Do you have to reapply for financial aid every year if you get MATCHED through QuestBridge?
Or is it a full ride regardless if financial circumstances change?
Good question to ask at the QB website.
If a student is matched, it means they are admitted to that school with the full four-year Match Scholarship. This scholarship guarantees no parent contribution and no loans as part of the financial aid package, and covers the full cost of attendance. It is also guaranteed for four years by MOST partner schools, which means that even if the family’s situation changes, the scholarship package guarantees will not.
You have to reapply for financial aid every year. This means submitting tax returns, CSS profile (if applicable) and FAFSA and any othe financial forms the university may require. These schools are need-based schools. If your parents income goes up dramatically, that means less aid. If it goes down, it could mean more aid. However, as the average income of a QB NCM Finalist is around $35k, these students are already getting the maximum aid available. Don’t be confused by the word scholarship. It is actually need-based financial aid.
@momofmusician17 this quote comes directly from the QB site…
“If matched, you will receive a guaranteed full four-year scholarship. So you can be confident that you can afford to attend a great college!”
https://www.questbridge.org/high-school-students/national-college-match/rankings
I wanted to confirm what they meant by “guaranteed”, so I emailed them. Their response what what I posted. Guaranteed means they are covered for 4 years, even if income changes.
@romns116 - thanks for the clarification. I am sorry that I posted incorrect information about matched students. To clarify, this is only for matched students and not for everyone who is selected as a finalist. Finalist who are accepted during the regular decision process will have to submit FA information every year.
Also, as an applicant, I would want to know which schools are on the Most list so as to not have an unpleasant surprise down the road from a school that isn’t on the list
I was curious about @romns116 posts #2 and #4, so I went to the QB website to check. If you click on the FA tab for each school on the QB website, it will tell you if you have to reapply for FA each year. I just randomly clicked on some of the schools. It appears that you have to reapply every year for FA at Amherst, Brown, Stanford, Vassar, Welllesley and Yale. For these six that I randomly chose, post #3 is correct.
Just an FYI, a full scholarship doesn’t necessarily mean free at most schools. You may have a summer contribution, a work-study contribution, and taxes on the room and board portion of your scholarship. Each school has different contribution requirements. Except for his freshman year which had a lower summer contribution, these things amounted to around $8k per year in costs for my son at one of the more generous schools in the country.
Thanks for the further clarification @momofmusician17 - that helps understand the ‘most’ schools confusion (I only asked about USC).
Thank you so much for your responses, @romns116 and @momofmusician17 ! What is the point of applying to QuestBridge, then, if it is just financial aid that is variable based on circumstances? Wouldn’t one get the same amount of aid, then, through regular admission?
@logosoverpathosm. You are partly correct. For some schools, your aid will vary if your financial circumstances improve. However, this would have to be a fairly substantial improvement as the average income for a QB finalist Is in the $30,000 range. In the case of Yale, your income would have to go over $65k before there would be a a parental contribution.
There are a myriad of reasons for applying. I say that as the mom of a son who was not chosen as a finalist. First of all, if you are a finalist, you are identified as such. This lets AOs know that you come from a lower income family. Even if you aren’t a finalist, every school has access to every QB applicant’s information.
Some schools, such as Rice, offer incredible FA packages to their match students, i.e., NO work study and NO summer contribution. https://www.questbridge.org/college-partners/rice-university/financial_aid . They also pay for half of your health insurance premium and will allow you to use outside scholarships to pay the other half. You would not get that package during regular decision. My son, who applied to Shepherd School of Music at Rice, got a very generous FA package, but it was nowhere near what they offer their Match recipients.
Also, if you are a finalist, you can apply to multiple schools at the same time which you wouldn’t be able to do as a non-finalist.
Check the FA page for each QB school. I just looked at Yale’s and it seems that as long as your parent’s EFC is 0, your aid package would be the same either through QB or regular decision.
Hope that helps.