#1. “Pack This!” notepad Campus arrival day. Midterm break. Christmas vacation. Spring semester. Spring break. Summer vacation. That’s a lot of packing, unpacking and repacking. Make sure your student brings everything needed with a “Pack This!” notepad ($7).
		#2. USB Retro Lamp Plug in these funky lights to a laptop’s USB port to brighten your student’s keyboard. The lamp necks are flexible, and the lamp shades come in orange, purple, green and blue ($8).
		#3. Ceramic Noodle Cup In college, there are four food groups: pizza, vending machine snacks, mac and cheese, and Ramen noodles. Let your freshman enjoy hot noodles and broth in style with this ceramic noodle cup ($16). Finish the gift with two dozen packaged Ramen noodles.
		#4. Laptop Lilo Inflatable Laptop Desk Laptops get hot after writing a 30-page paper on Burgess’s use of portmanteau words in A Clockwork Orange. Laptop Lilo withstands 175 degree Fahrenheit temperatures while allowing proper ventilation ($17).
		#5. Popcorn Bowl Movies and popcorn make the ultimate study break. Pair this melamine bowl, lined in a popcorn print, with a few boxes of Orville Redenbacher Light Butter microwave popcorn, a Consumer Reports favorite ($16).
		#6. Electro Man Surge Protector Students bring a showroom floor’s worth of gadgets and small appliances to their dorm. Give an Electro Man Surge Protector to maximize the room’s limited electrical outlets — and protect electronics from voltage spikes ($25).
		#7. Pop Quiz Math Clock This wall clock is ideal for math, computer science, accounting, finance, physics, education, or engineering majors ($27).
		#8. Guitar and Amp Pillow Case Set Add rockstar style to the room with these electric guitar and amplifier pillow cases in standard size ($25).
		#9. 500XL Desktop Earbud Speakers Designer Winnif Pang took iPod earbuds and blew them up 500 times in size. Plug these speakers into a laptop, desktop, or MP3 player to rock the dorm floor ($45).
		#10. Cable Monkey Cable Organizer Sure, the university touts wireless Internet access on campus. But students still contend with lots of wires: power cords, printer cables, speaker cords, digital camera cords, and Ethernet cables (when the wifi drops). Cable Monkey neatly collects the cord jungle into a single strand ($4).
		#11. Tabletop Air Hockey Game Space is at a premium in the dorm room, so this miniature air hockey table (20 inches long) can work on a desk. The first floormate to seven points wins ($30).
		#12. Great Ideas Napkin Sketchbook If the best ideas spring from napkin doodles, why not a whole book of napkins? Help them ace that design project with the Great Ideas Napkin Sketchbook ($6).
		#13. Uncapped Pen and Pencil Holder It’s easy to lose a pen cap, unless it’s this oversized pen cap for holding pens, markers and pencils ($15).
		#14. Eco Cold Drink Cup (Reusable) No matter what the school colors are, green is in on campus. Eliminate disposable cups with this 16-ounce reusable cup, insulated to keep cold drinks cold ($10).

See also: 10 Going-to-College Gifts and 13 Going-to-College Gifts

However, this gift isn’t the easiest surprise to pull off. Most state agencies require a driver registered to the vehicle to apply for the personalized plate. If you are not jointly registered with your gift recipient as the car owner, you still can present your suggestions, write a check to cover fees and complete any paperwork. Maybe a few states will follow the example of Texas, which offers a vanity license plate gift card.

Select the U.S. state for your giftee to learn more about applying for a personalized plate.

• 14 Dorm Warming Gifts: PerpetualKid.com Goes to College (7/31/2010)
• Irreverent References: Gifts for MBA, Law and Medical Students (8/9/2009)
• College Gift Finder 2009 (7/8/2009)
• 24 Colleges Go Pink: New Collegiate Sleepwear from Victoria’s Secret (6/22/2009)
• March Madness Gifts (3/20/2009)
• 13 Going-to-College Gifts (8/18/2008)
• Care Packages from Gift University (1/3/2008)
• Ten Going-to-College Gifts (8/3/2007)
• Alma Mater Pride: Giving College-themed Gifts (6/12/2007)

One of my favorite parts of the “Business School in 96 Pages” textbook is The Truth About Accounting:

If you went to a “real” business school — you know, the kind with “buildings” and “faculty” and so-called “accreditation” — you’d probably have to take an accounting class. You wouldn’t learn much, though, because you would spend most of the class either asleep, falling asleep, or trying not to fall asleep. So we’ll just condense everything you need to know about accounting into two sentences: Accounting is very dry but critically important. Hire an accountant to take care of it for you.

Mental_floss also offers Law School in a Box and Med School in a Box with similar satire. These novelty gifts will bring a smile to students or recent grads in business, law and medicine.

That’s where College Gift Finder 2009 comes in. I’ve updated and directly linked to the online shops of more than 1,300 U.S. four-year colleges. The index compiles 1,644 links, organized alphabetically by college and by state. New this year are links to Fathead’s line of collegiate wall graphics and the Victoria’s Secret PINK Collegiate Collection.

So if you need a gift for someone who is college-bound or a proud alum, be sure to visit the updated College Gift Finder.

That’s a great customer follow-up use of social media. Gazelle’s prompt response made me think about other sites I frequent. How many of my favorite retailers are using Twitter? And when did they start posting tweets? I compiled the table below using Twitter’s “Find People” search and MyTweet16, which lists a Twitter user’s first 16 tweets.

Retailers Using Twitter

Of the 40 retailers above, grocery chain Trader Joe’s use of Twitter impressed me the most. Nearly all of Trader Joe’s posts are simply retweets of customer talking about TJ’s food and beverages on Twitter. (Jargon alert: Retweets repeat someone else’s message on Twitter — crediting the author — to help spread the message to others. Often abbreviated as RT, it’s word of mouth, Twitter-style.)

Finally, as I’m writing this post, Gazelle sent me another Twitter reply. This time, Gazelle thanked me for my tweet and offered me a 5% bump in value on my next Gazelle gadget trade-in.

• Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech)
• Indiana University
• Michigan State University
• New York University
• Oklahoma State University
• Oregon State University
• Purdue University
• Rutgers University
• Syracuse University
• Stanford University
• State University of New York Binghamton University
• United States Naval Academy
• University of Central Florida
• University of Cincinnati
• University of Connecticut
• University of Iowa
• University of Louisville
• University of Missouri – Columbia (Mizzou)
• University of Pittsburgh
• University of South Florida
• University of Virginia
• Virginia Tech
• Washington State University
• West Virginia University

 

The sleepwear/lingerie retailer chose the two dozen new schools through online voting, bringing the collection to 58 colleges. I added all of the Victoria’s Secret schools to Gift Giving Guy’s College Gift Finder.

Update: Victoria’s Secret discontinued some colleges and dropped some from online purchase, so I removed links for 14 colleges above.

If your giftee has too many favorite teams to choose from, browse the NCAA’s official store at ShopNCAASports.com, including their online gift certificates. Or consider giving Sports Illustrated: The Basketball Book, a hard cover coffee table book that celebrates the college and professional game.

		#1. Official Collegiate Wear (price varies). Yes, this is a shameless plug for my new College Gift Finder, more than 1,500 links strong. Confirm his or her Big Freshman On Campus status with a college hoodie.
		#2. iPod Speakers ($100-$140 from Amazon.com). I know a veteran university photographer who swears by this gift for the college bound. Many students have some flavor of iPod, and ConsumerSearch.com rates Logitech Pure-Fi Anywhere speakers as the best.
		#3. Desk Lamp with iPod Speakers ($100 from Amazon.com). Another iPod speaker idea. Bring sound and light to student’s dorm-issued desk with an iHome halogen lamp combined with speakers.
		#4. College Guide – The Naked Roommate ($10 from Amazon.com). Practical tips from syndicated advice columnist Harlan Cohen. Chances are, your student’s RA has read this college guide cover to cover. Also, consider the datebook planner version.
		#5. Doorganizer ($15 from UncommonGoods.com). For the absent-minded genius, the Doorganizer keeps keys and important notes visible as your student leaves the dorm room. I wish I had one of these in college to keep me from locking myself out of my room.
		#6. Freshman Survival Kit ($58 to $78 from HipKits.com). Give a collection of college essentials, including flip-flops for the dorm’s community showers. Hip Kits offer college gift baskets you can customize to nearly 150 universities. See more college care packages from Hip Kits.
		#7. Milk Crates for Storage ($10 each from The Container Store). Authentic dairy crates are a classic stackable storage solution for tight dorm quarters. Pile up notebooks, textbooks, sweatshirts and anything else that will lie flat.
		#8. Mini-Mantle Bedpost Shelf ($10 from Dormbuys.com). Throughout my college years, I always chose the bunkbed’s top bunk. I would have loved owning this mini-mantle. The 6-by-14-inch shelf attaches to a bed or loft post to rest a book, pens, glasses, a water bottle or TV remote.
		#9. Book Bungie Bookmarks ($30 for a set of five from Levenger). Let your student wrap a book bungie around that massive Organic Chemistry textbook to mark his or her progress. Unlike a typical bookmark, these bungies won’t lose their place.
		#10. Margin Maker Note Paper ($18 from Levenger). These self-adhesive strips of green and yellow paper maximize a textbook’s resale value by never marking up a page. Students can tear off the right length of paper and make notes in the margin.
		#11. Bookbumpers ($10 for 10 sheets, 4 bumpers per sheet, from Levenger). One more book innovation from Levenger, offering “tools for serious readers.” Many textbooks come in paperback and take a lot of abuse. Prevent dogearred book covers with the plastic protection of Bookbumpers.
		#12. JimiX Wallet ($16 from Mr. Smith, Inc.). The JimiX sports a super-thin design that stores four cards, plus a sturdy money clip. The translucent shell, made from 100% recycled polypropylene, makes flashing that university ID card simple. This compact wallet is available in light blue, safety orange, clear and stealth black.
		#13. Kone Cordless Hand Vacuum ($40 from Amazon.com). It’s not a cheerleader megaphone; it’s a mini-vacuum. Dirt Devil has designed a rechargeable hand vacuum you don’t have to hide. While every dorm has an upright vacuum cleaner for check out, it’s handy to have the Kone for those quick clean-ups. Choose from six colors: blue, champagne, charcoal, pink, plum or white.

See also from 2007: Ten Going-to-College Gifts