Financial Aid for Northwestern

greeninohio
Sun, 29 Mar 2015 03:35:45 +0000

There is a forum on this website dedicated to Questbridge. It is an non-profit that seeks to encourage low income students to apply to highly selective colleges. If you apply, you will be required to submit grades, test scores, letters of recommendation, etc. very much like completing a college application. In the summer before your senior year, you may be invited to a day-long seminar that educates you and one of your parents on the application process. The one we attended was actually at Northwestern. There were representatives from all of their partner colleges there and the students had a chance to meet with them. In the fall of your senior year, they accept applications for their college match program. If you are selected for the College Match, you can apply to as many as 8 partner colleges. You list them in order of preference. If a school selects you they will offer you a “full scholarship,” With the exception of MIT, Yale, and MIT, I believe all of the offers are binding. I have heard that you cannot be matched if your FAFSA EFC is not 0, but I don’t know if that’s true. Even if you are not matched - my son wasn’t - the schools will consider you for Regular Decision. Some will move you to Early Action or Early Decision if you wish. Many of the partner schools that you did not select for the Match will more or less beg you to apply. Very few QB applicants get matched, but many of them do get admitted through RD with very generous FA packages.

My son’s results: wait listed at Notre Dame, Chicago, 'Washington & Lee, and Stanford. Accepted at Northwestern and Amherst. Denied at MIT and Swarthmore. Still waiting on Yale and Princeton.