This edition of Friday Fun Links is continuing the week’s look at great Back to School websites for college students. In this list you’ll find links to some of the sites I really liked but just didn’t have time to write a full review on.

In fact, in putting this list together I realized how many great college sites there are and for that reason have decided to leave this as an open list, where I’ll be continually adding new sites. As always if you have any recommendations please leave them in the comments below.

Books

ecampus.com – buy and sell textbooks, supplies and more.

TextbooksRus.com – buy new and used books for cheap.

CampusBooks4Less.com – price comparison shopping for textbooks, finds the best prices online.

Chegg.com – save money by renting your textbooks and they’ll plant a tree for each book you rent.

School Loans

FAFSA – the official federal student aid website.

Finaid.org – loan information, applications, tools and forms all in one place.

SchoolLoans.com – compare all types of loans to find the right one for you.

School Loans Consolidation Guide – important information on consolidating your student loans.

Blogs

CollegeCandy.com – a college-aged blog aimed mostly at the girls.

Keg of Wisdom – humorous thoughts about life and college.

Kill Jill Goes to College – an interesting look at handling college life.

Pimp Dorm – how pimp is your dorm?

Surviving College Life – a guide to surviving college.

Online Magazines

College Humor – funny videos, funny pictures, funny links!

Miscellaneous

Campusfood.com – order food online and wait while it’s delivered from your favorite local restaurant directly to your dorm room.

Dormgear.net – dorm room accessories, decorations and party supplies.

Dorm-Life.com – an internet television show about life in the dorms.

Rate My Professors – write and read reviews of professors at your college.

Rentometer.com – check how your rent compares to other similar places nearby.

Lists from Other Sites

Campus Grotto Textbook Links – a dozen or so top places to shop for textbooks.

10 College Websites from DormDelicious.com – a general list of must use sites for the college student.

50 Notetaking Tools – a great collection of applications to help you take and organize class notes.

50 Mind Mapping Tools – a huge selection of brainstorming tools that can be useful for non-students as well.

Lifehacker Back to School Series – an awesome series of back to school posts on an awesome website for getting things done.

I’ll continue adding to this site as I find great additions. As always the comments are open for suggestions.

Site Description

As web applications and social networks continue to grow and become mainstream, more and more employers are using them and Google to scan candidates. It’s easy to have questionable content posted either on one of your accounts or one belonging to your friends. Often that questionable content is enough to remove you from consideration for a job.

Luckily, the fellas over at Brand-Yourself.com have come up with a service to combat that problem. Their website takes an aggressive approach towards improving your online presence by helping you create content that reflects a better side than that Facebook photo of you doing a twelve foot beer bong in college. How exactly that’s done is pretty impressive. Equally impressive is how well they explain their service. They have a video that shows the process in detail and it’s so good I decided to save myself some time and post it below.

About Brand-Yourself.com

The Brand-Yourself team, led by Pete Kistler, is compiled of Syracuse University students and recent graduates. They joined together with the intention of designing “tools to establish, track, manage and improve our web presence.” The result is a web service that is effective and simple to use. They have already garnered numerous awards and acknowledgements including a nomination as one of five finalists for Entrepreneur Magazines 2009 College Entrepreneur of the Year.

What I Liked

This website will only continue to gain momentum as it becomes evident that your internet footprint can be a critical factor in whether or not you get a job. I like that Pete and company have found an untapped need and are well on their way toward servicing it. When the rest of the world catches up they’ll have a great jump on the competition.

The part that I’m most impressed with is the ease of use. Not everyone has the technical skills necessary to start a webpage on their own. With Brand-Yourself you don’t need to do so. Anyone with the basic skills to write an email or create a Word document can excel using the tools offered at Brand-Yourself. The interface is a clone of WordPress without the need for servers and hosting plans. The result is a well-crafted webpage that reflects the user in a professional light.

A number of high quality tools are available for your use once you sign up for an account. The Web Presence Breakdown organizes your online appearance by finding your social networking accounts and linking them together. This allows you to easily monitor how they look to a potential employer from one simple location. The Breadcrumb Tracker collects all the digital snippets that are associated with you online. If someone’s left a comment about you somewhere, the Breadcrumb Tracker will find it and you can monitor how it affects your professional appearance.

The site is continuing to grow as new tools are developed. The Recommendation Engine is a yet to be released tool that uses your skills and expertise to determine the next step toward developing a noteworthy web presence. Brand-Yourself likens it to your own personal career coach.

Another tool that is coming soon is the Hireability Monitor. This tool notifies you immediately in the event of a change in web presence. By doing so you’re able to make the necessary adjustments to be sure you’re image is not damaged too badly.

Because you can only do so much to control how others portray you online, the best way to combat negative content is to overwhelm it with positive stuff. By creating a website at your personal domain you’re able to direct people to it, showing them the side of you you want them to see. When you give them a place to go to find good information it limits the likelihood they’ll look around long enough to find the bad stuff.

What I Didn’t Like

There’s not too much to dislike from a concept perspective. The idea is right on track with addressing the most common internet problem currently experienced by young people – a damaged image due to negative web content. Using Brand-Yourself will definitely help you get that image better under control.

There is a small cost associated with this service (3 months/$34.95 $24.95), which I think is both fair and affordable. The hangup for me comes with my being conditioned to receiving many online services for free. I don’t think they’re wrong for charging for a service that most cannot replicate on their own, however I can see the costs to be a small barrier to entry for some people. The alternative option is them putting adds on your personal website, which undoubtedly will take away from your site’s professionalism.

My suggestion, in case they’re listening (and care what I think), is to have both a free and paid version. Currently, you can register for a trial account, which of course they hope will lead you to purchasing a paid account. The free plan I propose is the same as the current trial plan, only with sponsored ads on the personal webpages and limited use of tools. I wouldn’t change the paid version. Eventually many users would see the value and seriously consider an upgrade. Even those that didn’t would still bring in ad revenue. The end result would be a larger user base and mailing list to solicit future sales.

Of course that’s my outsider’s opinion. I’m sure they wouldn’t be getting the attention they have from Entrepreneur Magazine if they hadn’t done their research and carefully thought things out. Despite my ramble on their pricing strategy, I still think they’re onto something and can find no real fault with what they’re doing.

The Final Word

For both the Brand-Yourself.com crew and young professionals concerned about their image, this website is a winner. If you’re someone who is concerned what potential employers might think if they Googled your name, this is definitely a site you need to look into.

Brand-Yourself.com

Site Description

I wasted a lot of time in college. In fact, I probably wasted the equivalent of a full-time job just hanging out. That’s 40 plus hours of watching TV and playing drinking games every week. Not something I’m proud of. But definitely something that happens to many students. Thankfully, there’s a site out there that aims to help you become more productive in your down time.

College-Startup.com is a blog about how anyone can run a successful business from their dorm room. Regular posts discuss topics that are motivational, helpful, and original. The site is laid out like a typical blog, with content along the left side and a navigational sidebar along the right. There is very little flash, which highlights the content. This is good, since the content is usually very, very good.

College-Startup is not your typical entrepreneurial blog. Instead much of the information is directed at how a college student can or should handle situations that come up when starting and running a business. For many reasons this is different than someone running their business full-time. Availability of resources, time management, start-up capital and more is extremely different under the circumstances faced by someone in college. This blog stays focused to that niche, while also addressing situations all entrepreneurs are familiar with.

About College-Startup.com

College-Startup was started by a student from Ohio State named Ben Bleikamp. It doesn’t say what year he began the site, but the archives go all the way back to November 2005, so we’ll go with that. Originally Ben began College-Startup as a way to help and encourage college students to confidently start businesses while still in school. That goal has been more than met. In fact, the reigns have since been handed over to a couple individuals who’ve made it their goal to continue reaching college students and also to help all who would like to be entrepreneurs but need a small nudge to get started.

What I Liked

Over the past couple years I’ve been stopping in periodically to read College-Startup.com and have always left more knowledgeable than when I arrived. If you’ve never visited this site before you’ll find hours worth of archived content, most of which is still very relevant.

If you come back to the site after lengthy absences like I do, you’ll quickly realize how reader-friendly their diverse categories are. You can find the topics that interest you quickly and easily. Most blogs are like this by design, but College-Startup has drilled down the categories into very specific niches.

From a design standpoint, the color scheme is easy on the eyes, making the articles easy to read. There is a distinct separation between the content section and the sidebars, which have red backgrounds and white font.

I really like that College-Startup doesn’t try to be anything that it’s not. It’s a blog that puts out excellent content related to entrepreneurial ventures and that’s where 100% of the focus goes.

What I Didn’t Like

I’ve praised College-Startup for its simplicity and my thoughts on that haven’t changed. Accessibility to archived content is good, but I’d like to see a page that lists post titles for each month. Currently, the archives list about five posts per page, with an excerpt from each.

This isn’t bad, only a bit clunky. If there was a month with 30 posts you’d have to click through five or six pages to see them all. Again, not the most devastating issue, but a site that has such solid archived content should make it as easy as possible for readers to wade through it.

The Final Word

I rarely leave College-Startup.com without some sort of inspiration. If you’re an entrepreneur of any age or a college student looking for some flexible ways to earn some cash, this site is an awesome reference point. The advice extends to both online and offline business and is generic enough to fit into any industry, making College-Startup.com a priceless resource for budding business people.

www.College-Startup.com

Site Description

There will always be those moments when you realize something and can’t help but think “I wish I knew that years ago”. For me HackCollege.com is the perfect example. On this website you’ll learn tricks and shortcuts for making everything about college life easier. There is no topic overlooked and nothing is off limits.

Topics range from help planning and executing the perfect party to how to construct a loft bed to maximize space. Content is presented in traditional blog form (i.e. the written word) as well as through entertaining videos.

The site layout is very basic with content on the left and the navigation in the right sidebar. Nothing more is really necessary for the site to get its information across so the contributors wisely keep things simple. Because of this, it’s rather easy to find your way through all the archived content allowing the reader to read more and search less.

About HackCollege.com

HackCollege.com was founded in 2006 by Loyola Marymount University student Kelly Sutton. The about page describes his reason for doing so as an “unprecedented curmudgeonliness” (It’s OK, I had to look it up, too.)

Gradually, over the last few years, HackCollege has grown by adding new contributors and content. Most recently, the addition of HackCollege.co.uk has brought helpful college tips across the pond to our friends in England. Plenty of the content on both sites is useful interchangeably, so really the .uk version is just some more bonus HackCollege goodies.

What I Liked

The thing I like the most about HackCollege.com is the content never really extends into the “need to know” phase of college life. In fact, you’ll get along just fine if you never read a single thing the site puts out there. It didn’t quite exist when I was in school, so I’m the perfect example. I made it through OK. However, the great part is the things you’ll learn on the site just makes college better.

For instance, it’s not essential that you know how to build the perfect $100 bar, but man, life is so much better when you do. It’s the simple things in life that matter.

Another part of what they’re doing over at HackCollege that I really enjoy is providing a little variety while still sticking closely to their niche. An example is a recent post about how to handle a ticket. Now that information can pretty much apply to anyone, but when they put the old college spin on it, it suddenly applies to their blog and others find it useful as well.

I think the most important thing about HackCollege, that really helps with their success is the likeability of their contributors. Through the ‘About’ page you can find information and links to social networking profiles for each of them. After some quick browsing there and the reading through the blog, I’ve really come to appreciate their style and outlook. They’re serious (about their business) without taking themselves too seriously (they goof off quite a bit).

I don’t know about you, but I like learning through entertainment. If I can be entertained, and still be smarter when it’s over, then I’m happy. The guys and gals over at HackCollege have that formula perfected.

What I Didn’t Like

I’m being picky here, because in my opinion there really isn’t much wrong with this site. There are a couple of things I’d do to improve it, though. For starters, from a design standpoint, I’d like to see some sort of color contrast or another form of separation between the content and the sidebar. It’s not mandatory, but I think it would make things look a little cleaner.

Also, with site navigation in mind, I would prefer to have easier access to the different HackCollege pages. They are currently listed about halfway down the sidebar. There’s a lot of good stuff on them and I think they’d get more attention if they were available in the header or higher up the sidebar. Again, not really the worst thing in the world, but I needed to pick something, that’s what I’d change.

The Final Word

It’s not often when a website is so good at being entertaining and useful. I try it here, and realize it’s not always easy. The crew at HackCollege is very, very good at it. Every college student should have its resources as part of their college survival arsenal. I wish I did.

www.HackCollege.com

Site Description

For kids and parents alike, leaving home for college is an adjustment. There is plenty of growing up and maturing to do on the child’s part and some letting go has to happen on the parents’ end. It can be difficult. But thanks to DormMom.com parents can rest easy knowing that the essentials are taken care of for their child.

Dorm Mom is a website that provides services like grocery delivery, laundry, apartment cleaning and shipping and storage to busy college students. With a professional design and clear, concise copy, it’s simple to obtain all the information you need to decide which services you’re interested in. And just in case you still have questions a thorough FAQ is available.

Users can purchase services by registering an account on the site and picking the appropriate package. If you happen to have an issue a customer service phone number is available.

About Dorm Mom

Dorm Mom was founded in June 2006 in Buffalo, NY by a former Resident Assistant (RA) who had first-hand experience with some of the obstacles busy college students are face with. It has since grown into a business that services over 1,800 colleges nationwide.

What I Liked

I think the concept of offering such services to college students is brilliant for a couple reasons. First, many kids would rather not do these things and their parents know this. They also understand they need to be done and rather than be hundreds of miles away and worry, they’re willing to hire someone. Second, with the cost of college on the rise, the prices Dorm Mom charges is really a drop in the hat.

Which brings me to my next point. Weekly laundry costs around $300 per semester at the time of this writing, depending on which plan you’re on. What’s an extra couple grand tacked on to your already overwhelming student loans anyway? I look at it this way: Use the time you save to study, get better grades, land a high paying job, and pay the service off in no time.

The prices are easy to find on Dorm Mom, which you might think is no big deal. But for anyone that’s ever tried to budget for something like web design or another similar service, you know that not having a cost in front of you can be pretty frustrating. Having them right there saves you time looking around and helps you quickly get past the decision of whether something they offer is at a price you can afford.

As I mentioned above, things are very easy to find on this site, and each service has its own description and FAQ, so it’s unlikely you’ll have any questions after reading through the content.

Some other cool aspects that may go unnoticed are the little things like free shipping on grocery orders over $25 (if they qualify for Amazon Super Saver), and the ability to select your preferred detergent for the laundry services. Also, the “cancel anytime” feature is huge for those that buy the semester-long plan and have a change of heart midway through. The remaining portion of the fee is even refunded in the event of a cancellation. How’s that for customer service?

What I Didn’t Like

Despite the ease of site navigation and the excellent availability of key information, Dorm Mom still kind of leaves something to be desired from a design standpoint. For instance, the logo is a bit cheesy, like some kind of cleaning product on an infomercial. I’d also like to see them clean up the links on the ‘About Us’ page. Many of them are broken or don’t have existing pages with that information. Either way it’s confusing and frustrating when they don’t work.

From a moral standpoint, I have some reservations about the nature of the business. I think it’s an excellent concept and I’m not surprised people are willing to pay for the services. But as someone hoping that humans continue to evolve and grow, I have a certain reservation about the idea of letting college students off the hook. This is the time in their life when they are supposed to learn responsibility and hiring Dorm Mom is the exact opposite. Rather than figuring out real-life things like time management and taking care of themselves, Dorm Mom’s services bail them out.

With that said, I still think Dorm Mom is an excellent service, with a brilliant concept, which in simple terms is to take advantage of the desire parents have to forever take care of their babies. Even if the baby is twenty years old.

The Final Word

I really like the idea of filling a need like helping college students. I think it’s easy for a person to get overwhelmed when so much of their life changes at once, so I’m not opposed to Dorm Mom. If you can enjoy Dorm Mom in moderation, without taking it for granted, then by all means, sign up today. However, I think that you haven’t really experienced college until you’ve studied in a laundry mat until 3:30 in the morning for a test the next day. That’s where the true learning and growing comes from, not physics lab.

www.DormMom.com

There will (hopefully) be some other posts of interest to non-college students mixed in next week as well, so check in even if you’re not going back to college, because you never know when I might bring you that life-changing website. Or at least a good Timekiller. Even if I can’t find the time to do anything more than the college series, give some of the sites a chance because the great thing about most of them is they can be helpful to non-students also.

Now that I’ve whetted your appetite, try to control your excitement until tomorrow when I’ll bring you Part I.

Update: The links to the posts for the ‘Going Back to College Series’ can be found below.

SITE DESCRIPTION

For anyone who attends college or lives near one, Campusfood.com is your saving grace. Listing hundreds of colleges nationwide, Campusfood provides a directory of restaurants and bars in each school’s surrounding area.

Not only does the site give each restaurant’s address and phone number, but it offers menus, maps, whether it’s currently opened or closed, payment options, hours of operation, and pretty much anything else you’ll want to know about the restaurant you’re doing business with.

Most importantly, Campusfood has eliminated the food-ordering middleman, adding ease to the process. When you’ve decided where you’d like to order from, click on the restaurant name and then select ‘View Menu’. From the menu page simply click on the price of whatever menu item you’d like to order and, if necessary, Campusfood will prompt you to choose how you’d like your food cooked. Adding or subtracting extras on your sandwich or pizza is a breeze.

Once you’ve got your order selected, proceed to checkout, choose whether you’d like it for pickup or delivery, and that’s that. You can choose to pay either online or when your food is picked up or delivered.

The navigation menu at the top of the page is extremely comprehensive. Visitors are able to search restaurants based on whether or not they deliver, have a waitstaff, and if they’re offering any specials or coupons. There is also a listing of local bars/nightclubs available, which includes all the same information the restaurants present, including any drink specials they may offer.

Sub-menus include details of the style of restaurant or bar and different amenities available. For instance if you would like to know the Friday night specials for a local sports bar, Campusfood can provide that for you with only three clicks of the mouse. 

Because Campusfood is free for the user, and they have to eat too (no pun intended), they take a 6% commission from the subtotal of each order. According to Julie Shimshack, director of marketing for Campusfood.com, using Campusfood.com has increased order sizes by 10-15% because “the customer is not put on hold, and aren’t rushed off the phone because there are other calls coming and can therefore spend time browsing the menu and adding to their order.”

Sounds like a win-win-win to us.

ABOUT CAMPUSFOOD.COM

Campusfood was started in 1997, by University of Penn student Michael Saunders, in an effort to ease the take-out process. Eleven years later the site brings the menus of more than 1,500 restaurants right to your computer screen. More than 300 campuses are catalogued and more are added all the time.

WHAT WE LIKED

 The entire concept is a winner. Students these days don’t want to be bothered with making a phone call (though every single one of them has a cell phone). And who can blame them. If they can log onto Campusfood and have their order placed within minutes, without having to find a phone, phone number and menu, why wouldn’t they?

Orders are processed quickly and with little difficulty. The menus are fully interactive and categorized. It’s as though you’re standing in the restaurant reading their menu board, except it’s easier to place an order. And you no longer have to speak to the crabby phone person who could rattle off 150 places they’d rather be on a Friday night than sitting there listening to what you feel like eating.

Even if you’d rather call and place your order by phone, you can still reference menus for all the restaurants Campusfood lists. This way you can have your order ready and know the prices before you call.

The site navigation and ease of use is top-notch, and the design is functional. Campusfood does a great job of knowing itself and sticking to what it does best, without trying to be too much.

For a cool look at how expansive Campusfood is, check out the chains page. This list doesn’t include the mom and pop shops, just the franchises.

WHAT WE DIDN’T LIKE

 Campusfood only lists restaurants that are in close proximity to the colleges. For someone who lives in the suburbs, or away from any schools, finding your local pizza joint listed may not be possible. We understand that the site is called CAMPUSfood for a reason, but expanding on the listing radius would probably increase their revenue.

Also, we’d like to see Campusfood increase the number of colleges they list, which, of course, means they have to actively recruit restaurants in those areas. For us, the only real issue with the site is although they already do represent a large number of schools and restaurants, there is still much left uncovered.

THE FINAL WORD

At the very least an account in Campusfood should be in your food-ordering repertoire. If the eatery you’re looking for isn’t there, then you can resort to the stone age and reach for the yellow pages.

www.Campusfood.com