repzolow

QuestBridge Home Page

The National College Match connects high-achieving low-income students with admission and full four-year scholarships to 20 partner colleges. In 2007, more than 700 students received admission and significant scholarship grants from partner colleges through the National College Match program.

QuestBridge is pleased to welcome California Institute of Technology, Haverford College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania, and Wesleyan University as new partners in 2008.

P A R T N E R C O L L E G E S
Amherst College
Bowdoin College
California Institute of Tech
Chicago, University of
Claremont McKenna College
Columbia University
Emory University
Haverford College
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Notre Dame, University of
Oberlin College
Pennsylvania, University of
Pomona College
Princeton University
Rice University
Scripps College
Stanford University
Swarthmore College
Trinity College
Vassar College
Wellesley College
Wesleyan University
Williams College
Yale University

QuestBridge National College Match Program

I was matched in the 2007 cycle with Princeton. If it weren't for the extra essays that Questbridge allows you to write and colleges to view, I don't believe my application would have been as powerful. Some may disagree with me, but the benefits are unmistakingly well-intentioned: write more about yourself for colleges to see, free college application fee waivers, earlier decision (if you're not matched, you get another try in the RD round).

I suggest writing your essays in the last weeks of the summer (who knows how much you can change in one summer?).

Questions/concerns/information, post it here.

laststopforme

I would do this in a second but my heart is taken by a school that is not one of Questbridge's partnerschools ... and Questbridge, correct me if I am wrong, is binding if you are accepted

EDIT: I checked the website, and it seems like it is binding (if accepted)

repzolow

laststopforme,

For the 2007 National College Match (last year's), only Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and Notre Dame were NOT binding. The other partner colleges were. I don't know the reason for this though.

I do not know if it's still the same, or if some of these new partner colleges such as MIT are also non-binding.

repzolow

The logistics involved in planning their conferences at various colleges throughout the United States (and paying part of a lot of students' travel), paying their part-time and FULL-time employees a decent salary, and as you can possibly acknowledge, all the difficult processes involved in everything, do cost money. And a lot of it.

$50k for a permanent spot and the PR are well worth it imo.

metaldragon2400

***, MIT is on it now? I was a finalist last year for Questbridge but I dropped my application because I wanted to apply to MIT EA rather than get a binding decisions to Columbia or Chicago.

4th house

Repzolow:

Would you be comfortable posting your stats here (not your financial ones; just the same ones everyone else posts)? I'd like to have an idea of what it took to get into Princeton via Questbridge. Being sincere here; this is not a "gotcha!"

azsxdc

I am not surprised other top schools decided to join... like Penn, CIT and MIT, etc

jay123

Hey does anyone know when the application for this year will be up on Questbridge?

azsxdc

Maybe August?

kyledavid80

Why? There are other programs like it, like the Posse Program and Upward Bound. I guarantee you: QuestBridge is a 100% sincere organization, and the Match program is 100% legitimate.

Uh, they do; they don't have to apply through QuestBridge. The organization just flags them as high-achieving, low-income students.

Think of it like this: many schools have ED programs. That means you can apply only to their university. It doesn't logically make sense to apply to multiple schools ED; however, ranking the colleges adds a new dimension to the process. And that's what QuestBridge has done: it has taken ED programs and combined them. There are many advantages: you get to apply early and get the whole college application process over with, you get to apply to multiple schools early, and best of all, you get a guaranteed, four-year scholarship.

In addition, half of the partners are top-20 universities, including Princeton, Yale, MIT, Penn, Stanford, Chicago, Columbia, and more. And the majority of the LACs are elite ones: Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Pomona, Wellesley, etc.

You can only have a certain number of colleges, and not many of them, since the requirements are many: the college must have the financial resources to give full scholarships; the college must desire to diversify the socioeconomic makeup of its student body; the college must pay money to support the organization and the program; the college must be willing to evaluate applicants early; and so on.

Exactly. It costs QuestBridge $1.6 million per year to run these programs.

In the past, they've given students laptops, free SAT prep courses, free college counseling, free college conferences with helpful workshops and college fairs, and more.

Believe me, that's not why. It's ED because that's the essential idea of it. ED has long made admissions very unfair for low-income students--and this program is essentially ED just for low-income students.

Not to mention the most popularly ranked schools aren't even binding! If your claim were true, QuestBridge wouldn't allow Stanford, Princeton, Yale, etc. to be partners, because it's non-binding for them.

Plus, QuestBridge "delivers" diversity by a) actively recruiting only low-income students, and b) connecting these students and the colleges.

What? Are you suggesting the QuestBridge itself give the scholarships? That would be exorbitantly expensive, and impossible, for the organization; they already struggle to meet the $1.6 million budget, but giving the scholarships would require another $40 million.

It's either that, or QuestBridge become a partner with every college in the US.

Are either of these practical? Nope.

It should be up mid-August (last year, it was August 15th).

kyledavid80

By the way, great post, repzolow--I'm glad you're raising awareness of the program.

I was not matched in the program, but I did get into some great schools in the regular decision round. If anyone has questions, feel free to PM me; I'd be happy to answer them as best I can.

kyledavid80

This thread should be put in the Financial Aid & Scholarships forum. It can serve as a replacement for last year's.

tokenadult

Cool that Caltech and MIT are on board now. Individual colleges decide whether College Match through QuestBridge is binding or not--I was glad that some colleges made the match nonbinding last year. Noting kyledavid's thoughts about forum placement, I think I will leave this thread here because there is some thought that QuestBridge may provide an admission boost to participating applicants. Thanks to the OP for opening the thread.

kyledavid80

^^ the only reason I say that is a) last year's--identical to this year's--is in the financial aid forum (logically), and b) this thread was buried three pages back in one night; thus it'd be more helpful to students in a slower-moving forum like financial aid.

jay123

I see that Kyledavid80 mentioned the Posse Program. I was nominated for it at my school, and my counselor said I'll be receiving more info next school year. Do any of you know anything about it?