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.

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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.

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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…

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Getting waitlisted can be frustrating, confusing and/or exciting depending on what your expectations were in applying to that college. It’s frustrating because, similar to being deferred, it’s not a final answer. It’s a “hold on…. lets just wait it out” kind of answer. It may turn into an acceptance. It may turn into a rejection. It’s confusing because you have no idea what your fate will be regarding admittance to that college (and people have all sorts of theories about colleges and their waitlists). It’s exciting because you still may have a chance.

So, what should you do if you receive a waitlist letter? And similarly, what should you not do?

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As many have seen or heard by now, this year seems to have been especially difficult to gain admission to the most selective colleges and universities. The New York Times (April 1, 2008), and many college newspapers, have reported acceptance rates in the single digits for Columbia, Yale and Harvard. No question, it’s tough, and has been getting tougher, to get into those schools. If you are one of the vast majority of students who applied but did not gain admission to these schools, whatever you do, don’t second guess what you’ve done in high school. It is essential that you keep in mind that what you’ve accomplished and contributed during your high school years is for a purpose greater than getting a fat envelope from a prestigious school. Does that fat envelope feel like validation for your hard work? Absolutely. But a denial letter is not an invalidation of that same spirit, intellect, talent and passion. Rather, it is a reflection of the tens of thousands of other students throughout the world who are accessing higher education at rates that history has never before seen. This may sound like the sound byte rhetoric spouted by admissions officers which comes across as paternalistic, condescending and insensitive. Bear with me. I promise you it doesn’t have to seem that way.

Consider, perhaps, what Zinch aims to do….

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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:)

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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!!