<p>PDad:</p>
<p>It's useful to put Questbridge in context. It is essentially an out-sourced recruiting system for lower-income students (mostly $60,000 and below household income). Each college pays an program annual fee and then a per student recruiting payment for each student still enrolled a year later.</p>
<p>For the most part, these students would be getting accepted to these schools with or without Questbridge. From the students' perspective, it simplifies the application -- one Questbridge app is sent to multiple schools. From the colleges' standpoint, the program is most useful to schools without their own outreach programs and less useful to schools that have developed their own recruiting efforts to lower income, often public, high schools. For example, Harvard was one of the early participants, but dropped out of the program when they found that the cost wasn't justified -- they were getting anyone they wouldn't have already gotten.</p>
<p>The other aspect, at least for the Early Decison match finalists, is that Questbridge provides cover for guaranteed quasi-merit aid four year full-freight deals. The match schools commit to four-years full-freight up front.</p>
<p>There is a poster here on CC who debated whether or not to apply through Questbridge or not. This poster would have gotten accepted everywhere, regardless -- combination of great application (by any standard), recruited athlete (national championship caliber), and URM status. This poster ended up being accepted and committing in December to one of HYPMS. I don't know if it was through the Questbridge match.</p>
<p>Alphabeta, I agree with you.
Williams is great partly because of those exremely passionate and smart students.</p>
<p>Do we have to know the mechanism of Quest Bridge matching program?
Do we have to know the reason that Harvard stoped being a partner school?
For what purpose? To belittle Williams' effort to reach and support underrepresented students? </p>
<p>Williams' effort to accept Quest Bridge scholars deserves to be commended.
In addition, Williams' need blind admission policy for international students is also laudable. Those students who have benefited or will benefit from Williams finantial aid will be great Williams alums like current alums.
Paresky Center symbolizes the beauty of the tradition.</p>
<p>Well, alrighty then!</p>
<p>Williams efforts to diversify the student body should certainly be applauded.</p>
<p>Questbridge is just a tool to that end. I don't know that whether Williams uses that particular tool, or another tool, or a combination of tools is inherently commendable or not commendable. If it works, great.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Amherst actually gets the most applications of the East Coast schools.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Actually, this year Wesleyan and Middlebury received more applications than all other East Coast elites.</p>
<p>Wesleyan: 7,240
Middlebury: 7,185
Amherst: 6,662
Williams: 6,437
Bowdoin: 5,899
Swarthmore: 5,244</p>
<p>Yeah... But they are larger schools</p>
<p>
[quote]
Actually, this year Wesleyan and Middlebury received more applications than all other East Coast elites.</p>
<p>Wesleyan: 7,240
Middlebury: 7,185
Amherst: 6,662
Williams: 6,437
Bowdoin: 5,899
Swarthmore: 5,244
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's a meaningless stat - Amherst, Williams, and Bowdoin (and probably Swarthmore too but I have not seen its numbers) all had lower admit rates than Wesleyan or Middlebury.</p>
<p>UMass gets more applications than Williams, too.</p>
<p>There are many factors that drive application numbers, but one of the key factors is the point at which potential applicants conclude (rightly or wrongly) that they have no prayer of admission. Lacking a more substantive analysis, this determination is often made by looking at the school's median SAT scores.</p>
<p>Ummmm, I was just responding to post #7. If he meant more applications per spot, then he's correct--but he didn't say that.</p>
<p>And yes, Middlebury and Wesleyan are larger schools, which also partly accounts for higher acceptance rates. Middlebury aims for a September class of 600, which means that they need to accept more students to fill the class. Yield rates at all these schools are relatively close.</p>
<p>I probably wasn't clear. When I say "of the East Coast schools" in post #7, I was refering to the East Coast schools in the previous list of five LACs with the lowest acceptance rates this year -- Pomona, Claremont McKenna, Swarthmore, Williams, and Amherst.</p>