High-school students who hate the alphabet soup of admissions testing may instead opt to Zinch. Launched in April, Zinch is a Facebook-like Web site that allows students to show prospective schools more than their PSAT and SAT scores. Applicants can create profiles that showcase their accomplishments and extracurricular activities and upload video, images and audio clips.

6-foot-10, 230-pound power forward Andrew Van Nest is seriously considering playing basketball at Penn, according to his father, Jeffrey Van Nest. The Weston, Mass. native, whose mother graduated from the University, has scheduled an official visit to Penn during the weekend of September 29th.

It's hard to believe a man like Jim Steel, Penn football's strength and conditioning coach, would ever consider bulking up unhealthy. But after years of pumping iron for himself, Steel has traded in muscles for clipboards and is back to doing what he loves - coaching others to be bigger and stronger.

Move over, Pennster - but don't leave just yet. Penn's social network for incoming freshmen saw the lowest number of users this summer than ever before in its four-year history. Pennster managers are currently discussing the future of the site - whether to improve it or can it.

Most prized high-school basketball recruits spend the summer before senior year frantically deliberating with parents and coaches about which colleges they should consider visiting and which ones they should cross off their ever-growing lists. But by early July, 6-foot-1 point guard Zack Rosen had already narrowed his list down to one: Penn.

If you believe campus brochures, attending class at Penn is something of a transcendent experience. Wide-eyed students utilize their diverse backgrounds to spar intellectually while a charismatic professor imbues his pupils with the "practical knowledge" they need to become leaders of tomorrow.

I think it started over the summer. Slowly but surely, e-mails I was getting from my friends started looking a little different. Nothing big, just a tagline at the bottom: "Sent from my Verizon wireless Blackberry." Before, I'd only really seen it on e-mails from my dad and a few high-powered professors.

By the end of the month, laundry-service provider Mac-Gray Corporation will have finished installing the last loads of brand-new machines in all college houses.

About 100 alumni rekindled their Penn pride at the annual First September event of the Penn Alumni Club of Philadelphia, held last night at the Triumph Brewing Company in Old City.

"In extraordinary times, there are no ordinary lives." So reads the tagline of noted documentary filmmaker Ken Burns' new production, The War, for which there was a preview screening and panel discussion last night in College Hall. Modern European History professor Ronald Granieri, Classics professor Peter Struck and Tom Childers, who previously viewed the entire film and interviewed Burns, comprised the panel.

Going back to my freshman year, Penn has played Villanova three times each in football and basketball. Those six meetings all have two things in common: They were all played here on Penn's campus, and they were all Wildcats victories. That's right; six big, fat losses, right in our own backyard.

Noisy jack-hammering on Locust Walk should come to an end today as University officials move into the next stage of renovations of the 38th Street pedestrian bridge. The reconstruction, which has included loud drilling since last week, is part of a $128,000 effort by the University to spruce up the campus for Homecoming.

WILMINGTON, Del. - Through two expert analysts and one witness, Delaware prosecutors yesterday attempted to place Wharton undergraduate Irina Malinovskaya in the vicinity of the scene of Irina Zlotnikov's murder. Malinovskaya is facing her third trial for allegedly bludgeoning Zlotnikov to death on Dec.

Joe Sandberg is out for now. The senior tailback hasn't yet shaken the stiffness out of his leg, and his status for Saturday's game against Villanova is "doubtful."

Joanne Tong is a Wharton senior from Manila, Philippines. Her e-mail address is tong@dailypennsylvanian.com.

When it began in 2000, SEPTA's Market Street Elevated Reconstruction Project, an effort to replace 11,000 feet of elevated subway on the Market-Frankford Line, seemed to be on the right track.

The school year has barely started, but the Recording Industry Association of America hasn't wasted any time continuing its legal onslaught against students.