CollegeNET combines social networking with a popular vote to award college scholarships to American students.
The site works as an online forum where students can discuss issues that are important to them, from the serious (the example give is abortion), to the not-so-serious. Students vote on which of their peers are leading the most interesting conversations, and at the end of the voting cycle the students with the most votes get scholarship money. There are 5 scholarships of $5,000, $4,000, $3,000, $2,000, and $1,000 each.
Ultimately it’s a marketing gimmick to drive traffic to the site, build a community, and expose CollegeNET to a broader audience (the company processes college admission applications), but hey, its free money and the US education system doesn’t favor people who don’t have a lot in the bank.
