Questbridge odds?

Answered

Congratulations on being a QB College Prep Scholar. That's step 1.

Step 2 is that you must fill out the QB College Match application when it becomes available.

Over the past 6 years between 37-40% of College Match applicants including yourself were selected as Match Finalists. Last year 16500 +/- applied to the program and 6312 became Match Finalist or 38%. Of those 6312 match finalists 1674 were matched with 1 of the (up to12) schools they ranked. This means 10.1% of the original applicant pool was matched with a 4 year scholarship. Of the 4638 which were not Matched to 1 of the 48 partner schools, about 2000 got accepted during RD which is about 12.1% (historically about 12.1-15.1% get admitted RD).

So last year, 22.2% of QB Match applicants were matched or accepted RD. When you think of the average admission rate across 48 partner schools it's 12.37% (because some like Ivys and Elites are like 4-5% and other like Vassar/UVA are 18-19%). Therefore, I would definitely conclude that if you go through QB you have a higher chance of getting into these 48 schools, exactly 78.6% not quite 2X improved chances.

The trick is not to get too far over your skis and only select colleges that are less than 8% admit rates because they are still reaches. If you make up your ranking list from the 18 schools whose admit rate is <8.00%, you might not get into any of them. And you are too conservative and pick only from the 13 schools whose admit rate is >15.00% you might get into your 1st or 2nd choice and feel you should have picked more selective schools.

Here is the bottom line. If you are a Valdictorian, have a 4.0 GPA, taken 8-12 APs, have amazing ECs, are an excellent writer, have a 1530+ SAT or 35+ ACT, you don't really need Questbridge because all the Top 25 Colleges including Ivys, Elites and best LACs all have amazing financial aid. If you want to get into Harvard, then you probably should bypass the National Match and apply SCREA to Harvard. Same with Princeton, Yale, MIT and Stanford. WHY these 5 schools? Because if you rank Princeton, Yale, MIT, and Stanford on QB, it's treated like ED not EA, and you have to go. (and Harvard is not a partner school). So super highly qualified applicants really do not need this. They can get into top schools on their own steam and apply to the Coca Cola, Jack Kent, Gates, Horatio Alger, etc scholarships and get more money as well.

So my advise is if think you are in the middle 50% of all QB applicants then be careful with the schools you rank. If you are in the bottom 25%, don't rank Ivys and Elites like Yale, Columbia, MIT, Caltech. If you are in the middle of the pack, pick like 4 schools with admit rates less than 8%, 4 schools with 8-15% admit rates and 4 schools with 15%+ admit rates. Then you will increase your chances of getting a full ride at a partner school. One mistake I think QB applicants make is not using all 12 ranking slots because they are so sure they only have to rank 3-6 schools. Just like regular non-QB college applicants, it's always super wise to have a couple safeties to go where you'll be happy attending. So like I said, don't get too overconfident that just because you are a QB scholar that you will get matched in December. Remember 90% of the original College Match Pool does not get matched. And then if you have to decide to use the QB application or the Common App to apply to all the other schools RD and wait until the end of March. So that extra 4 months can be stressful if you rank wrong.

Good luck.