With over 334,043 votes cast by 212,655 students in 106 countries, March Madness 2008 has come to a close.

The winner of Zinch's first annual Sweet Diggity Dawg competition (and a $20,000 scholarship for college) is Kayleen Hannaway, a senior from Philomath High School in Philomath, Oregon.

To win in the final round, Kayleen edged out Phuong Duong, another incredible student and a formidable competitor, by a vote of 7,236 to 6,492.

After speaking with Kayleen (and her super cool guidance counselor, Beth Edgemon), I learned that an assembly was held this morning at school to recognize Kayleen and the incredible work she and her friends did to get this far. Congrats guys -- you deserve it.

As the 2008 Sweet Diggity Dawg recipient, Kayleen will represent students all over the country in their quest to be identified as people, and not just test scores. As you can imagine, this is no small task, so please leave her a shout out in the comments.

While you'll be hearing more about Kayleen (and from her -- interview coming soon!) over the next few days, here is a brief look at the 2008 Sweet Diggity Dawg:

Kayleen will be attending Vanderbilt University in the fall, where she was accepted early decision. Currently, Kayleen plays varsity softball and volleyball for Philomath High School, where she is also a member of the jazz band. At Vanderbilt, she plans to study Neuroscience and Childhood Psychology (and to minor in the bassoon -- cool, right?). After college, she plans to continue her research into the effects of autism on childhood brain development.

Yea, she's pretty sweet. If you haven't already, you should probably take this time to send her a dweeb request before everyone else tries to.

For those of you who don't already know, Zinch sponsors a number of scholarships, but the Sweet Diggity Dawg Award is the largest and most prestigious among them. It is awarded annually to the student that best exemplifies the Zinch motto, "I am more than a test score" as voted by their peers.

In order to apply for next year's Zinch Sweet Diggity Dawg Award, you must be a current high school student with a complete profile on Zinch and a GPA above 2.0. Still unsure what to do? Just sign up here.

Finally, congratulations to all of the candidates. We here at Zinch were incredibly impressed with each of you and have high hopes (and expectations) for what you will achieve in the years to come. If we can help you, let us know, and in the meantime please give a warm congratulations to Kayleen Hannaway, the 2008 Zinch Sweet Diggity Dawg!

Yesterday MSNBC's Today Show aired a segment called "What Works and What Doesn't." What's the smart way for students to get into the college of their choice? Admissions authorities Terry Knaus of Indiana University and Martha Merrill of Connecticut College suggest savvy strategies.

Congrats to Sunny, Kayleen, Phuong, and Jessica (Hye Jin)! Each have done a tremendous job, as have many others, attracting votes for the Sweet Diggity Dawg Scholarship. We are now drawing close to awarding the $20,000, and excitement is rising. We've received a fair amount of correspondence from parents and family members of the contestants. They, like our own parents, beam with pride for their kids and are working just as hard (arguably) as the students themselves.

We realize that as each student exerts precious time and energy in this endeavor, the stakes rise and expectations build. Scholarship money only adds to the frenzy. Please, don't get sucked into hype! Hype, or frenzy, are only positive if we can maintain perspective and ground ourselves in the reality that only one person will win. That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt to lose a match. It just means we can applaud those that move along. Ultimately, we really want everyone to have fun with this. So many scholarships we just apply for, then wait to hear back (and that's great because it's simple, though we feel a little boring). This award process is definitely different. We hope it's been fun and that you've enjoyed a certain level of control.

Enjoy a closer look at our Final Four...

I asked each of them to share about adversity by answering the question, "What has been a challenge (great or small) for you and how has it made you grow? Give us insight to a real part of your life and how you are growing/changing for the better."

Sunny: Last summer, I went to my church retreat, the “Pilgrim's Progress.” It was the epitome of a Puritan boot camp; we had to carry around heavy wooden crosses, crawl up rocky hills, do hundreds of push-ups, and endure starvation. Through this experience, I learned that everyone's collaborative efforts are needed to finish a task. This experience gave me strength throughout the Zinch competition; I truly felt everyone's efforts to become one as they helped me get through each round.

Kayleen: I have found most challenges in my life came from weaknesses in my character, not calamities outside my control. When younger I aimed to please everyone. Kindness was letting others have what they wanted. When relationships continued to be unsatisfying, I learned that benevolence toward others does not mean accepting their every action. True kindness is choosing values and making decisions reflecting those values. By doing so I maintain a clear picture of the person I aim to be.

Phuong Four years ago, my piano teacher Mrs. Bates became very sick and suffered until her death this year. For eleven years, Mrs. Bates successfully opened my heart to music. It was painful to accept the fact that the source of my happiness as a child has indeed left me forever. However, with the sound of every drop of music that flows through my body, I will always remember my best friend and how she always makes me smile through music.

Jessica “Your left eye might go blind,” the optometrist said. I couldn’t envision my future, as if I was already blind because of amblyopia. With hope, I bore fingers pointing at my eyepatch until my eyesight miraculously improved. Ironically, amblyopia prevented me from going blind mentally. It taught me to be humble and respectful, and saved me from having parochial, self-centered views. It stopped me from blinding myself from positive aspects of my future. Now I can see.

The eight remaining students have attracted a total of 50,742 votes before entering this round. That's a lot of phone calls, emails and networking! Several parents have described to us how their phones are ringing off the hook; family and friends have joined to rally. We have seen the 'magic' of the internet as forums have lit up and as the call to vote has made ripples through Facebook groups. In several instances, we've actually personally followed some of these campaigns to witness firsthand literally hundreds of votes pour in during a relatively short amount of time. It's been fun following the action.

Still, when compared to something "going viral" online, we haven't even scratched the surface. Now in sharing some of these interesting case studies, I'm not suggesting we expect this from students in this competition. A lot of what goes viral has a good dose of sensationalism and frivolous content. Most of the time it's just funny. Zinch has a different purpose altogether, but lightening up the college admissions process/scene isn't necessarily a bad thing, so I thought I'd share a little. Here are some links to great web videos and the associated buzz. You've probably seen most of these, but if you haven't seen one, check it out.

Numa Numa- Wikipedia says it's been viewed over 13 million times (ranks #1 on VH1's list)

Lazy Sunday- my personal favorite- after being viewed 5 millions times on YouTube, NBC put it on their site. so now before you watch it on their site, you watch a short ad :) Gotta pay the bills, right?

The Dancing Cadet- I'm not sure the exact view amount, but it won several awards and has since been used as an example of "viral video." This was one I hadn't previously seen. Pretty good.

Back Dorm Boys- These guys actually got 5-year contracts with a talent firm stemming from this video. Crazy...

Star Wars Kid- You know, I've been burnt out on this one and I sorta feel bad for the dude, so though it has to come up in the discussion of viral videos, if you want to see it again, you can find it yourself :)

Back Dorm Boys and The Dancing Cadet are a tribute to dorm life. My freshman year of college I lived in the dorms; lots of fun times there. No doubt you guys will get to class more than I did...

So who knows? Maybe one of the Elite 8 will cook something special up to make a splash in spreading the word.

WOW. Everyone rocked out the vote this round. You guys all have some heavy supporters. As we see the competition get closer to the end, everyone is starting to bring their A game. We’re down to the elite 8 now, and it’s only going to get tougher. One suggestion, get campaigns from past people that have been beaten and get them and their supporters in your corner. Just a thought. And as always let’s play nice. You all deserve the best from each other, so live the golden rule that mommy and daddy taught us from the time we all started walking:)

READ THIS:
As we are going into this next round, we are doing some more due diligence into some of the voting. Voting will not begin for the next round until 5pm MST. We are doing some last minute checks on votes to ensure quality and equality. Please be patient with us as we make sure everything is legit. AGAIN VOTING WILL BEGIN AT 5PM MST. Good Luck everyone!!

Folks, March Madness is upon us.

As some of the most talented students in the country battle it out through the next three rounds, we've been getting a lot of questions about new zinch scholarships, next years sweet-diggity-dawg award, and what the options are for students who still need free money.

For those of you in need, check out my blog post from a few months back about the top five ways to get free money for college. Be sure to read the comments as well -- some great ideas were added by Zinchers (congrats again Nancy!).

At this point, you should all have accounts on the major scholarship aggregators, you should keep them updated, and you should click the box to let them send you information. 

Here are the big ones: 

FastWeb.com

ScholarshipExperts.com

FreeScholarshipGuide.com

The other thing you should do is find others giving out large scholarships. They might not be as cool as Zinch, but they are out there. For instance, CareersandEducation.com gives out a $10,000 scholarship, and just requires you to register.

To those in the Sweet 16, good luck. To the rest of you, fear not, there is more money out there to help finance your education.

As always, if you have other ideas to share with your fellow zinchers, feel free to share! What scholarship engines work for you?

Alright my sweet 16 peoples. It is the real deal and it's getting intense. Some of you are off to big leads and some have some tight match ups once again. All i can say is this weekend will be big. It's in your hands to see how you handle it. Playing catch up after this weekend is going to be a tough chore. So the question is whether you got the apple bottom jeans, the boots with the fur out partying or are you working your mojo to get more votes?

Either way, it's game time. Do your thing. And, yes, Mick and I posted our analysis:) Have a good weekend!

Votes have been tallied, the Zinch Sweet 16 have emerged and the new matchups will be posted at 3pm EST today. First, a few items of business:

- Please take note of all dates for the remaining rounds (scroll down to "Timeline")

- Note that we've added a code for each vote.  This makes our job of filtering only legit votes easier.

- We will continue to upload your YouTube videos- feel free to email them to us.

- We will be highlighting at each of the Sweet 16 candidates, so look for our correspondence.

We're pleased to see an overall decrease in negative comments. Funny how the Internet gives some people a license to be a jerk. Turning off anonymous comments has helped. Most significant is the effort and conversation you all are having:

Eric: "I can't believe they stuck 2 underdogs/awesome people against each other so soon.... Whatevs, Shelby, can we still be fbook friends after this? hahaha :-)"

or Andy: "Mackenzie, a worthy opponent, will be tough to beat. It is cool that we are both Scouts!""

or Noelle: "Hey, Tara! Congratulations on moving onto the second round! Let's see where God takes us this time...good luck! Also, to everyone who's reading this...let's make sure to be gracious this round with the commenting! I don't know about you, but flamewars definitely get really exhausting and discouraging. Thanks a lot!"

or Kayleen: "I love reading everyone's comments so please add something if you want. Keep it strictly positive. =) Thanks again."

You get the point. You guys have set the tone- well done! Competition with class. I dare say it looks as if we will not have to unleash the dogs on those haters. Still, if you have suggestions, don't ever hesitate to email us, your Zinch uncles. We are simply the stage. You guys are the performers and for the most part we want to stay out of your way... aaaand maybe join the fun every now and again :) At the same time, party crashers, much like Wedding Crashers, and we need not cite the extreme in funeral crashers, are not welcome.

The first round was filled with excitement and plenty of down-to-the-wire hustle. I am a real fan of the underdogs (who's not, right?). Brings to mind a short, skinny Canadian that led #15 seed Santa Clara University to an upset over #2 seed Arizona. He was as Nashty then as he is today. But you know, how about those that lost last round? Have you noticed their participation already in the second round? That is pure- pure sportsmanship and pure class.

One student shared these comments:

And a family member spoke of their student's experience this way:

"[Our student] leaves the competition a winner in the eyes of his family and friends as from this experience he built upon his communication skills, networking skills, computer skills, and his analytical and reasoning skills. Most importantly he was able to feel and experience the love from the people that matter to him most; that gave him the motivation and confidence he needs to be successful."

Good luck to all those that depart our tourney. Thank you for gracing the Zinch walls, sharing your friends and family with us, and giving us something to cheer for. We wish you well on your future endeavors.

Wow. It’s down to 32. Round 1 was some crazy competition, Cinderella upsets, underdogs moving on and a number 1 seed putting the smack down with 4200+ votes. That was crazy. We’re sad to see 32 of you go. You guys were all awesome, and we think all of you deserve this scholarship. Nothing but love to you guys, seriously that was some great effort. So here we go…round 2 coming up in less than an hour. This should get interesting and we’ll see how your strategies pay off. This will get harder for you guys as we go deeper into rounds, I’m not sure if you’re going to be able to hit up the same people or not. It’s mano y mano again. You got one person to beat to move on. Let’s get it on!

And if anyone wants to test their hoop knowledge against the Zinch founders and Zinch employees, we would love the challenge. Join our bracket picks here on Facebook. Fill out a bracket and see if you got some skills. If you beat us we will feature you in a blog and let the world know how you dominated us in Hoop smarts. Pretty much we’ll bow to you:)

Quick note- March Madness has regional brackets (N,S,E,W) with a mix of students from all over the country. Just because you were in East #1 in the semis does NOT mean you will be in the East bracket for the 64. This is the way it works folks.

So, you're all in the correct bracket, no need to notify us. But, here's a homework assignment- watch some of the NCAA basketball tournament this year. Your lives are 1/5 of the way over, not accounting for future advances in medicine. Please watch college basketball.

Finalists! If you want us to post one of your videos on your matchup page, send them to us at marchmadness@zinch.com ! I know a bunch of you have already done videos....but let us know if you want us to put them up and send the link of the vid again to make sure it's easy for us to get to. View an example of what i'm talking about by checking out Leah Titus' video on her matchup page.

-Mick

Several of you are plugging yourselves on Youtube. This is a great way to broadcast your message/plea for the scholarship, so nice work, especially those of you who've never used YouTube before. In all this, I'd like to remind everyone that the point is to show why you are "more than a test score." You are drawing attention to yourselves and you are calling people to action on your behalf. May I suggest we draw attention to the right things. Many are doing just that, and we love it. Our IT guys are getting sidetracked on your videos over here ("get back to work!")...

The way you present yourselves will distinguish you and impact someone's willingness to take the desired action... You want a metaphor you say? Fine. You've each baked a nice little cake you call 'you.' You've spent years on this thing, and it tastes good. How are you going to serve it up? On a nice platter that accents the cake itself. You don't draw attention to the fork or even the napkin. The real prize is that scrumptious piece of cake. And you'd never grab a chunk of cake in your hand and throw it at the person you're serving, right? Of course not.

Ya'all are a bunch of smooth students. Show them why you are more than a test score! Tell you what- you make videos that do yourselves justice, and Mick Hagen, our Sweet Diggity Nerd, will make an announcement. (drumroll)...

The 64 finalists have been chosen. Be sure to check out the brackets to vote.

Also in the news. For the semifinalists who didn't make it: we are giving away $1k to one of you in the new Biggest Loser Competition.. You can only vote for one person among ALL groups on the page there.

Also with the final 64: You can use these domain names to have people go directly to your tab in the brackets:
www.zinch.com/east
www.zinch.com/west
www.zinch.com/north
www.zinch.com/south

64 finalists have been chosen. Let the games begin. This is gonna be a fun ride....

- Mick

Zinchers…Tomorrow the tournament begins. 44 of you know that you are in. 17 of you will be chosen by the selection committee. The last 3 will come from the Cinderella 3. As I blog, the pizzas are in the offices, the white boards are being filled, and final decisions are trying to be made. This might be a long night:). The committee is working hard on picking the right people and the right match ups. Rules are simple. 1pm MST voting opens again. 1 vote per IP address. 1 vote per login. 1 week per round. You are matched up with one person in each round, winner moves on. Votes start over with each new match up.

Congrats to the 44 who already qualified. We are all impressed with what you’ve done and how you’ve done it. The rest of you are making it real hard to pick 17. You are all amazing students, have amazing profiles, and have impressed us in your creative campaigning efforts. For those that don’t make the field of 64, we hope you can support those who did. Rally around those you believe should win. Be sure to check the March Madnezz Final Brackets section tomorrow to see if you made the 64. For those that made it, look for an email from us around 1pm MST, as we want to communicate and help you all on the road to the Final 4!

Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! Zinch turns 1 year old tomorrow, March 12th! Look for more tomorrow…tomorrow’s a big day! Good Luck everyone!

Since its inception in 1939, the NCAA Basketball Tournament has had its share of big wins, upsets, and underdogs. The tournament is made up of conference champions from each Division 1 conference and then from at-large bids selected by the NCAA committee. National rankings, strength of schedule and other factors are considered. They've even got analysts who think they've got the inside scoop on everyone. Give me the full time job of looking at stats and I'll have an educated take on it all too. How am I supposed to know what's going on in the Ohio Valley Conference anyway? But at the end of the day (or end of the game), nobody is checking the team’s ranking or their regular season performance. They’re looking at the scoreboard.

I won’t patronize you with a bunch of basketball metaphors; you guys are all top of your class and can connect the dots :) But I will share some highlights:

The Underdogs. Every year there seems to be a "Cinderella" team that the whole country cheers for. In 2006, a #11 seed made it to the Final Four. Remember George Mason? That was an exciting run, and everybody who didn’t have a home team, and many who did, were cheering for them. Btw- 2 #8 seeds have played in the championship- 1980’s UCLA and 1985’s Villanova squad (who won). Still, George Mason was my favorite underdog- probably ‘cause I was watching.

The Hustle. Diving for loose balls, taking a charge, making 3-point plays, and hitting buzzer beaters are some hallmarks of March Madness. It’s with all this in mind that we created our own tourney of sorts. My favorite run was Arizona in ’97. They beat out 3 #1 seeds to get there, and had 2 OT wins (including the championship game). Mike Bibby was on the team, but Miles Simon was the star- not necessarily because of talent- because of scrappiness and hustle (and probably talent). Dwane Wade was another fun one to watch, and still is…

The Fans. College campuses around the country rally around their team. Every hoops has-been or weekend wannabe emerges from the woodworks (that might be any of several employees in our offices). And, the most unapologetic sportscaster in the world makes his signature mark on the event...

“It’s March Madness, Babyyyyyyyyyy!” -Dickie V

The Team Effort. You know, it’s not necessarily the teams that were stacked with talent that win it all, but those that just meshed. It seems to go hand in hand with a good coach- Roy Williams, Coach K, Bobby Knight, Rick Pitino, Tubby Smith. Pro-ball, on the other hand, rarely has that togetherness, especially nowadays where players team-hop in search of championships.

"The secret is to have eight great players and four others who will cheer like crazy." -Tark the Shark

Love of the Game. Players have no salaries (at least disclosed). Coach is boss, so egos are in check, mostly. The players are still young, so they haven’t become jaded from the media/pressure. This level of competition is often filled with kids that have played ball their whole life, stayed late after practice to work on their game, and who play for love of the game. I love the cut-off t-shirts (I know they’re going out of style, but a few players still pimp them), the pre-game piles, free throw huddles, and bench on-your-knees arm-in-arm rallies. Did anyone see Joaquim Noah winking at the cheerleaders in one of their championships? That was pretty funny- dude was just having fun the whole way to the championship. (and, I might point out, his attitude has gone sour once he felt entitled in the NBA; too bad).

Automatic. You make Cinderella 3 and your are in the tourney. Seriously, everyone out there, be it a new member to Zinch or existing, semi-finalist or not, you are 50 friends away from possibly winning $20K.

No one is blowing the Cinderella 3 out of the water here, which means the door is open for anyone. ARE YOU SERIOUS? I just need 50 friends to create a Zinch profile and I’m eligible for $20K? Yup, that is what I said. I could do that in a day. I got 50 friends in my phone easy. That is what I call automatic. You want a chance to win, I’m telling you, this should be an automatic for someone. If you are a semi-finalist and not feeling good where you stand, then here’s an automatic way to get in. If you are new to Zinch as of last week and wish you could have participated, here’s an automatic way to get in.

I know I'm repeating myself, but this is automatic, and no one is pushing this. You are 50 friends away from getting in. Take this into your own hands.

P.S. The reason I use 50, is because that is currently what is holding at 3rd place on the Cinderella 3.

Tomorrow morning the regionals officially end! One day. That's still plenty of time to make a splash in your high school and in your community. Again, we need help choosing 17 people to make it into the final 64. The regionals will only give us 44 automatic entries into the 64. Cinderella 3 is 3 more. We need help choosing the 17 We're getting tons of email and updates and local press clippings and tons of youtube videos....keep 'em coming, keep 'em coming, keep 'em coming. This is coming down to the wire....

Here are a couple new videos.

Anna Vignet (West #2)