About Us
OUR MISSION
Making It Count, owned and operated by Monster, will be the nation’s premier
educational training and advisory organization for today’s students and parents.
Our goal is twofold: to teach students how to succeed in college and best
prepare themselves to maximize their opportunities upon graduation, and to help
parents make smart, proactive decisions on behalf of their students. By
achieving this goal, we will play a meaningful role in reversing the long-term
negative trends in college graduation rates and graduate employment statistics.
COMPANY SUMMARY
The idea for Making It Count started in 1987 when company co-founder, Patrick
O’Brien (then a Procter & Gamble brand manager) prepared some notes for a
discussion with his younger sister on how to succeed in college. These notes
would become the outline for his book, Making College Count: A Real World
Look at How to Succeed In and After College, first printed in 1996.
Since then, the book has been sold in bookstores across the country and has been
featured in USA Today, the CBS Morning News, MSNBC and Amazon.com.
By 1998, the concept expanded and our flagship in-school presentation
program, Making College Count for high school seniors, was developed by
co-founders Brad Baker and Patrick O’Brien. That year, the program was delivered
to 50,000 students. Since then, we have developed several additional programs
and expanded our reach to more than 20 million students in more than 4,500 high
schools and 650 colleges in all 50 states through our package of assembly-style
presentations including:
- Making High School Count (for high school freshmen)
- Making Your College Search Count (for high school juniors)
- Making College & Career Count (for high school seniors)
- Making College Financial Planning Count (evening program for
parents of students in 9th through 12th grade)
- The Ultimate Road Trip (for first-year college students)
- Ultimate Money Skills (for college students)
The programs are highly acclaimed by counselors and students alike. In 2006,
counselors rated all of our programs an average of 9.53 on a 10-point scale for
“Value of the Presentation,” and a 9.45 for “Effectiveness of the Delivery of
the Presentation.” Ninety-nine percent of students agreed that other students
would benefit from the programs. On average, students rate the programs 8.79 on
a 10-point scale for “Value,” and 8.94 for “Effectiveness.”
We have more than 250 trained and certified speakers who deliver our
presentations. They are trained to present the message as if they were a big
brother or sister simply giving advice about their experiences and how to
achieve success. The presentations are dynamic and engaging, holding the
audience’s attention through relevant interactive exercises, on-stage volunteer
exercises and a detailed workbook that students and parents can use to follow
along and more deeply engage themselves in the material presented.
For more information, please contact us at 513-772-1188 or through email at
comments@makingitcount.com.
