<p>Can someone please enlighten me on the point of Questbridge? My reasoning is that Questbridge offers to help you get a match with top colleges if you are in financial need. But these same top colleges have financial aid policies that claim if your household makes less than 60,000 a year, and have less then X amount of assets then you are not expected to contribute anything to college costs.
So what exactly is Questbridge helping you with if these top colleges have these financial aid policies already? I mean if you are in financial aid and apply to top colleges with or without questbridge shouldn't the result be the same? Are you only saving the application costs...which you can get waived anyways? Or by being a QB candidate you are gaining an edge over other non QB applicants?
Thank you!</p>
<p>I was wondering the same thing…</p>
<p>So I asked this same question at an MIT presentation and the answer I got was this.</p>
<p>All of those schools are need blind admissions. They don’t know your financial situation until AFTER you’ve been accepted or not. The point of QB is that it shows those who didn’t have the economic opportunities that other college applicants did in a different light. In one where your context is taken into account.</p>
<p>It helps those who didn’t have the opportunities of others but still show great potential.</p>
<p>^^^^^</p>
<p>Exactly! Many times an adcom can tell from your zip code or school profile your aproximate economic level, but QB puts it out there and allows you through extra essays and short answers to tell “your” story.</p>
<p>If my D had applied through regular channels, they would have seen that we live in one of the top 20 wealthiest counties in the United States, but not know that we were not even CLOSE to the average income.</p>
<p>No app fees for most of the partner colleges.</p>
<p>^True, but as the poster says</p>
<p>“Are you only saving the application costs…which you can get waived anyways?”</p>
<p>I think the point is exactly as therazor302 says…</p>
<p>Plus the app can show off your strengths more than the common app, or at least it does for me. Plus I wouldn’t be eligible for a fee waiver for most of my colleges bc my family of 4 lives off $50,000 and the income level to apply for fee waivers acc to College Board is I think around $40,000. With that $50,000, though, I fall within QuestBridge’s range.</p>