student.com

The Point: This is a site of students, for students and by students. With advice on everything from test taking to weight loss to great deals on textbooks, this site has it covered.

Makes the Grade: A-

Entertainment Factor: Upon first glance, student.com is quite reminiscent of Facebook or MySpace. The home page is covered with members' clickable profile pictures that lead to elaborate, colorful spreads depicting each student.

Yes, there are friends, flix and favorites, but this site boasts more than just a "superwall." Student.com puts more emphasis on the "student" and less on the "dot-com." The site is not merely an online journal but instead an informative go-to resource for, well, anything.

A left-hand sidebar on the home page offers links to homework help, book bargains, facts on tattoos, weight-loss tips, video game sales and even advice and external starter sites on how to start a blog.

While much of this site is dedicated to information, student.com knows how to relax as well. Members can take surveys to earn "points" for their profiles. As incentive, top point-scorers are featured on the home page. Apparently, the competition is pretty intense.

Easy Street?: Drawback number one: student.com requires a membership. Then again, so do Facebook and MySpace, so maybe that's not so bad.

Drawback number two: Whenever you click a link, it opens in an entirely new window. So I dissuade anyone from working on a term paper while perusing the site, as a crowded desktop may just necessitate the ever-feared force-quit.

Hot or Not: But all in all, and despite these slight functional inconveniences, student.com proves worthy of its title. Any high school or college student can take advantage of the site's wealth of information. For melding an online social profile with an informative lifestyle index, student.com is definitely hot.