comScore on College students: they're 12 million strong and as highly engaged online as they come.

With the college school year now in full swing, this week's edition of the The Score focuses on the university Internet population. In September, more than 12 million college students accessed the Web either from a dormitory or private residence. On average, these users spent 21.5 hours online and viewed more than 2,000 pages during the month -- engagement levels that are roughly 20 percent higher than the typical home user.

Not surprisingly, categories directly related to the college experience rank highest by composition index (a measure of the proportional likelihood of a population segment to visit a site or group of sites compared to the average user). The category with the highest composition of university students is Career Services & Development -- Training & Education. Visitation to this category is relatively low in comparison to that to other categories (only 847,000 university visitors); however, college students are 50 percent more likely to visit than the average Internet user (represented by an index of 150). Sites in the Training & Education category include Fastweb, a scholarship search site owned by Monster, as well as test review sites like PrincetonReview.com and KapTest.com.

Aside from education-related content, three broad classes of sites are particularly popular among university users: technology, entertainment and retail. 

Technology

University users are 15 percent more likely to visit sites or use applications classified in the Downloads category than the average Internet user. While comScore has observed an overall decrease in peer-to-peer application usage, university users are still disproportionately likely to visit the Web sites related to these applications. For example, university users are 83 percent more likely to visit Kazaa.com, 116 percent more likely to visit Bearshare.com and 150 percent more likely to visit Limewire.com than the average Internet user.

The Instant Messenger category is also particularly popular among college students. Fully 40 percent of the university Internet population actively uses at least one IM application, and the full category, which includes the Web sites related to each of the applications, reaches 53 percent of this segment. AOL Instant Messenger -- the most popular of these applications among students -- is used by 23 percent of all university Internet users compared to 12 percent of the total U.S. Internet population.

Retail

The university population's interest in technology also extends to its online shopping behavior.  Nearly 3.4 million university users visited the Retail -- Computer Hardware category, and more than 4.1 million visited the Retail -- Consumer Electronics category. Mobile phone sites, which are included in the Consumer Electronics category, are particularly popular among college students.  The Web sites for AT&T Wireless, Cingular and T-Mobile are all more popular with university users than among the total Internet population.

Entertainment

Nearly half of all university Internet users visit the Entertainment -- Music category. Launch, MTV Networks, AOL Music, MusicMatch, ArtistDirect and WindowsMedia Music each reached more than 500,000 college students in September. The university population, which represents about 8 percent of all Internet users, accounts for fully 17 percent of iTunes application users. The Humor category is also disproportionately with university students. CollegeHumor.com, Comedy Central and FlowGo.com are among the most popular sites in the category.

	Highest Indexing Categories September 2004 Total U.S. University Internet Users Source: comScore Media Metrix   Composition Index Total Unique Visitors (000) % Reach Total University Internet Population 100 12,204 100% Career Services & Development - Training & Education 150 847 7% Education 138 8,114 67% Education - Information 133 3,857 32% Services - Downloads 114 8,420 69% Entertainment - Music 113 5,746 47% Retail - Books 112 3,759 31% Instant Messengers 110 6,416 53% Retail - Computer Hardware 109 3,366 28% Entertainment - Humor 107 1,791 15% Retail - Consumer Electronics 107 4,104 34%

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comScore Networks provides unparalleled insight into consumer behavior and attitudes. This capability is based on a massive, global cross-section of more than 2 million consumers who have given comScore explicit permission to confidentially capture their browsing and transaction behavior, including online and offline purchasing. comScore panelists also participate in survey research that captures and integrates their attitudes and intentions. Through its patent-pending technology, comScore measures what matters across a broad spectrum of behavior and attitudes. comScore consultants apply this deep knowledge of customers and competitors to help clients design powerful marketing strategies and tactics that deliver superior ROI. comScore services are used by global leaders such as AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Verizon, Best Buy, The Newspaper Association of America, Tribune Interactive, ESPN, Nestlé, Bank of America, Universal McCann, the United States Postal Service, GlaxoSmithKline and Orbitz. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com.