<p>One of my top college choices is Carleton, which is a Questbridge partner. I know the Questbridge scholarship is my only chance of affording it, but I don't know if I'd be able to get it. I live in a single parent household with just my mom, my sister, and me. My mom makes between $52,000 and $60,000 a year, depending on how much overtime she works. I know that's right on the border of being eligible for a lot of financial aid, but Questbridge doesn't have a set cutoff. On paper, it seems like a good income for three people, and most financial aid programs would expect us to contribute at least a few thousand dollars per semester. However, we just can't do that. We can pay our bills and buy food and stuff, but we're just getting by; there's not thousands of dollars every year to spend on college. I'm not sure yet if Carleton is my absolute number one choice, but even if it is, would it even be worth applying for a highly selective scholarship that I might not even get? It's so much work to apply, and it would prevent me from applying anywhere else early admission, so I'm really wondering whether I should just apply for regular need-based aid from Carleton instead and see where that gets me.</p>
<p>sammster, yes it is a lot of work, but applying to QuestBridge would be incredibly beneficial for you. If you apply for the College Match Scholarship but you don’t get it, you can still apply to Carleton regular decision via QuestBridge, and you’d be at an advantage because of the fact that you are a College Match Finalist (they know that you come from a poor backround, which means better chances at financial aid). Now granted, if you don’t become a finalist, then you’re out of luck, but you have about a 50% chance of becoming a finalist. I’d take those odds any day. Not to mention that applying to QuestBridge would put you one step ahead of everyone else in the admissions process if you choose to go somewhere outside of QuestBridge. Just be sure that Carleton or any partner college for that matter is one of your top choices, and be confident that you can get admitted, otherwise the College Match probably wouldn’t be the best route for you.</p>
<p>Hope that helps!</p>
<p>I’m just worried that I might later decide I’d rather go to a different school. The Questbridge deadline is at the end of September, which might not give me enough time to plan a campus visit. (I live in Arkansas, and I would have to schedule the visit around my extracurriculars and my mom’s work schedule.) If it wasn’t a binding decision, I don’t think I’d hesitate to apply. But I do have other schools I’d like to apply to, at least one of which I’d have a full ride to through merit scholarships. So I’m really struggling with the fact that applying for this scholarship could essentially make my decision for me.</p>