Brand Yourself: The Student Guide to College Admission Success

Here is a blurb about my forthcoming book (Winter 2009):

COLLEGE ADMISSION’S NEW REALITY
It has become all too clear that we have entered an era of radically increased college entrance difficulty. For the first time, Ivy League schools are taking fewer than 10 percent of their applicants (Yale accepted 8.3 percent this year and Harvard accepted 7.1 percent of all applicants in 2008). That means in the not so distant future, it will be statistically improbable for most students to be admitted to one of these colleges. While top students still can apply to these schools, they too need to consider viable alternatives that will meet their needs not just as students but also as individuals.

They must, at a minimum, demonstrate the tangible results of college preparation: good grades, high test scores and strong extracurricular activities. But the score-oriented, quantitative approach to admissions, prevalent in the last decades, needs to be replaced with a more strategic approach to gaining admission to quality schools.

This is where branding comes in. As an admissions strategist, Dave Montesano has helped hundreds of clients find and gain access to the best match undergraduate and graduate programs over the past 10 years. From offices in the U.S., Dave has served families with students who hope to attend college programs and now shares his knowledge with a larger public in his book: "Brand Yourself: The Student Guide to College Admission Success".

MARKETING STRATEGY TO SELL STUDENTS TO THEIR PREFERRED COLLEGES
With years of experience in brand strategy, counseling clients on marketing and identity development, Dave Montesano is a new breed of college admission consultants who use business school marketing principles to sell students to their preferred college. In his book" Brand Yourself", Montesano offers would-be students inspiration as well as practical step by step information on getting into the college of your dreams. The book itself is as unique and groundbreaking as Dave Montesano’s approach to college admission: whereas most college reference books are badly designed handbooks that are about as inspirational and grey as the paper they are printed on, Montesano’s book is a feast for the eye. It’s a useful and design-heavy handbook that has value for everyone interested in obtaining their goals and dreams. All the advice is presented in a very easy to digest format. Think of Paul Arden’s books and you get the picture!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dave is the author of "Strategic College Admission", published in CollegeBound News (April, 2005). Profiled by Washington Post education writer, Jay Matthews, in Newsweek's "America's Hottest Colleges" (2005 edition) Dave was called a "new breed of college admission consultants who use business school marketing principles to sell students to their preferred college." Dave gets consistently high approval ratings from his clients and is a speaker for parent and school groups.