i recently found out about Questbridge, too late for us. (I am a low-income single parent.) Actually, my D found out because her friend did it. Friend is also low-income but they live with her well-off aunt who pays for everything. Last year the aunt took friend to Rome for during the summer and this year to London. Friend has very few ECs and much lower scores than D, yet she is now touring around the country looking at HYP because she apparently has a shot at those due to Questbridge. It doesn’t seem fair. My D is the president of three school clubs, a class officer, has very high ACT scores and subject test scores, and she and her friend have the same GPA. Yet we are being told that Ivy is impossible while she is saying Questbridge will make it all possible for her. Apparently she was also in it last year and got something from them like essay help or something like that - not exactly sure.
Don’t get me wrong, I like what the organization stands for, but this kid has had plenty of advantages including intense ACT tutoring, vacations…stuff my D doesn’t have. It just seems…not right…
(Yes, friend could have told D about Questbridge before deadline but chose to wait until afterwards, so I’m sure that is coloring my feelings right now also.)
FYI - neither are minority students and neither are first gen. Friend’s grandfather is a retired surgeon, in fact.
There is an old saying…don’t don’t other people’s money. That is what you are doing. You are counting someone else’s money. Let it go. It has NO bearing on you…or your situation.
Concern yourself with YOUR kiddo and what YOU can be doing. It really doesn’t matter what other people are doing.
Isn’t it wonderful that this other student has a relative that can give her these special opportunities.
And…it was not the responsibility of that other student to inform you or yours about the Questbridge deadline…which is always at the end of September. Every year.
And just FYI…if you are very low income, yoir daughter will receive very generous need based aid from HYP…if she gets accepted.
I’m sorry to hear about the cheater. But in general, Ivies low income achievers, whether in Questbridge or not. I urge your daughter to apply to the Ivies she likes, and make it clear on her application what she had to overcome to realize her success.
1.You have totally overreacted with the title of this thread because no one is cheating.
you don't have to be a minority or first gen student for questbridge
Quest bridge will look at the income/assets of the parents. It does not matter that the aunt takes the kid on trips, pays for SAT prep, etc.. Aunt will not be responsible for paying for kid to go to college (even if aunt is legal guardian). If aunt is paying expenses that are in the child's name, then the parents must report on the fafsa/css profile.
Even though you are a single parent, remember, like the Ivies and most of the partner schools, Quest bridge takes into consideration the incomes of both the custodial and the non-custodial parent.
While it may have been nice for friend to tell your D, friend was under no obligation to do so.
No one ever said that life was fair. What you now need to do is but your blinders on and run your own race. You cannot allow yourself to worry about what someone is doing or not doing and that some kid got something that your kid did not get. These things are always going to happen.
7.Keep in mind that your kid is doing something that someone else’s kid is not doing and got something that someone else’s kid did not get. I complained that I had no shoes until I met a man that had no feet.
Isn’t the whole idea of Questbridge to level the playing field? So if they are awarding someone free tutoring who doesn’t need it because she gets tutored already, how is that fair to kids who didn’t get it and really need it? I’m not even taking about my D here, but kids who have nothing.
Of course she wasn’t obligated to tell my D about it, but it reflects on her personal ethics, in my opinion. No one is ever under any obligation to do anything for anyone, but it would be a sad world if that’s how we all behaved.
It sounds like the friend is trying to discourage competition. How would a 17-year-old know what’s possible for your daughter and what isn’t? Your daughter should apply to whatever colleges she wants and quit sharing details about her app and her final list with this person, then let the chips fall where they may.
Your daughter did not apply or did not know about the college prep scholars program junior year. She did not apply or know about the college match program senior year. The ship as sailed. You and she have to move forward. Just because one submits an application to Questbridge, it does not make them a finalist or means that they are going to be matched with a partner college.
No one is stopping your daughter from applying to wherever she wants to apply. Just move forward and continue to support your daughter.
Questbridge is a matching service. There is no guarantee of a “match.” An Ivy isn’t going to match someone who is not qualified to be at the school. It sounds like you are jealous this kid has an aunt who is helping her. Perhaps take a look at this chart–signing up for Questbridge does not mean you automatically get to go to an Ivy. Out of 11,000 applicants, only 501 got scholarships in 2014. And about 2000 were offered admission some place. I’m sorry you didn’t know about it. Keeping up with these things takes a lot of effort. I do think it’s kind of crappy of the friend not to tell your daughter about it in time to apply. It’s also possible some adults applied on the friend’s behalf and the friend didn’t know exactly what it was until now she gets to go on these trips. If your daughter has great stats and activities, she can find a great school that is also a decent financial fit. Cast a wide net.
In #2 above, I meant to say Ivies and other top schools LOVE low income achievers. Questbridge brings some low income achievers to the notice of schools who want to know about low income achievers, but your daughter is perfectly capable of bringing herself to the attention of schools that might be interested, by applying to the schools and detailing her circumstances and her accomplishments.
She should make it clear on her application what barriers she overcame that wealthier students didn’t encounter.
What are her stats and her interests? Maybe we could suggest some good schools for her.
Don’t trust your daughter’s young friend as to her chances at Ivies. I seem to recall that the Questbridge students accepted at Ivies in previous years had impressive resumes. A Questbridge stamp on someone’s application isn’t going to get her into Harvard.
Questbridge, I think, is used by the top colleges to recruit those students they have a hard time to recruit by other means.
Yeah…many years ago, a student at DS’s high school (not the same year) got a very good deal (free tuitions for 4 years.) from Quesbridge when that program was relatively less known. Her immediate family did not have high income (likely very low) in the US, but she did live in a very wealthy neighborhood/house (not her parents’ house, likely her relative’s house), has the luck of having a caring/knowledgeable but poor parent, and could afford $$$ ECs (likely funded by her extended family) since early childhood. But I did not think she or her family “cheated” according to the “Questbridge system” at that time, but she likely had good grandparents (who might have high assets but still low income.) On the paper, her immediate family was indeed poor. – I have also known a single parent who did not have to work for a single day while her child was growing up because the grandparents took care of their financial need for almost 20 years.
Isn’s it true that a family with a million dollars in the bank could still be on Medicaid if their income is very low according to ACA? (At least this was the case in the first year.) I guess QuestBridge at least asks for the assets of the family.
OP, Being unable to access the needed info in time, you could be put into a disadvantaged position. This is actually why a student from a wealthy family tends to have all the advantages in general, unless his/her parents are rich but dumb (or uncaring/too busy.)
To me the value of Questbridge is in getting one of the scholarships. But if your kid could get into one of these schools through Questbridge, then she could very likely get into it on her own, without Questbridge. Many of them offer excellent financial aid packages—meaning, grant based with very limited loans. Your daughter should still apply to them if she has the stats. You never know what will come back. This other kid, if her scores are low and she has no EC’s, and if her recommendations are mediocre, she likely won’t get a match. She will be bumped into the Regular Decision pool like everyone else. So no sense spending one iota of energy thinking about it–move on to finding good matches for YOUR daughter.
How is this relevant? Colleges look at assets when they determine financial aid awards, even if the ACA does not look at assets when determining eligibility for Medicaid in expansion states.
My impression is that Questbridge gives a big bump to kids with stats that normally would not qualify for schools of that level - so a person with a 31 or 32 ACT can get into Yale, for instance, when a typical applicant could not. Isn’t this correct?
Sybbie, the girl got free tutoring through Questbridge last year as a junior. But she already had tutoring before that funded by the aunt. The aunt is also paying for her sibling’s college tuition, so I think she did Questbridge for the application bump, although the money is always nice too.
It’s my impression that Questbridge doesn’t give students a big boost over similar low-income students. That is, the Questbridge applicant would be equally attractive if they didn’t have the Questbridge stamp on their application, provided the college was aware of the applicant’s circumstances.
OP- your D has had her own triumphs and her own successes and her own difficulties to overcome, and she’ll be evaluated in that context when she applies. Her friend’s situation is as irrelevant to your D as is the kid living in a homeless shelter or in foster care.
Be the best coach/advocate/counselor for your D that you can be. Spending time and energy worrying about someone else’s application is a waste of time. Regardless of how advantaged or disadvantaged your D may be- she needs reach, match and safety schools (both admissions and financially) just like any other kid. Focus on that and stop worrying about programs you didn’t apply to.
But if your D has not told her guidance counselor that she wants to be informed of any program, awards, scholarships, etc. for which she may be qualified- she needs to do that ASAP before other deadlines pass.
And in terms of ACT tutoring- if you can afford a book from Amazon (or free from the public library) your D can also get intensive tutoring. What works isn’t paying the check to the tutor- what works is having a kid ready to focus and study. All the money in the world won’t raise a score for a kid who won’t do the drills and the exercises in the books. (the same books that everyone uses btw).
No you are wrong about a big bump. QB is just a nice award. The bump comes from being high achieving low income and you have that bump as a Questbridge applicant or as a regular applicant.
I remember during my D’s application cycle, she did not want to apply through Questbridge in its early days because she felt that the application was too long and she had done way too many essays. It did not hurt her one bit, as she still got accepted to every school that she applied to.
By the same token, I have seen hundreds of kids apply to Questbridge, not make finalist or match and still do well on their own in the admissions process.
You would be surprised at the number of opportunities that come through your high school that students don’t apply to