Hi! I’ll be a senior when school starts in August, and I am planning on applying to Questbridge when the application opens. I have some questions that I hope someone would be able to answer!
- If we are not matched or do not rank colleges and continue as finalists to the RD round, are we allowed to apply to other non-Questbridge colleges as well?
- Are we allowed to reuse our application and teacher recommendations from Questbridge on the Common App if we are not chosen as finalists?
- The Questbridge guidelines for applicants say that we are required to be in the top 5-10% in our school, but can we still apply if we are not? (asking for a friend)
- Are essay questions on Questbridge the same as those on the Common App?
I know the answers to some of these questions seem obvious, but I want to make sure I 100% understand the process before applying. Also, if anyone who participated in the past could provide any stats and if they were accepted as finalists or not or matched or not, it would be very useful! I’ve already read about 10 pages of discussions on Questbridge and I’m so anxious to apply!
- Yes! And I would encourage you to do so. One of the major flaws of QB is that they don't really encourage you to apply to schools outside of partners and a lot of kids (including myself this year) put all of their eggs in the QuestBridge basket, get rejected from all partners to which they apply, and don't have affordable back ups. Make sure you don't fall into this trap.
- Most of the time, yes. Schools will specify this on their instructional QB page.
- You can but I wouldn't expect to make the finalist round. My girlfriend who is nationally recognized for debate, tech theater, and had a 32 ACT was rejected as a finalist bc she wasn't in her school's top ten percent.
- No, but some schools allow you to resuse your QB essay on their supplement. Again it will be detailed on the QB site
Again I cannot stress enough how important it is to have many affordabe backups. My family put all of our eggs in the QuestBridge basket and now I am facing a gap year because I was rejected and waitlisted at all partners to which I applied and my safety schools are not offering me enough aid. I am not the only one facing this problem either. I have talked to many finalists who are in the same boat. At the end of the day these are very selective schools and you will have a lot of competition. QuestBridge has done a lot of good for a lot of people but they will try to tell you that if you apply to a substantial number of schools you will get into one. This is not true for everyone so good luck and be smart about your college apps! I can give you stats if you want and the schools to which I applied so yo can get an idea of where you fall into the accepted rejected spectrum.