Sales Scholars. The top sales students at W. P. Carey
Sales Scholars is the sister organization to ProSales Club. Application opens each spring; finalists interview with faculty and members of the Corporate Board. Highly competitive and purely merit based. National competitions, paid internships, executive mentorship.
What Sales Scholars opens up.
A competition circuit, a mentor, a board of executives who know your name, and a resume line that moves you to the front of the stack.1
Sales Scholars is application-only and small by design: about two dozen seats per year drawn from the entire university. The cohort sits inside the Professional Sales Program at W. P. Carey and feeds the national competition circuit, the Corporate Board workshop series, and the 1-on-1 executive mentorship pairings launched in 2024.2
Partner companies surface Scholars first when summer and full-time roles open. Recent Scholars have landed at Stryker, Bloomberg, Oracle, and Paycom. The network is live and warm. Scholars get introduced in, not cold.
National competition circuit
Scholars represent ASU on the national circuit: the National Collegiate Sales Competition (2026 national champions), the International Collegiate Sales Competition, the Great Northwoods and Steel City challenges, and the Arizona Collegiate Sales Competition that W. P. Carey hosts. Real rooms, real judges from the industry.
Corporate Board workshops
The Professional Sales Corporate Board runs closed workshops for Scholars. Oracle, Paycom, Northwestern Mutual, Johnson & Johnson MedTech and the rest of the board advise the program and teach to the cohort directly.
Executive mentorship
Scholars connect with senior executives from the program's Sales Advisory Council for networking, career guidance, and professional development from people who have done it.
Paid sales internships
Partner companies surface Scholars first when summer and full-time roles open. The program has a track record of placing Scholars into paid sales roles before most of campus has figured out recruiting.
Peer leadership
Scholars lead teams at national competitions, run clinics for ProSales Club members, and represent the Professional Sales Program at recruiting events. You come out of it with a resume line and an actual leadership track record.
Alumni network
Sales Scholars land at Stryker, Bloomberg, Oracle, Paycom, CDW, and across the enterprise sales world. That network is live and warm. Scholars get introduced in, not cold.
- 1 Resume line = Sales Scholar designation plus competition-team credit, recognized by W. P. Carey and the Professional Sales Program's corporate sponsor roster.
- 2 Executive mentorship pairings launched in 2024. Every Scholar is matched with a senior executive from a board partner for the academic year, with a standing monthly check-in.
The receipts.
Results Sales Scholars has put on the board at the national level. In 2025 the team posted the best NCSC finish in school history. In 2026 they went back and won the whole thing.
- 20261st place · National Collegiate Sales CompetitionNational champions. #1 of 72+ universities at Kennesaw State.
- 20262nd overall · NCSC role-playAlden Mattingly-Dawson, of 144+ competitors. Now leads the competition team.
- 20256th in the nation · NCSCHighest finish in school history at the time. Valentin Hernandez, top-8 semifinalist.
- 2021W. P. Carey Organization of the YearWon by the ASU Professional Sales Program (ProSales Club and Sales Scholars together).
How you get in.
Application, interview, and a standing expectation. A cohort of about two dozen from the entire university.
Application
Applications open each spring through the Professional Sales Program. Highly competitive. Most Scholars apply as sophomores or juniors. Any major is eligible, though the cohort skews business.
Interview
Finalists interview with Dr. Montoya, Dr. Nelsen, and members of the Corporate Board. The interview is the selling exercise. Scholars are picked on how they think, not just their GPA.
Expectations
Once in, Scholars maintain active participation across competitions, workshops, and program events, and hold their academic standing. It's a cohort, not a title. You earn your seat every semester.
Who runs the program.
Two professors with deep industry track records. Dr. Nelsen is the faculty advisor to Sales Scholars. Dr. Montoya runs the broader Professional Sales Program.
Faculty Advisor to Sales Scholars for the 2026-27 season.
Twenty-plus years in cable-advertising and media sales before academia; previously directed the Center for Professional Sales at Washington State.
Built and runs the Professional Sales Program at W. P. Carey.
Coaches competition teams and anchors the institutional pipeline that connects ProSales Club, Sales Scholars, and the corporate sponsor roster.