So before I start, I chose to ED at my top choice and in light of this I could not be happier about that decision but I still feel a little miffed about this and I know many of my fellow Questie finalists were also very frustrated and hurt by this revelation.
Apparently many Match applications are never even read. Due to the high volume of applications, there have been several Questies who have said that admissions officers have openly stated that they do not read them all. Full disclosure the linked image is a conversation between some students but there are multiple accounts and this was pre-match decision releases, so where would the motivation to lie be?
http://imgur.com/gallery/2iotedf/new
I thought about it. I’m told that there were about 14,000 match applicants this year. I imagine nearly everyone marked Yale, as it is non-binding so why not? Yale selects from them 51 applicants. This is over 3 times as many SCEA applications that they get and the decisions have to be made two weeks earlier than SCEA. The problem is not that they didn’t even read them, I understand that it is an exorbitant number of applicants in a short period of time. The problem is that these families made sacrifices to pay for test scores and to give their kids time to complete the application. Furthermore, many students do feel very discouraged and rejected, completely unaware of the fact that their applications may not have been read.
Thoughts? Anybody?
Once again, I am not “anti-Questbridge” I was just very frustrated by this. Can anyone speak to the accuracy of these claims?
How do I share a picture on here? I tried to use an image hosting sight but it didn’t work 
This seems like an urban legend.
Why would colleges want students applying through a system they don’t intend to read applications from? If the colleges say they read these applications, they probably do - and unless you’ve heard an AO say otherwise, don’t place too much stock in hearsay.
I’m sure they screen the applications in some basic manner (a kid with a 1700 SAT would likely need a hook strong enough that the admissions office would know to expect his/her application), and then turn to the serious ones. I’m also reasonably sure that the number choosing any given school, among 14,000 applicants a year, is 4 digits at worst (and likely the lower end of that range). That would make the numbers easily manageable - these colleges will deal with 5-6x the SCEA volume when regular decision comes along.
There’s a picture of a conversation on the FB group, where people were citing specific college admissions officers saying these things. Every single Questie I have talked to ranked Yale and we all have 12 slots this year increasing the volume. According to the FB group poll, which includes 1600 of the 140000 finalists, 98 percent of them chose Yale for one of their 12 spots, even if it was only 50% in all parts of the group not on Facebook, it would dwarf SCEA.
Princeton, Yale, and Stanford all had percentages well over 90% because these are the non-binding schools, making it a great option for almost any Questbridge student because so few of us have had a chance to visit campus’ before making binding decisions. Even the fly -n programs occur after the ranking deadline, except for one school.
If this were the case, I see no earthly reason the AO’s would want to publicize that fact.
“On road to college, Questbridge a dead end for many” is not a headline the colleges in question want connected with their name in the New York Times. Even for a semi-competent investigative journalist, the story would write itself. So the very fact that AO’s would discuss this openly (according to random strangers in a FB group) makes these accounts highly suspect IMO.
Imagine a congressman saying to a group of his/her constituents “You know, these bills are sometimes 1000+ pages long, and I don’t usually read them all.” Off the record, they might admit to having their staff summarize most legislation they vote on, but no politician who prizes his/her office would risk saying such things in a setting where a kid with a smartphone might record their remarks.
Idk I had an admissions officer from a “need blind” school tell me in an interview that need is considered.
On the flip side, the match is highly competitive, more so than any of the kids in the group really know. Saying that an application may not even be looked could be a way for non-matched students to feel better. Having said that these messages were made before the match results and one of the commentators who said that Bowdoin said that not all applications can be read, is actually a QB kid there now.
I could understand why either side might be true, all in all though, I am not too awful worried about it. I wasn’t interested in any non-binding school but Yale and at the time I hadn’t visited any other schools. I won’t make a binding decision to a school I’ve never been to and my EFC is so low that the match scholarship doesn’t really change anything for me financially.
I’ll take it all with a grain of salt 
Typo above, lol there are not 140,000 finalists hahaha
It’s true that some schools’ policies vary by applicant - UChicago, for instance, is need-blind for US citizens but not international students. I think that contributes to a lot of the confusion out there for about colleges’ stances.
I think anything on FB should be taken with the grain of salt that you’re wisely bearing in mind.
It would not surprise me if many of the applications were not closely read. I would imagine at the schools receiving high volume of QB finalists trying to match–like you mention–that they’d have to employ the same review tactics as they do otherwise–a brief skim of each app, sorting them into piles for further consideration, etc. Especially given how many extra supplements the hyper-elites require now, I am not surprised they only give a close, real read to the strongest candidates. It’s kind of a bummer, but regardless, QB still gets candidates–including those who otherwise might not get consideration from the Ivies at all–a chance to be read. (but it also says that perhaps the best strategy in QB is to try and match with less competitive schools…)
I didn’t know about the FB rule, my bad
Maybe they should do some pre-screening for applicants? I’m not trying to be a jerk but I talked to someone who was legitimately devastated and exasperated about not being matched at Yale with a 3.6 and a 28 ACT. I DON"T think test scores and grades are everything but I was very surprised at how adamant they were that they should have gotten in. These scores, no matter what the hook, are almost impossibly low.
Many of the schools, like Columbia for instance, when ranked, require you send your common app. However, if you aren’t matched initially, and still wish to apply, they will put you back in the ED/RD pile upon your selection. In doing this, the school has the option to evaluate your QB application in addition to your common app, every partner school has this option regardless if you ranked them or not (as long as you’re a finalist) or, like what Columbia is on record saying, they will not add your QB application to your ED/RD application because it is simply adding too much to read, which is reasonable considering its 2 large essays and a few short ones.
The system doesn’t set up every student to be re-denied because there are some tricky economics with the match and EFCs and financial aid, to make a long story short, by not matching kids with EFCs greater than $0, the schools those kids ranked have opportunities to still get these students they want, just this time they get a little money out of them, as opposed to giving every student they’d like to admit a full ride.
Btw, to cure any confusion there are roughly 14000 applicants, 5000 finalists, and 657 finalists were matched.
I always wonder why the QB application is so long? Like for me it is not so much of a problem Essays are my strong point but I realize that ad-comms have so much to look through already, even with the basic single essay common application. I’m guessing it’s used predominantly to select finalists?
Of course they do, that’s part of the advantage of being chosen as a QB finalist - QB thinks you can excel if given the opportunity, have something to offer, etc.
But the QB member schools vary pretty widely in selectivity - an applicant who might not be a match for Yale might be one for Colorado College or Trinity or UVA.
^ this is true. I think that students in the program tend to over reach, which is fine. I fully expect to be rejected by my top choice but I think the problem is that they get so tied up in these top schools and are fully expecting not just to be admitted RD but to match.
Three of the kids I was talking to are now so upset they are considering not even applying anywhere and just going to community college and many of them feel they have been discriminated against for various reasons.
For the record, I’m not saying these kids shouldn’t even apply but even with the efforts QB makes to educate it seems so many of us are still woefully unaware of the competitiveness of colleges. Let it also be said that I only took the ACT once and that was a financial struggle for my family but I did take the Practice ACT which is encouraged at my school. On this test I got the equivalent of a 27. I would have still applied to my top choice schools with that score but I knew also that a score like that would be very difficult to make up for. I got a 34 on the actual exam and studied immensely for it but even now I realize it’s always a longshot.
It makes me sad to see some of my friends so hurt by this. I cannot feel right telling them that their grades and test scores are simply not competitive and choose instead to tell them that the Match is incredibly competitive especially considering the fact that almost all of them marked exclusively the non-binding schools, which are also the most competitive.
Then I get wind that not all the applications are really read. The quote from the Bowdoin girl said that sometimes it’s a simple matter of location. They read apps from this location and not that or “other various factors”. Knowing that one of my friends lives in a shelter and saved up for weeks from asking on the street to send their ACT scores to this school really irks me …
Why are these QB kids not using fee waivers for their ACT/SATs? Are they not low income enough? The one in the shelter would certainly qualify.
I’d add the obvious - someone saying so and so said they aren’t read is not info I would bank on.
ACT does not do fee waivers for sending scores, only the SAT does that. You get four free when you register but once you have seen the scores you can no longer use those for free .Here in the mid-westish area the ACT is much more emphasized in school.
I don’t take it as a straight up truth, but it does give me reasonable suspicions, given that the person saying this is a QB match at Bowdoin
People with family incomes around $50k apply for Questbridge but usually can’t get fee waivers.
Unless Bowdoin girl works in the Bowdoin admissions office and is privy to direct info about the admissions reps reading or not reading apps, or is a reader herself, I’d still take that with a huge grain of salt.
Yes, I know the ACT fee waiver only gives you the free (before you know the score) sends. But it gives you 4 per test and 2 tests, so theoretically 8 free, so you have to pay for resends if you score better on one test or the other (or the school is one of the few that superscores the ACT and you happen to score better on single sections on different tests).
I asked about it in response to:
…because if you had a waiver you could take it twice and use 8 free sends total.
Even higher incomes than that, sometimes. So that’s why I said: