use a Scantron sheet and No. 2 pencil to evaluate their professors. Starting in Spring 2009, the course evaluation system will be completely electronic. With this shift, the Student Committee for Undergraduate Education hopes to make the qualitative comments - which students currently handwrite at the bottom of the evaluation form but are not published online - accessible to everyone.

The long-term future of government policies on abortion, the death penalty, use of torture and a number of other issues are at stake in the 2008 presidential election. Experts believe this year's election is significant because the president's power to appoint justices to the Supreme Court has the potential to substantially alter policies in the long run.

Domus, the eight-story, $71-million luxury apartment complex located on 34th and Chestnut streets, is up for sale - barely a year after its completion in the fall of 2007. Domus was intended to be built and then put on the market shortly after, according to a spokeswoman for the building's developer.

Based on a celebrity-studded public service announcement of the same name, "Don't Vote / 5 Friends" is a viral video produced and distributed by Penn Leads the Vote - a nonpartisan organization dedicated to increasing voter turnout.

Engineering senior Ryan Goldstein's avoidance of child pornography charges was not unusual, experts say, since many people can escape some criminal charges by cooperating with authorities. Goldstein was sentenced last week on computer-hacking charges, but does not face charges for the several thousand images of child pornography found on his computer because he helped the FBI catch others involved in the hacking scheme.

The juniors who are abroad this semester might be missing out on campus election hype, but that doesn't mean they aren't voting. College junior George Donnelly, who is studying in Scotland this semester, got an absentee ballot because he "wanted to make sure Barack Obama lays the smack down in New Jersey.

The anticipation of the upcoming presidential election can be felt everywhere on campus, including Sunday night's Undergraduate Proxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 sembly meeting which featured two proposals on the topic. The UA considered a $1,400 budget request by Penn Leads the Vote to help cover the costs of "getting out the vote" on Election Day, including balloons, food for volunteers, pamphlets%2

It's no secret that college students are some of the most sleep-deprived people in the nation - but the extent to which they are may be surprising. Only 11 percent of Penn students report feeling rested seven days a week when they wake up in the morning, according to this year's Health and Wellness survey of undergraduate, graduate and professional students.

This weekend, Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity rocked for the homeless on College Green On Thursday evening, the brothers of AEPi began their annual 48-hour-long camp-out during which they assumed the role of the homeless. The brothers stayed up day and night asking passersby for change to donate to the University City Hospitality Coalition, a local soup kitchen.

Many international students may be looking to return home after graduating from Penn in the next few years. Between the economic downturn and the limited availability of H-1B visas - which allow international students to work in the U.S. after graduation - U.

Large amounts of personal property were taken from the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house early Friday morning, Division of Public Safety and Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs officials said. DPS spokeswoman Stef Cella wrote in an e-mail that they believe the theft was perpetrated by a guest of one of the fraternity brothers who stayed at the house Thursday night.