3
3 years ago
Admissions Advice

What precollege program is more beneficial, LEDA or Questbridge?

Hello! I'm currently doing research and I'd like to apply to some pre-college programs next year! So far, I've been getting various recommendations to apply to Questbridge College Prep Scholars and LEDA Scholars. I heard that Questbridge gives essay feedback and attendance at a virtual conference while LEDA is a community and gives mentoring 24/7, which has been extremely helpful to many students. What program is more beneficial to someone who is preparing to apply to college? Any suggestions or preferences?

precollege
sophomore
junior
3
1

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5
3 years ago[edited]

Questbridge is massive with 18500 applicants compared to the 100 at LEDA. Also, about 1500 of them get a full-ride scholarship for 4 years even before the ED announcement comes out on December 1st or 10th or something early like that. I think LEDA is a completely different kind of program that helps a small group of kids with leadership mentoring and college guidance to apply to a smaller subset than the 45 Questbridge schools. I'm not sure you can compare them apples to apples because the value propositions are different and LEDA is not getting a brokerage fee for matching up high achieving kids to colleges. Or at least there is nothing that indicates that on their marketing website.

I think if you are risk-averse and want to get a full ride and are high achieving, Questbridge takes a lot of anxiety and stress out of the whole college process. You can apply to 10 colleges Early Decision and get a full ride to whoever picks you that is the highest on your list. I don't think there is anything else like it in the market. And if you don't get matched 1st round, you can still apply to those 45 colleges' regular decisions using the Questbridge app. In fact, 2/3rds of the scholarships are given to the Regular Decision groups. So there is no big downside. You can still apply to non-Questbridges college during RD if you don't get matched.

If you are super talented and need mentoring with leadership activities, maybe LEDA is the way to go. It's not a very popular program based on the size alone. But the results are impressive so you should research both of them in more depth and watch the Questbridge Youtube videos and the LEDA ones if they have come up as well and then decide for yourself.

I'm not sure what 2021 stats will be but I have to assume that Questbridge will get over 20,000 applications and pick about 6500 for match finalists and then 1500 for match winners. So that's only about 7.5% admitted in the first round. And in the RD round, about 15% more will get accepted with nearly as much financial aid as the match winners. Some people think that is very competitive but if you think that the top colleges are only accepting 3-5%, 7.5-22.5% is really much better odds.

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