WILKES-BARRE, Pa. ? Wilkes University badly wanted 18-year-old Nicole Pollock to be part of its freshman class this fall – so much so that it made her the star of her own ad campaign.

The small, private school in northeastern Pennsylvania plastered Pollock’s name on billboards, pizza boxes and gas pumps – and even aired a commercial on MTV – in hopes of getting her to enroll. As one message put it: “We just hope you’re on your way to Wilkes University next year.”

Mission accomplished: Pollock recently picked Wilkes over her hometown University of Scranton. Even better for Wilkes, the ads put it on the radar screen of many of Pollock’s classmates.

The quirky $120,000 ad campaign, which also featured seven other students, helps Wilkes stand out in a crowded college marketplace. It also demonstrates the lengths to which some colleges are going to reach today’s media- and marketing-savvy teenagers, who are just as likely to shop for a school on the Internet as to rely on glossy brochures and college fairs.

Increasingly, schools are using podcasts, virtual tours on YouTube, live chats and other interactive technologies to get their messages out.

Wilkes finds out this week just how successful its campaign has been. Today is the deadline for high school seniors across the nation to notify the college of their choice they plan to attend in the fall.

“This is pretty trendsetting and forward-thinking,” said Nancy Costopulos, chief marketing officer of the American Marketing Association, which runs a yearly symposium for colleges and universities. “It positions Wilkes as an innovative and fresh kind of school.”

The university picks applicants from markets where Wilkes wants to promote itself and who have a “mix of talents and determination,” said Jack Chielli, Wilkes’ director of marketing. Applicants featured in the ads must consent to have their names used.

The ads are the brainchild of Philadelphia marketing firm 160over90, which had a mandate from Wilkes to convey the message that the school gets to know its students personally and pays close attention to their needs.

To do that, the agency conducts in-depth interviews with participating students, their friends and families – learning their hobbies and accomplishments, their hopes and dreams, their likes and dislikes, even their nicknames.

Some examples:

¢ “Hey Kristen Pecka. Only your closest friends at Central Catholic call you Pecka-lecka-lecka. Choose Wilkes University and add 2,362 more people to that list.”

¢ “Scranton High senior Nicole Pollock: Our goal at Wilkes University is to be as much a mentor as your mother has been. (Now, if we could only make her ravioli.)”