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The Scholar
College Match College Consultants consultant Jaye J. Fenderson created and produced this unscripted television drama that gave 10 high-achieving yet economically disadvantaged high school seniors the chance to compete for a four-year full ride scholarship to the college of their choice.
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Brand-Name Candidates
Private advisors use marketing principles to highlight students' assets. But
can people be sold like soap suds?
By Jay Mathews
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Independent Counsel
As selective schools become harder to get into, high schoolers and their parents
turn to private college consultants for help.
By Linda Morgan
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2006-2007 College Admission Trends
Applications to colleges are up and will continue to rise through 2014...";College Match, a Seattle-based college placement firm, has identified these trends for highly selective colleges..."
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Press Release - College Match College Consultants. April 2006
Educational Consulting Firm Addresses New Admissions Paradigm With Stategic College Match College Consultantsing™.
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SEVENTEEN.COM COLLEGE ADVICE COLUMN
Your College Questions Answered!(Updated Weekly)
Column Archive
College Packing List
Seventeen.com, August 2006.
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How To Be A Scholar: 10 Tips For Getting Into College
abc.com, May 2005.
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More students turn to consultants for help applying to college
Seattle PI, November 2007.
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Brand-Name Candidates
2005 Edition - Dave Montesano spent 50 hours with Natasha Lalji. Her parents could afford his company's fee, and the family wanted his advice on what would distinguish her from other students in the competition for a good college. She was of South Asian descent, not uncommon at the selective schools on her list. Her grade-point average at Seattle Preparatory School was 3.6. Her SAT score was 1220. She exhibited no specific talents or abilities above the norm except for one thing: she had traveled to 35 countries with her parents. And that, if properly communicated, was what Montesano thought would work for her.
A college-planning associate in Seattle, Montesano is one of a new breed of college-admissions consultants who use business-school marketing principles to sell students to their preferred colleges. He calls it "strategic matching" and says that despite what its critics claim, it is nothing like peddling soap. He says all colleges, even the most selective ones, want students with unique qualities and talents. All students, if they look hard enough, have something that can catch the admissions dean's eye.
Sometimes the approach winds up being clumsy. In a recent article for National CrossTalk, a publication of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, writer Anne Roark described how a consultant who was unimpressed with an applicant's typical math-science pre-med image decided to make a big thing out of the student's Latin course.
The student's father told Roark that his daughter's application downplayed the math and science while announcing her intention of majoring in classics (at many schools, a small department in search of majors). Unfortunately, her first-choice college didn't buy it. "We have become more cynical about some of the novelty" claimed in such applications, says Bruce Poch, admissions dean at Pomona College.
Admissions officers and high-school counselors say emphasizing one talent or activity is fine, as long as it is indeed a student's genuine passion. A strong theme can also help overcome weaknesses elsewhere in the resume. One of Montesano's clients, whose family owned a small chain of Mexican restaurants, had an SAT of only 1150, so he advised her to focus on her championship cheerleading and her work training other cheerleaders.
With his help, she came up with a description of herself as an "intellectually capable first-generation Latina who adds substantively to in-class discussions, improving their meaning and effectiveness." The teachers writing recommendations for her were given those talking points, and she got into her Early Decision first choice, the University of Puget Sound.
The same approach worked for Natasha Lalji. Her selling point was an ability to support diversity at a top college. She had a favorite way of putting it. "I see myself as a worldly and insightful honor student who uses my diverse background as an Asian-American to create an atmosphere of harmony at my school," she says. This was the subject of her essay and the theme of her interview. It may seem artificial to some, but Firoz Lalji, Natasha's computer-entrepreneur father, says Montesano managed to "identify some very good colleges where they had a need for a person like Natasha." She got into 70 percent of her choices, and will attend Santa Clara University.
© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.
Educational Consulting Firm Addresses
New Admissions Paradigm With Stategic College Match College Consultantsing™
SEATTLE (April 2006) – March was the month that millions of students throughout the United States nervously awaited acceptance and rejection letters from the colleges of their dreams. More than a few dreams were shattered over the last few weeks as students faced the harsh reality of today's college application and acceptance process. Today it is harder than ever to get into college – just about any college – let alone the college of your choice. With Stanford accepting only 12 percent of its 20,000 applicants this year and overall admit rates to other competitive liberal arts colleges hovering around 20 percent, more seniors are receiving rejections than ever before.
College Match College Consultants, an educational planning firm using a new and highly successful approach to college admissions, is about to change all that. Starting the planning process earlier and using an education consultant to develop a communications strategy, a student's chances for admission to a college of his or her choice can be improved dramatically - in some cases by as much as 50 percent. It is more important than ever to understand each student's strengths, weaknesses and passions in order to apply to the appropriate range of colleges.
David Montesano, a college admission strategist at College Match College Consultants, acknowledges the difficulty of getting into college. "Right now there is a population bubble with 100,000 more kids applying each year. Most schools are not increasing their size to accommodate this growth," says Montesano. While 30 percent of adults in the U.S. hold a bachelors degree, today 65 percent of all high school seniors are applying to four-year colleges, both illustrating the cultural and economic necessity of higher education and further compounding the college admission challenge. And many students and their families are ill prepared for the process of college application, let alone planning.
However, there is a bright spot for those students and their families who want to get a "leg up" on the competition. At Seattle's College Match College Consultants where Mr. Montesano works, an impressive 94 percent of his clients were accepted into at least one of their first-choice schools. The key, says Mr. Montesano, is College Match College Consultants's unique approach to college counseling based on student history and identity, strategic communication throughout the application process, careful analysis of target schools' applicant pool and current study body, and specific admission needs and goals. Robin Mamlet, former Dean of Admission and Financial Aid at Stanford, recently noted that the applicants offered admittance displayed talents and academic excitement that fit perfectly into the Stanford community. With so many students applying for college today, admissions offices increasingly use this criterion in the final cut: Who are the students who would fit best and benefit most from what their schools offer. Unfortunately, this is an area frequently overlooked or under-examined by many applicants today.
In addition to experience in college admissions and educational administration, College Match associates have backgrounds in management consulting and brand strategy and apply these skills and training to further benefit their clients.
"Once College Match College Consultants have a solid understanding of the student, the key is really knowing what the colleges are looking for and what they are not getting," says Mr. Montesano. By spending time getting to know each student and his or her goals and values, College Match College Consultants can best recommend appropriate, well-targeted schools that represent a realistic range for the application process. In the words of one satisfied client, "College Match College Consultants's approach changed our son's life. They offered him options that looked beyond such regional favorites as the University of Washington to include some highly competitive East Coast schools like Bates and Haverford and smaller, West Coast colleges like Claremont, Pomona and Reed. He was accepted into his first choice school."
For further information please contact:
david@collegematchus.com
1-877-658-4400
Thanks so much for your help! We are singing your praises to everyone we know."
-Tracy and Tom
Early Action/Early Decision 2006, College Match College Consultants Parents