Hey guys. If you are a college prep scholar, the application is now out! I’m not sure when it will be available for everyone else though. Please, let us discuss about the process and ask each other questions. I’ll start with one: should I ask my teachers for recommendations now or wait till the new school year starts in late August? Thanks in advance!
Hi @UnicornDuchess. I’m very excited about this and will be starting the application soon. I’d recommend asking your teachers for recommendations now; that way they’ll have more time to prepare them. Congrats on becoming a College Prep Scholar too, and I hope we’re all able to get matched to our top school.
I’m using the same biographical essay as the cps app, do you think that is ok?
I think there’s no problem @wbgsl1. However, maybe you should better contact QB itself about this.
Just got started on my application! Curious as to why there’s no mention of the colleges that I want to rank or any of those supplemental essays mentioned? Anyone know how that works?
@DominicBayer Thank you. I will try asking on Monday. Still have 2 weeks of school left 
@ethiopienne I was wondering about that too. But from reading the first few pages of the previous year’s thread, it seems like the option to rank appears only after you are selected as finalist.
Have any of you guys seen this? (Taken from the QuestBridge website):
“Exceptions to the QuestBridge Early Application Policy:
~Students may apply to any college or university that requires an early application for eligibility to special scholarships or programs, as long as the admissions decision is non-binding.
~Students may apply to their home-state public college or university with a non-binding early application option, as long as applying to QuestBridge does not violate that college’s policies.
~Students may apply to any college or university with a non-binding rolling admission process.”
This is such good news, because almost all the other schools I was planning to apply to outside of QuestBridge fall in the first & second category. I was scared I would have to apply to all of them regular decision and miss out on their scholarship opportunities, but according to this I can apply to them concurrently! This is such good news because I was really worried about what would happen if I didn’t get matched to any of the schools.
Are any of you guys gonna take advantage of this “exception” to the early action policy?
@UnicornDuchess. Good luck with finishing the school year. I’m glad that the QB’s policies will help you. Out of QB partner schools I’m only planning on applying RD to one school (Harvard, LOL). However, I am also considering applying to one school with Rolling admissions (Christendom College), so this might turn out to be beneficial for me too.
@ethiopienne I think you rank preferences later, after you are accepted. The supplements for colleges will be released by the colleges later, similar to the Common Application supplements some colleges have. See this flow chart for an idea of the stages of your application:
How are the essays going guys? Already hitting a roadblock 
I also have the same question about essays. Some of the prompts are very similar (if not identical) to the CPS application prompts just with higher word counts. Are you guys then keeping your CPS essays and fleshing them out more? Also, does QB’s policy bar you from applying, say, SCEA to Harvard even if you do become a finalist and do NOT rank any colleges?
Just read through http://www.questbridge.org/ncm-flowchart and learned that I can do EA/ED if I do not rank. What are your thoughts on that? Would you rank, or not rank and go EA/ED?
@garethbale I think I am just going to elaborate on my CPS essays & try to make them flow better. I was trying to write a different personal statement, but I realized that my CPS essay already had things that are central to my identity. And as far as your second question, I prefer to rank. I just feel like the finalist status will have more value when applying through QuestBridge, but that’s just a guess. However, if the school you want to attend most is not partnered with QuestBridge, then you should definitely do it EA/ED. But remember, there are exceptions to the early action policy as I mentioned in post #6.
I agree with the above post, just my opinion (:
Also, are you guys using the same personal statement for QB and Common App or are they supposed to be different? I was gonna use my 800 word personal statement for QB and make a 650 version for common app or is that frowned upon?
^ I’m curious about that too. I would prefer using the same for both, simply because I have no idea what else to write about. But I do fear that the redundancy will not help my case.
Now that I think about it though, the colleges specifically ask for what supplements they want so they SHOULDN’T use it against us if they didn’t specifically ask for a different CA essay?
And then any other schools that we may apply to through CA but not QB partners won’t actually see our QB essay so they can’t use the redundancy against us?
Haha true true. I think that would be a good question to ask QuestBridge.
I’ve defnitely been stuck with that too. My CPS personal statement is good, and I’ve drawn it out a little more for the College Match but still, I feel like it sounds too much like everyone elses. I mean we’ve all had problems in our life, I was thinking about maybe trying to make it more specific, but the prompt asks for hardships that have most shaped our life and It’s really got me stumped as to what to do. I’ve written other essays that are pretty good and I’m thinking about using those for the comon app portion to give colleges another look at other parts of my life. ANybody else thinking of doing that?
I’ve hit roadblocks with my essays too! Everytime I write my personal statement or an essay response, I feel like its way too cliche and then I want to start over, but I can’t find the perfect thing to write about! Does anyone else have trouble trying to find the thing that makes them standout the most?
Just try not to focus on ‘perfect’. First you have to write and let ideas and connections flow. Then you edit it into something like a draft. After that you worry about making it perfect. And yes, be specific to you.