QuestBridge Scholar here to answer questions about QB!

@alexamanning Hey! So basically, QuestBridge provides a four year full ride scholarship to low income students. In order to get the scholarship you must first apply using their application. If you are chosen as a finalist (about 5,000 students are chosen out of 15,000 applicants). The application process requires you to pick up to 12 schools from their partner list. After you are chosen as a Quest Bridge finalist, you can then apply for the National College Match. You will need to send additional documents to the schools you would like to apply to. Around Dec 1 you will find out if you have been “matched” with a partner college that you chosen. You will receive a full ride. Only about 700 students get matched out of the 5,000 finalists. Basically the ranking works in order. Say you choose to apply to 5 schools for the NCM (national college match). Say you rank it by Pomona, Yale, Colorado College, Williams, and Duke. Let’s say Pomona doesn’t decide to match you, but Yale does. But because Yale is non binding, you aren’t required to attend the school. So if Colorado College also decides to match you, you have a choice between Yale and Colorado College. But if the school is binding (most partner schools require you to attend) you have to go to the school. Thats why it’s important you rank the colleges on your preference. If you are not matched at all, you can still apply RD through QB RD and also apply to schools that are not partner colleges of QB. Keep in mind that for the National College match you can only apply through QB and your public state schools. If you’re not matched, you can apply to other schools. I hope this helps, let me know if you have more questions!

Thank you so much @atl989 ! I’m not sure I’ll apply since the due date is so soon, but I definitely will take a day or two to consider. You actually answered every question I had about the program!

Hi, I was wondering if I could still apply to the QuestBridge National College Match if I come from a household earning an income slightly above $65,000 (around $70,000 or so for a family of four) & without facing any extreme financial hardship. Thanks so much for helping!

@sublemon Hey, this is a very tricky question. I have a friend who had a very similar household income and situation, and she did not make QB finalist. I also know others who did not make it past finalist round because of their household income. I strongly recommend contacting QuestBridge about this because I don’t want to discourage you from applying, however, I do not want to give you any false information.

@atl989 My daughter is a QB prep scholar and is now applying for NCM. Do the supplemental questions that the schools have (on Common App) have to be totally different answers than the short answers/short essays on the QB app? Some of the supplementals are virtually identical, specifically the ones that ask about intended major. Would you recommend trying to make them very different or if it is a good essay from QB just reusing it?

@reservationsfor3 I apologize for the late response, and no, they do not have to be completely different answers. I personally have used the same essay for QB and common app. I recommend (if possible) reusing essays especially if the prompt is exactly the same. However, for supplements that ask specifically about the school, it is always a good idea to add certain aspects and parts about the school. For example, if one of the short answers ask about your daughters intended major or what she wants to study, it would be a good idea for your daughter to incorporate specifics about the school (their music/art/history department) and the resources they provide. Hope this helped.

Hi atl989,

I wanted to ask if you had advice for who should apply to Questbridge, and if it helps your chances of getting in versus doing regular ED. I come from a low income family and was planning on applying this year, but the deadline is in 2 weeks and didn’t know if I would finish in time. My point is that I don’t want to apply so rushed and go around bothering my teachers for recs, if it doesn’t make that much of a difference. I would really like to be a QB scholar and not have to be in debt for college, but my gc told me that QB requirement are very high and a bit weird, as in you’d have to be extremely poor. My income bracket is around 15k. If I can get a full scholarship from a wealthy, need blind school like Penn with good aid, then I don’t want to rush my application to QB if it comes out badly or if I end up being compared to a more competitive applicant pool, which would be counter intuitive. Thank you!

Hi atl989, I just submitted my QB application. But I only intend to utilize QB Regular Decision because the QB app is better than common app and I only want to become a Finalist. If I become a Finalist and don’t participate in the Match can I apply to other schools? Since you said about becoming a Finalist means you can’t apply to other schools except for public state schools. I’m really confused and slightly scared about not being able to apply to other schools during QB.

For QB RD I want to apply to a QB school, Rice.

I’ve applied for the questbridge college recently and I’m really anxious about the results I want to know my chances.
SAT :1410 760 math 650 Reading/writing
Gpa: 3.6/4.0 weighted gpa: 4.8/5.0
Rank top 8%
Financial situation: 46K
Extracurriculars/organizations:
Academic decathalon 2 years
(Earned math medals) rigorous academic organization spent countless hours
Band (won state championship) in one of the nation’s best band programs consisted of 11 hour daily summer practices and 2 hour after school practices
Club basketball
Milal(community service for mentally disabled kids done for 3 years nearly every week) take the most pride in this
Library(help with book sales)
Church youth group( in charge of media)
NHS( Alot of chapter service and serve at school events)
Honors: A honor (not much) Ap scholar with honors , Texas Uil marching band champs
Essay 1: 9.5/10 probably my best essay spent 2 months thinking and got alot of people revising , it was about how I was always a minority and ostracized everywhere I went but then rather than venting anger and feeling sad I decided to be open and integrating towards many people who are different such as other minorities and disabled individuals. In addition I showed how my father’s hard work during the time of low income and poverty shaped me to strive toward academic successes.
Essay 2 ( write about a concept,theory , or idea that was intellectually intriguing . Why? How would you further explore it?)
I talked about the psychological theory of resilience and how my struggles of adjusting from our constant moving affected me and how I developed resilience after having to deal with bullies and anxiety.
Teacher recs
Fairly good because they were my acdec teachers and I’m pretty sure they’ll pull through
Consuler recs: kind of rushed didn’t talk to her that much
AP TEST: HUMAN geography (5) stats(3) calculus bc(4) macroeconomics (3) world history (3) English Lang and comp (3) us history (3)
Hooks: always the poorest person in school , struggled with anxiety and depression , parents didn’t go to college in america
Please let me know my chances for being a finalist

I was reading this thread for advice and I’m 99.9% sure atl989 went to the same high school as me!! Lol because I know the three people who went to Columbia, Notre Dame, and Harvard!

I want to clarify something @atl989 posted in post #20. Questbridge does not provide the full ride, it is each partner school that does. Questbridge is basically the go between for low income, high achieving students to be noticed by elite schools.

@Edvardo, if you don’t participate in the NCM, you can apply to any other schools you want, including ED 1 and or ED 2.

@bxs2018, Questbridge applicants are not compared to the “normal” ED applicant pool. Your application will be in a different pile and reviewed separately. With your family income, you will be eligible for being a recipient at all of the partner schools in the Match.

Questbridge said it was possible to reuse the Questbridge essays for the Common App. Won’t it be pretty redundant if the ranked schools already receive your Questbridge App (and essays) upon Finalist notification?

Hi, I want to know how will colleges view the late official scores. I ordered the score three days after the notification, but it’s still not enough time for CB to send score.

“Questbridge applicants are not compared to the “normal” ED applicant pool. Your application will be in a different pile and reviewed separately.” @CottonTales can you please elaborate further on this? I’m wondering how QB applicants are considered during the admission process. If not compared to the ED applicant pool, are they compared with other QB applicants?

@macktheknife , I can’t link from the device I am on, but do a search for an old thread "Is Questbridge helpful at all " In addition to what I wrote on that thread, my daughter worked in admissions at her UG and verified what I referenced on that thread from Dean Tom Parker , formerly the Dean of Admissions at Amherst College.

@CottonTales Is QuestBridge Regular Decision binding in any way? I get the sense that it isn’t, but nowhere on QB’s website or anywhere I’ve looked has explicitly said “RD is non-binding.”

^No, it is just like any other RD, non binding.