I have a strong application but a missing RecommendationAnswered
I applied to the QuestBridge College Prep Scholars Program with a "strong" (as said by my teacher) application, but one of my recommenders (specifically the academic recc) never submitted a recommendation. I sent her over 9 emails politely reminding her to submit the recc, and when I asked her (1 month before the due date) she enthusiastically agreed to write it. Do you think I still have a chance of getting accepted into the program without this recommendation? I worked so hard on this application and I'm afraid it might all go to waste.
(application contents: average/large highschool (3.5k students), honors program in the highschool, top 10%, GPA 4.4 (weighted)/ 3.9 (unweighted), 14 honors classes/ 9 aps/ 4 dual enrollments, ecs: academic coach (tutor/mentor), stem internship, bio club president, honors society, student gov: class rep; strong recommendation from mentor (for character recc), "strong" essay about family's previous homelessness, family income <25k, divorced parents, first born, URM (black/african), )
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2 answers
Sorry to read about your problem.
Unfortunately, no one here on CollegeVine, either the experts or the members would be able to answer this question accurately. Your stats are consistent with the kind of CPS they pick each year. Since your qualifications have nothing to do with missing a part of the application, I'm afraid that information doesn't help anyone advise you.
My best advice is for you to reach out to the Questbridge office in Palo Alto and speak to someone at Questbridge.
They would be able to give you the correct answer to your question and perhaps advice you on what you can do if it is not too late to remedy the missing component of your application file. If this were a Common App college application, sometimes colleges give applicant recommenders a week or so extensions to get their recommendation in. But you have to directly speak to them. Therefore call them today and ask them in person.
BY PHONE
As we are a small staff serving thousands of applicants around the country, we are not always able to answer the phone and can more effectively support students, parents, and educators via email. The best way to get your questions answered is to visit AskQB for FAQs or email us with additional questions.
(650) 331-3280
(888) 275-2054 (Toll-free)
In the future be more careful about which teachers, administration, or personal recommenders you choose. It is highly irregular to ask a recommender nine times to expedite a recommendation letter. Most students would have found another suitable recommender after 2 or 3 unanswered communications. If you are a high-achieving student, you will face many other applications in the future, both college ones and scholarship ones that will require recommendations. You may need to ask the same group of recommenders upward of 5-10 recommendations each for various applications so they must clearly be in your corner to write the best things about you.
Good luck and use this as a learning moment and make sure you have established a rapport with your recommenders such that there is no need to make an exhaustive quantity of requests.
That is great that you applied for QuestBridge, I am also a junior and I wanted to apply but I found out QuestBridge too late, unfortunately. From my understanding, in most programs and applications, you can submit a recommendation after the due date and it won't count against you. So my advice is to find out if QuestBridge allows for recommendations to be turned in after the due date. If they do, I would have your teacher to turn in the recommendation. However, if they don't accept the recommendation after the due date, I would email them to explain your situation and see if they would make special accommodation for you. You are a great student and I hope you can get in!
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