<p>Hi I'm a incoming senior, and have recently found out about the Questbridge scholarship program from a letter I received. After researching their website and this forum, I feel like I would not be eligible due to my family's income being $70,000. However, we are a family of 6, with my older brother currently enrolled in college.</p>
<p>Need some advice... would it be a waste of time to apply? I feel like the match is highly unlikely, but reg decision fee waivers would be awesome since I'm interested in applying to 7 of the QB partner colleges.</p>
<p>My stats:
SAT I: 2200
AP: US History, Chem, Bio, Stats, Lang, Gov (5). Calc BC (4)
GPA: 3.9 (unweighted)
Ethnicity: Asian
Location: Ohio</p>
<p>You should absolutely apply to Questbridge IMO. The 60K average is for a family of four. Family size and siblings in college are considered, as well as any extenuating circumstances - medical bills, sending money to family overseas, lack of standard assets, etc etc. I will say that it is not likely (although not impossible either) that you will be matched with a QB school with that high income, but match numbers are very low - single digits - so most Questies aren’t matched anyway. The value of those automatic fee waivers, plus getting to put the NCM finalist award on your Common App as a National award makes it really worthwhile. There are also many resources and a great facebook group for Questbridge applicants with mentoring, support, essay editing etc. Also the early Questbridge deadline will compel you to get those essays done early. The Common App will be a piece of cake after that. Go for it!</p>
<p>@nynightowl, sending money overseas to family members will not be considered.</p>
<p>Are there 4 kids/dependents? Do you feel you are from a hardship background?</p>
<p>Thanks for all the replies, was feeling really unsure about applying. I think I will give it a shot since the fee waivers would definitely help out. </p>
<p>@BrownParent Yes, there are 4 kids including myself. While I do feel like there are others who are probably in tougher financial situations than I am in, I do believe we have it tough as well. Both my parents are working full time, and while we can afford basic necessities, we definitely cannot afford college tuition. Since I have siblings in their junior yr and sophomore yr, going through college apps right after me, I would like to help my parents out by saving as much money as possible now.</p>
<p>Just fyi, if I thought my kid had a chance, even low but not impossible, I would have her do it. There aren’t too many opportunities to get free money in life. As in application fees and possibly tuition. A better chance at full tuition colleges. When she was applying, I’d just barely heard of it and thought maybe it was URM only. Also she had a scholarship to a prep school and they already have college advisors and teachers who work closely to support and encourage and have opportunities presented to build skills and make them an attractive candidate if they take advantage of what is there.</p>
<p>I don’t see the downside to doing the application. I coach kids with essays and there is never enough time, so the early start with having to produce results and put something together is likely going to be very helpful. Sure it might be effort that doesn’t pan out. But take advantage when something presents itself and sometimes it does pan out. Just be realistic about it. And you can decide later to match or not when you see if you get finalist. Also read the college pages on the QB site. Some colleges don’t also need the Common Application, they will just take your QB, Dan in admission from Tufts said that here.</p>
<p>Be sure to ask your GC about getting vouchers for applications. You can also ask the colleges directly. If you decide not to do QB.</p>
<p>Thank you for the wealth of information! I have decided on applying but will most likely not rank colleges because I’m afraid of the whole “binding” aspect of the college match, especially because I haven’t visited any of the
colleges.</p>
<p>OP, I was looking for a different thread but noticed this comment and wanted to tell you (you may know by now) that there are 4 non-binding QB schools: Stanford, Yale, Princeton, MIT. So you can rank these if you choose while you continue to research other colleges. Also, some colleges have diversity ‘fly-in’ programs for low income and ALANA kids - they pay for you to come visit campus. So check out the colleges you’re interested in for these programs - many deadlines have passed but not all!</p>
<p>Just an update–</p>
<p>I have just found out that I have received QB finalist status. Thank you for encouraging me to try Questbridge, despite my doubts. </p>
<p>if anyone is wondering— I ranked 1) Stanford 2) Northwestern 3) Penn</p>
<p>Will be applying to many others through regular decision if I’m not matched. </p>