Should I apply for Questbridge?

Paying for College Access Programs (Questbridge, Posse)
1

Hi all, long-time lurker here that finally decided to make an account!

I’m facing a dilemma right now, and I’d appreciate it if the CC community could help out. I’m interested in applying REA for Stanford, which is my dream college. As music has been a major component of my ECs, I wanted to submit an arts supplement as well, meaning the application will be due by mid-October, before finalist results for Questbridge are released. As far as I understand, this means that I will not be able to submit an arts supplement should I decide to apply for QB, even if I may still apply REA if I’m not selected as a finalist. I felt that I met the academic and financial standards for QB, but I applied for the college prep scholarship earlier this year and was rejected, which discourages me from taking the initiative to apply for the National College Match, in addition to the fact that writing the essays for that application will be more things to add to my to-do list. However, I’m applying to quite a few selective colleges that are partnered with QB, and it’ll be a big boost to my application if I’m chosen as a finalist. What do you all think will be my best option- apply QB or no?

2

It would definitely be a big boost to your application if you are chosen as finalist. I think it would be a very big risk if you apply to just stanford with you art supplement. However, if you felt that the music supplement is more important than anything, then you should go for it. Me personally, I prefer finalist because that mean you make your name with college, and you can opt out of the national college match, forward to the regular decision and have more chance. See if your stats ensure that you would definitely get into stanford. If Stanford is just a reach school, I suggest QB to ensure that you have some backup.

3

It may be because I am tired but I am not following your timeline dilemma why you can’t do an arts supplement no matter with route you are applying to Stanford. For Stanford, I suggest QB hopefuls use college match and not SCEA. I also prefer RD to SCEA if it interferes with college match. Stanford just rejects too many in the SCEA round. I know highly qualified QB students stats wise that was rejected SCEA and lost the college match opportunity and I think it is not worth it.