QuestBridge kids taking half the spots at top schools, and it’s unfair

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People do all sorts of crazy sh$%t to hide money and qualify for Questbridge because it is worth $400K/kid!!! That is worth some financial gymnastics.

No school is 100k . I have two at different T10/ivy and they are 84&87k all in. I get you are rounding up but those of us who are budgeting well to afford it know that 86x 4 is very different than 100k x 4.

Northwestern is $94,000/year.

USC is right there …

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only issue I have with Questbridge is that so many people cheat. There are a zillion ways to hide your income. Tiktok is full of Questbridge kids posting from their large suburban homes. My teens are very salty about it: "i know the cost of living is lower elsewhere but what the heck?"

This!

I volunteer at a CBO for FGLI kids. One of my students parents has 2 businesses (to do with flipping houses and materials for those). Parents found tax loopholes to keep their AGI low — and they could get a free college advisor. After numerous talks with her about how she was not really LI, she and her parents decided WE should focus on getting her to Finalist Status so she could put that as an Honor on her RD apps! As if they were paying me!!! LOL. I made a schedule for her essays and she wanted them done before school started — I think they thought I would be writing them for her! I said if you can get it done before school starts, I’ll provide feedback ASAP. The entitlement kept showing — she asked me to shorten her QB essays on the due date. I ignored her request of course — so she did not submit!

If this is true,they should have been reported to your CBO and dropped.

[Anonymous]

There is so much disinformation here, it's nauseating. Thanks to the few who have accurate info, who have clarified the competitiveness and difficulty of becoming a QB finalist.

I work with a CBO. Here are a few clarifying details.

Many students can be financially eligible for QB (up to 70k), but many QB schools look for students with an EFC of 0. Those are students with real need.

It is a rigorous application. Students need stats, recs, ECs and effective writing to make finalist. They write an 800 word essay + another 500 word essay just for the app..Plus short answer. They also do supplements for the schools on their list.

Only about 30% of finalists match. Odds for some schools are equivalent to RD.

QB scholarship does not eliminate the student contribution. Schools vet the finances after they submit to QB and make finalist. Schools use same process for vetting as any other applicant. This can be very hard for disadvantaged students who essentially have to adult here. Bit they do it,in addition to all the other app stuff.

Many QB scholarship are valedictorian or equivalent at non ranking schools.

Schools only take 20-100 students via QB

This is such an arduous process for students already disadvantaged. They are truly phenomenal.

Stop denigrating QB students. I can only think those people are either horribly misinformed or are just vicious trolls. If you are too self-interested, miserly or mean to celebrate their hard earned succeses, just leave these kids alone.

[Anonymous]

Could you be more entitled?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is so much disinformation here, it's nauseating. Thanks to the few who have accurate info, who have clarified the competitiveness and difficulty of becoming a QB finalist.

I work with a CBO. Here are a few clarifying details.

Many students can be financially eligible for QB (up to 70k), but many QB schools look for students with an EFC of 0. Those are students with real need.

It is a rigorous application. Students need stats, recs, ECs and effective writing to make finalist. They write an 800 word essay + another 500 word essay just for the app..Plus short answer. They also do supplements for the schools on their list.

Only about 30% of finalists match. Odds for some schools are equivalent to RD.

QB scholarship does not eliminate the student contribution. Schools vet the finances after they submit to QB and make finalist. Schools use same process for vetting as any other applicant. This can be very hard for disadvantaged students who essentially have to adult here. Bit they do it,in addition to all the other app stuff.

Many QB scholarship are valedictorian or equivalent at non ranking schools.

Schools only take 20-100 students via QB

This is such an arduous process for students already disadvantaged. They are truly phenomenal.

Stop denigrating QB students. I can only think those people are either horribly misinformed or are just vicious trolls. If you are too self-interested, miserly or mean to celebrate their hard earned succeses, just leave these kids alone.

You're the one who is spreading disinformation. QB admits are subject to much lower bar than their non-QB counterpart. Can you deny that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:QB should release students' names who received a free ride to ensure more transparency.

If you’re that interested, LinkedIn is free

[Anonymous]

Programs like thrive and Leda should be dissolved. Thrive now has college partners with Harvey Mudd, Williams, UPenn, etc. It has backing by the Harvard provost and the students get ridiculous amounts of college advising. These programs are not fair and give the privileged poor way too many advantages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. I'm sorry to see so much hate for this program.

We are white UMC. My kids attend a very diverse mixed-income high school, one that DCUM sneers at. They have friends who are wealthy and friends who rely on SNAP to get dinner on the table.

DC applied ED to a very selective college, obviously a reach. His friend matched through QB to this same school. DC's application was deferred, friend is committed there. DC's grades are better, has more academic awards and leadership in ECs (but friend has held a part time job consistently since he was old enough to work, which DC hasn't done), and SAT was 200 pts above the friend. But ... the friend is really bright and incredibly hard working. DC's awards and ECs were supported by us parents, while the friend did everything on his own. The friend missed quite a bit of school last year for family reasons, which impacted his grades; DC only missed school when he was really sick with strep throat.

DC will do well wherever he lands. He really hopes the deferral turns into an acceptance, but even if it doesn't, he'll be fine elsewhere. He has lots of targets and safeties that we can afford.

If the friend weren't accepted through QB, he'd graduate high school and turn his part time restaurant job into full time. No college.

None of us are the least bit upset about his friend going to DC's dream school, even if DC doesn't. DC is just happy for his friend.

Legacies, OTOH .... those should be done away with.

Love all of this. Thank you for posting.

[Anonymous]

I think OP is adding Pell Grant + Qbridge + first gen kids re: Duke’s total ED. Those three combined were 451 out of 849 ED accepted kids and there were 6627 ED apps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think OP is adding Pell Grant + Qbridge + first gen kids re: Duke’s total ED. Those three combined were 451 out of 849 ED accepted kids and there were 6627 ED apps.

I think OP is a troll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only issue I have with Questbridge is that so many people cheat. There are a zillion ways to hide your income. Tiktok is full of Questbridge kids posting from their large suburban homes. My teens are very salty about it: "i know the cost of living is lower elsewhere but what the heck?"

This is true. I know a few ppl got in and they have a huge house

OK so QB does allow for extenuating circumstances and it is the colleges who check finances, not QB. I guess sometimes we don’t know what all is going on behind closed doors but I have seen a lot of moms say their kids have got QB even though they were not LI.

My kid is Hispanic and was offered QB. I have no idea why. We are solidly UMC and exceed the financial limits. They still encouraged him to apply but he declined.

What does this even mean? As a questbridge scholar, I don’t think most of this thread is telling the truth. There’s an income cap, and it is very difficult to get QB if you exceed that cap. For Match, many questbridge schools are looking for 0 EFC and some require it to match. The people who’ve somehow hid their incomes and properties would’ve received the same amount of money anyway. No one is “offered” Questbridge, you apply, because a finalist or don’t, and then choose to do the Match if you want to.

To clarify, my kid received unsolicited emails from QB. I don’t know why - yes he’s an URM but he’s neither FG nor LI. But he landed on the distro list somehow. He got so many emails asking him to apply and when he didn’t, he got another round of emails asking why he didn’t.

I was FGLI with an EFC of $0, I went to college and pulled myself out of poverty. My kid was born on second base and has never experienced the pains of being truly poor and under resourced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only issue I have with Questbridge is that so many people cheat. There are a zillion ways to hide your income. Tiktok is full of Questbridge kids posting from their large suburban homes. My teens are very salty about it: "i know the cost of living is lower elsewhere but what the heck?"

This is true. I know a few ppl got in and they have a huge house

OK so QB does allow for extenuating circumstances and it is the colleges who check finances, not QB. I guess sometimes we don’t know what all is going on behind closed doors but I have seen a lot of moms say their kids have got QB even though they were not LI.

My kid is Hispanic and was offered QB. I have no idea why. We are solidly UMC and exceed the financial limits. They still encouraged him to apply but he declined.

What does this even mean? As a questbridge scholar, I don’t think most of this thread is telling the truth. There’s an income cap, and it is very difficult to get QB if you exceed that cap. For Match, many questbridge schools are looking for 0 EFC and some require it to match. The people who’ve somehow hid their incomes and properties would’ve received the same amount of money anyway. No one is “offered” Questbridge, you apply, because a finalist or don’t, and then choose to do the Match if you want to.

To clarify, my kid received unsolicited emails from QB. I don’t know why - yes he’s an URM but he’s neither FG nor LI. But he landed on the distro list somehow. He got so many emails asking him to apply and when he didn’t, he got another round of emails asking why he didn’t.

I was FGLI with an EFC of $0, I went to college and pulled myself out of poverty. My kid was born on second base and has never experienced the pains of being truly poor and under resourced.

It’s probably just from the college board sharing his email. He went through 0% of the questbridge process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Since the Supreme Court ruling on admissions, now universities are looking at low to moderate income high achievers from QuestBridge to fill diversity slots. But what about minority kids who are high income? And everyone else? Are we all getting the shaft? My daughter is getting rejection after rejection even though she has high SAT scores and GPA. And I’m sure they chose a low income minority to fill that slot over us. The whole admissions game completely sucks. I’m tired of all these overkill programs leaning toward lower or moderate income. It needs to be a fair shot for all.

These entitled kids who grew up in poverty and had to overcome adversity! How dare they take my UMC kid's spot at a T25!

Get a grip OP. You're insufferable.

[Anonymous]

does QB look at assets?

[Anonymous]

I don't understand why some people like OP hate on other groups of people so much when things don't happen the way they wanted. It takes up so much emotional energy that could be spent focusing on the reality of your own situation.