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"Meet seven amazing young women. They are saving puppies from being euthanized, sending used eyeglasses to people who can&amp;amp;#8217;t afford new ones, running their own companies, and putting up some seriously impressive fights against global poverty. President Obama recently told one of them, a motivational speaker who grew up homeless, that she inspires him (yeah, that&amp;amp;#8217;s cool). So why are we bringing them all together here? In addition to totally blowing us away, they are, wait for it, juniors in college. And as part of our new Top Ten College Women Readers&amp;amp;#8217; Choice Contest, we want your help in deciding which of them will win $1,500. Glamour has a long history of honoring the country&amp;amp;#8217;s top undergrads. We&amp;amp;#8217;ve been selecting ten winners a year for our Top Ten College Women Competition over the past 55 years (that&amp;amp;#8217;s 550 standout women, ranging from Martha Stewart to former Dallas mayor Laura Miller). Like usual, we&amp;amp;#8217;ll feature our ten winners in the May issue. But today, we&amp;amp;#8217;re psyched to kick off the Readers&amp;amp;#8217; Choice Contest, and to highlight seven additional so-impressive-you&amp;amp;#8217;ll-hardly-believe-it college women. Read on to find out what makes these ladies so stellar. Then VOTE for the one you want to win the Readers&amp;amp;#8217; Choice Award (and the cash that comes with it). We&amp;amp;#8217;ll keep the ballots open for three weeks&amp;amp;#8212;until 11:59 PM ET on Monday, January 28. After you vote, tell us which girl you like best on Twitter (@GlamourTopTen) and our Facebook page. *The polls are open at the bottom of this post!* MARISSA IONNO, 20, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY Major: Biology, Minor: Psychology Laurel Springs, New Jersey There are 800 dogs and cats euthanized in the U.S. every hour, and six months after launching The TAILS Network via Facebook, Marissa has helped save more than 42 of them. She uses the Facebook page to circulate pictures of animals on &amp;amp;#8220;death row&amp;amp;#8221; and find them new homes. &amp;amp;#8220;Social media can reach millions of people,&amp;amp;#8221; she said, &amp;amp;#8220;so I thought, &amp;amp;#8216;Why not make an attempt to network some of these animals?&amp;amp;#8217;&amp;amp;#8221; In addition to obsessing over her own two pups, Nicco and Carmela, she volunteers at a shelter, fosters and transports animals on weekends, and maintains a near-perfect GPA. After she becomes a doctor, she hopes to open a high-quality rescue league&amp;amp;#8212;&amp;amp;#8220;a place for animals to heal and learn love before they can find their forever homes.&amp;amp;#8221; RADHIKA MITRA, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ, 20 Major: Computer Science, Minor: Technology Information Management Fremont, California When she and her sister saw a little boy get run over on a street in India as he tried to sell them a homemade necklace, they decided to create a safer way for local artists to do business. At 17, she co-founded Renaissance Now, a non-profit that provides local artisans in India, Bangladesh, Romania, and the U.S. with equipment and YouTube trainings to form more sustainable art businesses. &amp;amp;#8220;I come from an artistic family,&amp;amp;#8221; she said, &amp;amp;#8220;and when I saw very talented people in the artisan community suffering because they didn&amp;amp;#8217;t have the proper resources, I realized I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t have to be older to take action.&amp;amp;#8221; As CEO, she has grown Renaissance Now to support 10,000 families and raise more than $35,000. Her YouTube channel has more than a million views. MONA DIXON, ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY, 20 Majors: Supply Chain Management &amp;amp; Business Management Tempe, Arizona Along with being the youngest member on the board of the Arizona shelter she used to live in, Mona is studying to be a logistics professor, teaching a freshman business course, and speaking to her peers across the country about not letting personal challenges like homelessness get in the way of your education and dreams. As a kid, she remembers crawling behind dumpsters to find cardboard boxes to sleep on. &amp;amp;#8220;I knew if I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t volunteer, or get the grades, or do things that would get me money for scholarships, then I&amp;amp;#8217;d probably end up in the same situation that our mom was in with us,&amp;amp;#8221; she said. &amp;amp;#8220;College was the way to break the cycle, and I want other kids to know that it&amp;amp;#8217;s possible and important not to let where you&amp;amp;#8217;ve been limit who you go on to be.&amp;amp;#8221; In 2010, the Boys and Girls Club named Mona the National Youth of the Year, and in 2011, Essence magazine named her one of the &amp;amp;#8220;28 Most Influential Black Women in America.&amp;amp;#8221; ARIANA MELTZER-BRUHN, VILLANOVA, 20 Majors: Global Interdisciplinary Studies &amp;amp; Economics, Minors: Chinese &amp;amp; French Alexandria, Virginia A 4.0 student and captain of Villanova&amp;amp;#8217;s women&amp;amp;#8217;s club soccer team, Ariana broke her foot and participated in a 5K on crutches. When she got more credit than a fellow racer in a wheelchair, she started thinking about able-ism. Securing the support of The Canuso Foundation (the non-profit behind the first Ronald McDonald House), she founded LEVEL, a student organization that partners Villanova&amp;amp;#8217;s disabled students with able-bodied ones. The aim of the organization is to provide help in and out of the classroom, grow new friendships, and change the way people view ability. Building an inclusive community matters personally to Ariana, who grew up with two moms: &amp;amp;#8220;I really understand what it feels like to be on the outside looking in.&amp;amp;#8221; AJLA KARAJKO, BARNARD COLLEGE, 21 Major: Economics, Minor: Italian Travnik, Bosnia Ajla grew up in war-torn Bosnia, where her local high school had a fence dividing the classrooms for Christian and Muslim students. Now a One Young World Ambassador, member of Barnard&amp;amp;#8217;s student government, and spring intern at the United Nations, she focuses on promoting interfaith dialogue and female empowerment globally. Back in Bosnia, she used a $10,000 grant to build a school playground where Muslim and Christian students could socialize together. She also founded Bead the Difference, a summer art and mentorship program for Bosnian girls. &amp;amp;#8220;My lost childhood is a big reason why improving gender and religious equality and interfaith dialogue is important to me,&amp;amp;#8221; she said. &amp;amp;#8220;Born and raised during a war excused by religious differences, I&amp;amp;#8217;ve always felt I&amp;amp;#8217;ve had to help prevent other kids from experiencing what I did.&amp;amp;#8221; JANICE GUZON, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, 19 Majors: Public Policy &amp;amp; Sociology Hoffman Estates, Illinois When her dad read her a letter from her aunt begging for money to buy eyeglasses in the Philippines, Janice was shocked to learn that for many poor families around the world, buying glasses can cost more than a year&amp;amp;#8217;s salary. At 15, she cofounded the nonprofit EYEsee to collect and send some of the four million pairs of specs that North Americans throw away each year to people who could use them. To date, EYEsee has donated more than 31,000 pairs of glasses to people in Haiti, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Uganda. &amp;amp;#8220;You don&amp;amp;#8217;t really think about it, but it&amp;amp;#8217;s an awful thing to suffer over&amp;amp;#8212;not being able to see,&amp;amp;#8221; she said. &amp;amp;#8220;My dream is to work in international development and build &amp;amp;#8216;vision centers&amp;amp;#8217; around the world.&amp;amp;#8221; LAURA EVANS, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, 21 Major: Computer Science, Minor: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Old Greenwich, Connecticut Upon transferring from UC Berkeley to Harvard and watching The Social Network, she dreamed up &amp;amp;#8220;The Social Dresswork.&amp;amp;#8221; Now called Valti, her website offers a crowd-sourced Rent-the-Runway-like service for Harvard students to share and rent dresses. She and her co-founders launched the site this fall, receiving a $50k angel investment and membership to the Harvard Innovation Lab. She is a campus DJ and an NCAA Division I swimmer (and two-time Ivy League champ). &amp;amp;#8220;I look at all the business and tech magazines and think, &amp;amp;#8216;Where are all the women?&amp;amp;#8217;&amp;amp;#8221; she said. &amp;amp;#8220;I love to create things, and I love that I can help college women save money, make money, and feel good in their bodies.&amp;amp;#8221; Top Ten College Women Readers&amp;#x27; Choice Vote-Off Photos: courtesy of participants "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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