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Who's all that? You are! And it's especially important for you to flaunt your accomplishments when applying to college and filling out all those applications. Remember, as a college applicant, you are both the salesperson and the product, so you've got to market your assets like your education depends on it -- because it does. But how do you find the balance between humility and hubris?

"You have to self-promote," says Peggy Klaus, author of Brag! The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn Without Blowing It. "But there are ways to talk about yourself that are entertaining and interesting. You can talk about your accomplishments without sounding arrogant."

Klaus recently led a "brag party" at the Young Women's Leadership High School (New York, NY) to educate high schoolers on the importance of flexing your accomplishments with tact and charisma -- a necessity when attempting to impress admissions officers. "My brag parties usually start out with some ice breakers, and then we do a lot of exercises that force the participants to interact and talk about themselves," she says. "I teach them to turn the things they are proud of into stories. No one wants to hear someone rattle off a list of everything you've accomplished." Roughly 75 female high schoolers participated, and the results were, well, brag-worthy.

"I already thought I had confidence, but this program completely changed me," says Nancy Buelto, a senior at the school. "I used to come off as conceited, but I really learned how to bring down my arrogance and raise my self esteem -- and I've definitely become a better listener."

Klaus' program helped the opposite end of the spectrum as well -- students who were extremely shy. "There was a girl at the program that I've gone to school with since elementary school, but she is so shy that I have never even heard her voice," explains Nancy. "After all of the exercises, I could finally hear this girl's voice and she was so confident! She spoke to the group about how she wants to be a pediatrician, and she was so powerful -- it was like night and day."

It may feel uncomfortable at first, but don't be afraid to brag. "We spend so much time feeling badly about ourselves, thinking we're not good enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, rather than taking stock in what it is that we actually do well," explains Klaus. "There are so many wonderful things about kids heading off to college -- don't waste all of your depth and creativity on beating yourselves senseless!"

Peggy Klaus' Bragging Bullet points
* Don't list your scores or your grades or your activities -- that's boring and boastful. Create a story about the things you have accomplished, and tell it with exciting detail.

* Go "over the top." When you are telling someone about yourself, you need to kick the intensity up a notch so you can really show people that you have done some interesting things.

* Create a "brag-a-log," which is a 60-second monologue summing up yourself and the accomplishments that are most important to you. This will help you get to the point.

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