The purpose of Questbridge is to allow for low-income, high-achieving students to be able to attend prestigious universities. Questbridge is split up into two programs, the College Prep Scholar Program and the National College Match. The College Prep Program is essentially Questbridge’s way of marking students who they feel will have a good chance of being Questbridge Scholars or being able to attend a top college in general. The National College Match is essentially a fancy Early Decision application. If a student is matched, they will have to attend the partner school, as they entered a binding contract through the application.

• Questbridge College Prep Program​

This program is available for juniors and opens around February. The application (usually) consists of one essay asking for general background information about your life (basically what makes you special) and various short answer questions (that vary each year). It also includes the normal stuff, information about parents, siblings, grades, extracurriculars, and interests. Besides the arbitrary stuff, you will need to know your household income, and you will need to have a PDF of your most recent transcript and school profile (optional but I strongly encourage including it, helps Questbridge understand your school’s policies). The application closes around mid-March. When decisions are posted in April, students who become College Prep Scholars now have something extra to put on their resumes. All College Prep Scholars get an invitation to one of three Questbridge CPS conferences around the country (depends on location) that take place at a QB partner college. The conference is also livestreamed online for those who cannot travel to attend. Here you’ll just learn about how to apply to colleges, the NCM process and you’ll be able to kiss up to admissions officers at the QB College Fair. You most importantly be able to hear a speech from QB’s founder, Michael Mccullough, that will more than likely inspire you to the point where you feel as though you could do anything, as it did to me.

• Quest for Excellence Awards

When you apply for CPS, you are also given the option to apply to the Quest for Excellence Awards. It’s optional, and the awards are geared towards students with a background or special interest in a specific field, like art or STEM. The awards could include (but not limited to) money, equipment, or a summer program.

• Questbridge National College Match

If you applied to CPS, your application gets automatically forwarded to the NCM. The application opens in the summer and is to the NCM is similar to the CPS except that it includes more essays (about two more) and more short answers. The application is generally due around the end of September. Students have the option of ranking up to twelve colleges at this point and their rankings are due sometime before the finalist notification is released. If a student has become a finalist, they move on to the next round. If a student is not a finalist, they are now released from the program and are able to apply to colleges regularly. If a finalist chooses not to do the match process, they can apply to any college they want OR Questbridge colleges through the QB application. They can either apply Early Action or Early Decision (if the school’s ED/EA hasn’t passed) or regular decision.

• The Next Round

At this point, the finalists are now applying to the specific schools they ranked. Students can reorder their list or delete schools from it but they cannot add schools to the list. Questbridge finalists usually only have a little over a week at this point to submit supplemental essays, test scores, FAFSA, the CSS profile (for private colleges) and other materials to their ranked schools. All of the materials due to colleges at the start of November. At the beginning of December, finalists are then notified whether or not they matched. Students who do match are now finished with the college process. Students who do not match are able to apply to QB partner schools through Regular Decision or any other college. Students who matched to the non-binding QB colleges are not required to attend and are able to apply to schools regularly. Students who do not match but were still QB finalists and are attending a QB partner school are still considered a Questbridge Scholar.

• A closer look at the match Process

When finalists rank their schools, they rank them from one to twelve with one being ‘yes I really want to go here’ and twelve being ‘I like this college but it’s not my favorite’. A student becomes matched to a college when their highest ranked school picks them. To be clearer, if Student A ranks Columbia first, Pomona second and Davidson third but gets rejected from Columbia but accepted to Pomona and Davidson, the student is binded to attend Pomona. The student also never knows about other colleges that may or may not have accepted her once they are matched. IF YOU MATCH MAKE SURE TO WITHDRAW APPLICATIONS TO OTHER COLLEGES.

Tips:

• CPS

If you attend a conference, be sure to befriend other scholars. It is nice to have a friend to go through the QB process with and you may be meeting future classmates

• NCM

When the CPS application gets forwarded to the NCM, students have the option of keeping their original essays the same. I would suggest editing the essays, drastically, that you used on the CPS application before submitting them on the NCM. It is much harder to become a Questbridge Finalist than it is to become a CPS therefore the application is looked at more thoroughly.  

Since QB finalists have roughly a week before they have to turn in their supplemental materials to their ranked colleges, students should already have in mind the colleges they want to apply to before they enter the QB process. This way, they can have their supplemental essays ready so they are not overloaded with stress. Students should also have their household taxes (physical copies) on hand as well.

The match process is binding, therefore you should not rank colleges unless you are absolutely sure you will be happy attending. Personally for me, I ranked twelve schools just for the sake of matching, I wanted to ensure that I had a full-four year scholarship. However, since this is not the case for every student, I heavily suggest applying to ‘fly-in’ programs. These are all expense paid trips to colleges around the country (most of the QB schools offer a program of some sort). The applications usually open in the summer and during the fall of your school year. The visits take place during the fall, around the same time rankings are due. Therefore, these programs could be helpful for students deciding what colleges they actually envision themselves at.

• Conclusion

Getting rejected from CPS does not by any circumstances entail that you are not eligible for the NCM. There are many finalists and current scholars who either did not apply to CPS or got rejected. The key is to preserve through your application. Do not give up on yourself and your capabilities. Also DO NOT read your application after you submit it, I did and I almost wanted to strangle myself from all the typos and grammatical errors that decided to appear the day after I pressed submit. Regardless, I matched, and whether you match or get into the school of your dreams does not determine your intelligence or your qualities. Good Luck to everyone applying this year!!!!

Visit Questbridge.org to apply!