Hi everyone, I am a HS senior in an American private school (international student) now preparing for Questbridge application. I’ve read many finalists information these days and am concerned about my family financial situation is not qualified, since it is kind of complicated and my family income seems higher than most of the people who got in. I have no idea if they take debt into consideration.
Here are some of my financial stats and I would really appreciate if someone can help me evaluate it.
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: Female
Income Bracket: less than 65K
Number in Household: 4
Siblings: 0
Home Sale Value: 0
Debt on Home: more than 900K (as far as I know dad was deceived by some friends), my parents sent me to the US because they were concerned about my safety back home. They sometimes got harassed by the creditors.
Parent’s Education: dad went to university out of US, mom graduated high school
Parent’s Relationship Status: Married
Many thanks : )
I can’t directly answer your questions but offer the following observations.
The general consensus is that most students who are matched thru QB have an EFC of 0, or close to it (QB does not release this data) As an international student you and your parents will have to fill out the CSS Profile when it is available around Oct 1 (ask your GC if you qualify for fee waivers). Profile does ask for current home market value and related outstanding debt, but how a given school uses that information is entirely up to them. Here is a page with some good CSS Profile resources, including a full pdf of the 2019-20 (last year’s) document: https://sfs.virginia.edu/profile
As an international student make sure to take a look at these tables based on your visa status…obviously don’t rank schools that won’t consider you for QB match. https://www.questbridge.org/high-school-students/national-college-match/additional-citizenship-requirements
Your school’s GC should be able to help you with some of these questions, if not, each school has a QB contact and lastly, there is a place on the QB website to submit questions. Good luck.
You fill out the forms and let QB make the determination.
Be aware that debt is not generally taken into consideration by PROFILE. Usually mortgages on a house does reduce its market value. But individual schools and programs can make their own policies.
@cptofthehouse If you look at a pdf of the 2019-20 CSS Profile questions, you will see on page 23 that it directly asks the amount of current debt on the home. Market value (the potential selling price) is a separate line item, and schools can take into account the debt, or not, when calculating a student’s financial need.