***Official Questbridge Finalist Thread 2011-2012***

Paying for College Access Programs (Questbridge, Posse)
21

<p>Finalist : </p>

<p>College Match Rankings or Regular Decision: Both.</p>

<p>Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): 630 Math, 720 CR, 710 Writing
ACT: N/A
SAT II: 700 USH, 680 Lit – I didn’t submit these w/my app, since I got my scores two days ago.
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.97
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): top 10%
AP (place score in parenthesis): Psych (5), Am. Lit (5)
IB (place score in parenthesis):
Senior Year Course Load: AP Physics, AP Stats, AP Euro, college class literature
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): NHRP, NHS, Scholar Athlete
Subjective: I’m more of a rationalist.
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Board member of Latin American Center of NW GA, campaign co-coordinator of a local political campaign, 3-year Varsity soccer letter (All-Area my last season), club soccer (captain)
Job/Work Experience: Work at a restaurant and referee soccer games
Volunteer/Community service: LAC is volunteer/community service
Summer Activities: Work and soccer dominate my life during the summer.
Essays: Pretty good, I’d say. Writing is my strength.
Teacher Recommendation: I’m pretty sure both were awesome. Got my psychology and literature teacher to do them, both who love me and are very eloquent.
Counselor Rec: Eh probably average. She doesn’t know me too well.
Additional Rec: None
Interview: None
Other
State (if domestic applicant): Georgia
Country (if international applicant): N/A
School Type: public high school
Ethnicity: Hispanic…Colombia
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: Less than $20,000
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): URM
Reflection
Strengths: Essays, recs, leadership positions
Weaknesses: I guess my scores.
Universities Ranked, or Universities you plan to apply to: I’m gonna match Stanford and USC, respectively. Applying to Emory, Rice, Columbia, Brown, Northwestern, and Penn.
General Comments: My application was pretty balanced. My strengths aren’t incredible, but my weaknesses aren’t glaring.</p>

<p>Hopefully this of help to those applying next year! I sure as hell know I was trying to compare myself to previous candidates to find some peace of mind.</p>

22

<p>Finalist : </p>

<p>College Match Rankings or Regular Decision: Both.</p>

<p>Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): 760 Math, 780 CR, 700 Writing
ACT: N/A
SAT II: N/A
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 4.00
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): top 1%
AP (place score in parenthesis): Chem, bio, calc bc, English comp (5, 5, 5, 5)
IB (place score in parenthesis):
Senior Year Course Load: AP Physics, AP Stats, AP econ, elec. english, music
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): usabo
Subjective: Non-native speaker</p>

<p>Essays: Average. Writing is my weakness…tried my best to highlight my strengths
Teacher Recommendation: I think they’re good.
Counselor Rec: Eh probably average. She doesn’t know me too well.
Additional Rec: None
Interview: None
Other
State (if domestic applicant): CA
Country (if international applicant): N/A
School Type: public high school
Ethnicity: Vietnamese
Gender: F
Income Bracket: Less than $30,000
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): 1st gen
Reflection
Strengths: Scores, GPA, adversity
Weaknesses: Essays, senior year workload
Universities Ranked, or Universities you plan to apply to: Apply to match at stanford, yale, princeton, and MIT. Applying to Brown</p>

23

<p>Finalist! :D</p>

<p>College Match Rankings:
Stanford, Yale, Princeton, MIT</p>

<p>Objective
SAT I (breakdown): 720 CR, 800 M, 800 W (12 E) - 2320
ACT: 35 E, 36 M, 30 R, 32 S, 10 E - 33 Composite (not sending directly to colleges)
SAT II: 790 Math 2, 760 U.S. History, 800 Physics
GPA: 96.9 (unweighted), 99.4 (weighted)
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 10/499 (unweighted), 12/499 (weighted)
AP (place score in parenthesis): European History (4), U.S. History (5), Physics B (5)
Senior Year Course Load: AP Physics C, AP Calculus BC, AP Chemistry, AP Psychology, AP Computer Science A (self-study), Community-College level Contemporary Literature/Economics/Government
Awards: AP Scholar, National Merit Commended Scholar, National Honor Society Certificate of Merit, Perfect Latin and Geometry Regents scores Certificates of Merit, Silver Key and Certificate of Merit for Visual Arts</p>

<p>Subjective
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis):
Acceptance Coalition - 9, 10 (Webmaster)
Students Against Destructive Decisions - 9, 10 (Vice President, Secretary, Webmaster)
Key Club - 10
Math League - 11, 12
Newspaper Group - 11, 12 (Vice President, Assistant Webmaster, Writer, Editor)
Peer/Group Tutoring - 11, 12
Student Council - 9, 10, 12
National Honor Society/Junior National Honor Society - 9, 10, 11, 12</p>

<p>Volunteer/Community service:
Maintained a volunteer service for Myspace/website layouts and website design help from 6th-10th grade. Had about 10,000 subscribers to my site at its peak. Learned HTML/CSS this way (main college essay for Common App)
Babysit my niece weekly for about 3 hours each week
~60 hours of various activities (waiter for school dinners, Relay for Lifetwice, electric recycling drives, helped decorate a retirement home, online book proofreading, etc.)</p>

<p>Essays: A lot of people thought they were great. My Bio was about becoming self-made and dedicated to helping others, another was about becoming passionate about Physics, another was how I struggled with sexuality and overcame it
Teacher Recommendation: AP Physics B and AP U.S. History teachers - probably great. They had more insight into my character than a lot of other teachers.
Counselor Rec: Probably good, I knew her a little bit and she liked me</p>

<p>Other
State (if domestic applicant): NY
School Type: Non-competitive public school: Last year, 3 went to Cornell, 1 went to Duke for sports, but most go to community college or SUNY schools
Ethnicity: White
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: ~15000 for Custodial Parent
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): First Generation</p>

<p>Reflection
Strengths: Scores/GPA/Rank, essays, website designing
Weaknesses: Not many APs until senior year (though our school doesn’t offer that much), not many awards and no really good ones</p>

<p>General Comments: I’d love to get into Stanford or Yale. I’m not crazy about Princeton or MIT but a full ride would be very tempting.
Good luck to everyone! :D</p>

24

<p>FINALIST!
ACT: 25 ; GPA 4.46; class rank-9/380
8 AP courses, policy debate, math team, cross country
Also semi finalist with Posse…do you think I should drop out of posse and apply regular decision with QB? where do I have a better shot I am low income minority.
Do you think I have a shot at Northwestern or Brown?</p>

25

<p>Finalist. Pretty excited!</p>

<p>Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): 700 CR, 760 Writing, 740 Math
ACT: 34
SAT II: 770 Math II, 680 Bio M
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 4.0 Freshman year, then went to top high-school and have 3.3 now… -<em>-
Senior Year Course Load: Heavy, like every other year. Maxed out schedule. Big reason why my GPA took a hit junior year -</em>-.
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): National Merit Semifinalist, other QB Scholarship
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Chess (Captain, very high ranking in state, team has won top ten every year), Speech (some varsity finishes)
Job/Work Experience: Work at restaurant
Volunteer/Community service: Habitat for Humanity (Board Member), smaller community service stuff.
Summer Activities: Muscular Dystrophy Association Summer Camp Counselor
Essays: Decent. Wrote them pretty late though…
Teacher Recommendation: Waived rights, but apparently very good.
Counselor Rec: Again, waived rights but great!
Additional Rec:<br>
Other
State (if domestic applicant): IL
Country (if international applicant):
School Type: Public Boarding
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender:M
Income Bracket: ~30,000
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): First-gen
Reflection
Strengths: Test scores. Essays??
Weaknesses: GPA ← that things killing me.
General Comments:
Wished I started it earlier. Things pop up during the school year like popcorn in the microwave. Glad I made finalist though!!!</p>

26

<p>Quick question for finalist: When Nov. 1 comes and you send all your requirements to the colleges, does QB automatically send your QB application to the colleges or do you have to send it yourself somehow. Also, how do you know if colleges have received Sat scores, financial aid docs, supplements, ect…</p>

27

<p>@lalule
They automatically send it to them. That’s why most of them don’t require yet another application.</p>

28

<p>Wait, does Questbridge help at all for Universities like Stanford and Yale? We still have to do the Commonapp and be consider as regular decision anyway, so beside for waiving the application fee, what did Questbridge actually do?</p>

29

<p>^ If you get matched through Questbridge, you get a full ride there. If you apply through Questbridge (not regular decision forwarding), you get a notification on December 1st on if you got into one of the colleges you ranked. Being a Questbridge finalist also boosts your chances at getting into a college and at getting generous financial aid.</p>

30

<p>FINALIST :)</p>

<p>…is there a way to drop out of the college match round and just go on to regular decision (if i ranked colleges)? The reason I’m asking is that the partner colleges (except for brown, pomona, princeton, and yale… none of which i ranked) do not consider non-U.S. citizens and non-permanent residents for the match round. my family’s in the last stage of the permanent residency application process (it takes anywhere from 2 to 8 or more yrs), and when I emailed QB they said I probably wouldn’t be eligible (understandably). so i emailed them back earlier today asking if there was a way i could discontinue in the match round and just go on to regular decision… do any of yall know of similar circumstances or what I could do?</p>

31

<p>nevermind, QB replied to my email. ignore the above… i apologize. </p>

<p>Does anyone know how long to takes for the CSS profile to be sent?</p>

32

<p>Finalist!!</p>

<p>SAT I (breakdown): did not send in.
ACT: 27
SAT II: (620) Biology, (680) US History
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.7
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 25/519 (top 5%)
AP (place score in parenthesis): (5) US History, (5) Psychology, (4) English-Language& Composition
Senior Year Course Load: AP Biology, AP Calc BC, AP English-Literature, AP Spanish, Honors Physics
Volunteer/Community service: Lots of volunteeing! 200+
Ethnicity: African-American
Gender: F</p>

<p>General Comments: I’m so happy I got selected as a finalist, I really didn’t think I would get in. I definetly think my essays helped me a lot.</p>

33

<p>I have a question. Let’s say I rank Stanford, a non binding school, as number 1, and Columbia as number 2, and I get accepted to both, does that mean I get to choose between Columbia and Stanford?</p>

34

<p>No, you’d only know about the highest one ranked that you get matched to binding or not binding. So you’d only be able to choose Stanford in this case. not binding only means that you don’t have to go to Stanford if you want to go to another school</p>

35

<p>is the official transcript included in the Commonapp or do we have to send a separate one too?</p>

36

<p>Some schools (e.g. Stanford, University of Chicago, etc.) explicitly state that they accept the Common App transcripts. Most of the others, especially the ones that don’t require you to send the Common App (e.g. Pomona, Brown, etc.), ask you to mail them in.</p>

<p>Basically, if they ask for it via mail, send it via mail.</p>

<p>EDIT: Also,</p>

<p>Finalist!
College Match Rankings</p>

<p>Overview:</p>

<p>My only redeeming attributes were my SAT and AP scores, and maybe my GPA. They were all pretty okay (2300+, 5’s, 3.6+ uw), while everything else was so-and-so. I have zero leadership positions, almost zero community service, and zero sports. Most of my activities are church-based or on-and-off club activities. I have a tutoring job that I’ve held since early September. (i.e. I have no solid extracurriculars.)</p>

<p>All of my essays were written the night before the deadline, and after reviewing them, I found one or two grammar mistakes and the conclusions were shoddy at best. My income bracket is $40k-$50k, my entire senior schedule is AP classes and one normal class, and I’m an Asian-American female currently attending a public high school in Southern California. I had no hooks; both my parents attended four-year universities in South Korea, I have no major awards, etc. I’m applying to all my schools with an undecided major.</p>

<p>To be honest, I have no idea how I was accepted as a finalist.</p>

37

<p>Hi all, Finalist here.
I’ve been lurking the forums for a while now, and something just occurred to me…</p>

<p>I’ve ranked Princeton for the Match, and the Princeton University FAQ page on QuestBridge website says:
“(you may use your QuestBridge essays as your Common Application essays by copying and pasting the essays into the Common Application).”</p>

<p>Does Princeton also suggest reusing a QB essay for the required essay on its Common App Supplement? (I know Yale does…)</p>

<p>I couldn’t find a definitive answer, so I thought someone on here might be able to help me out.
Anyways, good luck to all of you!</p>

38

<p>I think you can reuse your QB essay for princeton supplement. Just twist it a bit to fit the prompt.</p>

39

<p>Yes, I just got an email response from QuestBridge saying:
“all the schools encourage you to reuse the essays that you have already written (aside from any corrections or edits you would like to make), so that you do not have to go through drafting entirely new essays for their applications. You are more than welcome to submit the same essays for the Supplement.”</p>

40

<p>@itsonmars
Probably cause of your scores. Believe it or not, some schools look at those very closely, and maybe, if you apply to the right school, they’ll accept you right off the bat. Those would be in-state schools, of course.
You still have to do a little more to get in the top.</p>