Since its inception in 2004, QuestBridge has paired high-achieving, low-income students with top colleges around the country, giving disadvantaged students a chance to attend excellent schools on practically a full ride.
The goal of the QuestBridge program is to increase the number of exceptional students who have overcome difficult circumstances attending top-tier colleges, thus promoting socioeconomic diversity at private schools. Amherst had been a forerunner in the campaign for diversity even before QuestBridge existed, and it is a leading promoter of the program. Marx is even quoted on the QuestBridge Web site: “The future of our democracy rests upon ways of finding opportunity and mobility that are not happening in our unequal world. QuestBridge is at the crossroads of doing just that.”
Four students have just been admitted to the Amherst class of 2012 through the program and 13 students in the past three years were QuestBridge scholarship recipients. Furthermore, according to an article from the Nov. 15, 2007 issue of The Wall Street Journal, QuestBridge scholars made up 11 percent of all students accepted to the College in 2006, the highest such rate of any institution.
The 20 colleges that participate in the program include Yale and Stanford Universities, as well as Williams and Pomona Colleges, among others, in addition to Amherst. The list continues to grow every year. “Someone from my school got into Princeton this year through QuestBridge which, at the time of my application, wasn’t possible. Just the number of schools that are now partners is staggering to me,” noted Nathan Seifert ’10, a QuestBridge student.
Most of the current QuestBridge scholars happened upon the program by accident, through what they thought to be routine mass mailings or e-mails, typical of the notorious “college junk mail” one usually receives during junior year of high school. Yasmin Navarro ’10 thought the program was a scam until she researched it further. Likewise, Ben Mears ’11 had to convince his mother that QuestBridge was legitimate “No one I talked to about the scholarship had ever heard of it,” he said. “When asking for recommendations, I had to explain to my counselor and teachers what it was and how it worked.”
However, the road to a scholarship and a prestigious college is long and complex. First, students have to complete a 17-page application; in addition to answering questions about themselves, they also “rank” the participating schools in order of personal preference. Then QuestBridge accepts students from this applicant pool, and the college matching process begins. All of the schools that the student ranked are forwarded a copy of his or her application, and each college “ranks” the students in order of which ones they would like to admit. Finally, QuestBridge takes the student and college rankings and produces “matches.”
“The process was somewhat nerve-wracking because if you get matched with a school, it is a binding agreement,” said Mears. “It is essentially like early decision, except you don’t have complete control over what school you will be paired with.” The one firm guarantee of the QuestBridge program is that tuition, room and board, and expenses will be covered in full.
Dean of Admissions Tom Parker is prominently quoted on the QuestBridge Web site. “The moment you are identified as a QuestBridge applicant, you are prioritized in a way that very few applicants are,” he says. “When you’re a QuestBridge student, you’re in a priority bin. They’ve got a leg up in a way that perhaps an athlete or legacy would have a way up.”
Seifert is thankful for the opportunity QuestBridge presented. “I’m from a small town in the middle of the Appalachians. In my immediate and close extended family, my dad was the only one who had gone to college,” Seifert said. “If anything, the challenge was to succeed enough to attend a college that was above the usual undergraduate future for kids in my high school.”
Seifert added, “I can hardly stress enough how fantastic it is to know that QuestBridge so easily enabled me to be here at a school I actually highly doubted, at the time of application, I could ever afford on normal financial aid.”
Mears said he was motivated to apply through the program by his brother, who had to work full-time while going to college. “I wanted to work hard in high school so that I would be able to attend college on scholarships and not have to go into extreme debt to pay for it.”
QuestBridge scholars aren’t guaranteed their first-choice school; however, students and colleges are matched with care. “I switched my first and second choices [on my list of college rankings] on a whim, and I ended up at Amherst,” said Navarro. “I love the weather, the campus and the people here.”
Despite being a relatively new program, QuestBridge has already made a powerful impact on hundreds of students. The QuestBridge program has provided the gift of an Amherst education to students who otherwise would not be able to afford it. As a result, some QuestBridge scholars feel a need to give back in some way. “I feel an obligation to help others like me understand that college is accessible and that it’s not so scary to leave home,” said Navarro. Other grateful students echoed her sentiments.