|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
College Prep Scholarship - FAQ
To find the answer to your question, please click on the relevant category below: The awards or scholarships QuestBridge offers Will the College Prep Scholarship pay for me to attend any other summer programs? No. The College Prep Scholarship is limited to specific summer programs at Emory, Harvard, Notre Dame, Penn, Stanford, and Yale. Will transportation costs for attending the QuestBridge College Admissions Conferences be covered? QuestBridge will offer a limited number of travel grants to students who will be traveling long distances to attend the College Admissions Conferences. As a nonprofit organization, QuestBridge does not have the resources to sponsor travel for all students who receive invitations to the QuestBridge conferences. We encourage you to fundraise on your own from sources such as local businesses and churches. Many students who have attended our organization's events in past years have been successful in doing so. We encourage you to review the fundraising guide on the Junior Statesmen Foundation’s website for more ideas:
Will the QuestBridge College Prep Scholarship pay for any of the costs of attending college? No. The College Prep Scholarship is designed to provide high school juniors with resources and information that will prepare them for the college application process. When students who are currently juniors become seniors, they will then be eligible to apply for the National College Match Program, which connects students with full four-year scholarships to QuestBridge partner colleges. Eligibility for QuestBridge programs What qualifies a student as "low-income"? Please see the selection criteria. What qualifies a student as "high-achieving" or academically "outstanding"? Please see the selection criteria. Can I apply for the College Prep Scholarship if I am not a U.S. citizen or Permanent Resident? If you are a U.S. citizen, Permanent Resident, or international student residing in the United States, you are eligible to apply for the College Prep Scholarship. International students living outside the U.S. are not eligible to apply. Is the College Prep Scholarship only for minorities? No. QuestBridge programs are open to students of all races, ethnicities, and cultural backgrounds. I am not from a low-income background, but I received a mailing from QuestBridge inviting me to apply. Why did you choose to send a mailing to me, and how did you receive my name? We receive names and addresses of students who scored highly on the PSAT, SAT, or ACT through the College Board and ACT. Thus, many students receive our mailing because they did exceptionally well on their standardized tests and checked a box on their test form indicating that they would like to receive information about scholarship opportunities. The College Board and ACT do not release information regarding students' family income. We estimate students' household income using data from publicly available sources such as the U.S. Census Bureau. However, these sources do not provide perfect information on the income of individual households. As a result, some of the students who receive our mailing do not qualify financially for our programs. We hope that these students will refer others who qualify for the program. QuestBridge selection criteria What criteria are used to select College Prep Scholarship award recipients? Students are evaluated based on every section of the application. No single factor is decisive. Grades, curriculum, standardized test scores (if available), socioeconomic factors, teacher recommendation, and essay responses are the most heavily weighted factors. Due to the volume of applications that we receive, QuestBridge cannot comment on individual application decisions. Required standardized tests Do I need to have taken any standardized tests (like the PSAT, SAT Reasoning, SAT, ACT, or PLAN)? QuestBridge recommends, but does not require, that students take at least one standardized test before applying for the College Prep Scholarship. Who should write my recommendations Whom should I ask to write my recommendation letter? You should request a recommendation from a teacher who knows you well and taught you in a core academic class (math, English, science, history/social studies, or foreign language). Application process and timeline What are the details for the application process to the college summer programs? The application criteria and instructions are different for each summer program covered under the College Prep Scholarship. Relevant details are available on the College Prep Scholarship Summer Program page (http://www.questbridge.org/cps/awards/summer_school.html). How will I be notified about decisions regarding my application? Applicants will be notified via e-mail. Since e-mail will be the primary method of communication between QuestBridge and scholarship applicants, you should ensure that you have consistent access to a reliable e-mail account. In addition, you should regularly check any spam or bulk e-mail folders for your e-mail account in case QuestBridge correspondence has been inadvertently routed there. Can I apply only for one or two specific awards? You can apply for as many of the College Prep Scholarship awards as you would like. The application includes a section that allows you to select which awards you are most interested in receiving. In some cases, students may be given the option of receiving awards that they did not originally select, but only after they have been considered for the awards that they originally selected. Filling out the QuestBridge application How do I calculate my unweighted Grade Point Average (GPA)? An unweighted grade point average (GPA) is reported on a 4.0 scale. If your school does not provide you with an unweighted GPA, you will need to calculate it using the following table:
To use this table, find the grade point value of your final grade in a class (for example, a B+ is a 3.3) and multiply it by the total number of units the class is worth (for a five unit class, multiply 5 x 3.3). Do this for each of your courses in grades 9-12, adding the grade points as you go. Then, divide by the total number of units you have taken. For example, if you have taken only three classes, each worth five units, and you have received an A, B+, and A-, calculate your GPA as follows: How do I calculate my weighted GPA? Your weighted grade point average (GPA) must be reported on a 5.0 scale. If your school does not do this for you, you will need to calculate your weighted GPA using the following table:
To use this table, find the grade point value of your final grade in a
class (for example, a B+ in an honors class is a 4.3, and a B+ in a non-honors class is a 3.3) and multiply it
by the total number of units the class is worth (for a five unit class, multiply 5 x 4.3 for an honors class, or
5 x 3.3 for a non-honors class). Do this for each of your courses in grades 9-12, adding the grade points as you
go. Then, divide by the total number of units you have taken. For example, if you have taken three honors
classes, each worth five units, and you have received an A, B+, and A-, calculate your GPA as follows: How does weighted GPA differ from unweighted GPA? Some secondary schools choose to grade students on a 5.0 scale rather than the typical 4.0 scale for certain classes. A student typically receives 5.0 grade points for a class if he or she earns an “A” grade in an Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) class, while each subsequent grade is worth an additional point over its worth in a non-weighted system. An “A” grade in a non-AP/IB class still earns 4.0 grade points. While the system described above is the most common weighting system for GPA, there is no single standard for weighting secondary school grades. Different schools have different weighting practices, while others do not weight grades at all. We ask that you use the system described in the response to the previous question if your school does not weight grades for you or provide any instructions on how to calculate a weighted GPA. Resolving a technical issue Why can't I create a QuestBridge account? If you are having trouble creating a QuestBridge account, please e-mail the following information to techsupport@questbridge.org and we will create an account on your behalf:
Once we have created the account for you, you will receive an e-mail with a link to create a password. Why is my fax not showing up as received on the "My Locker" page? Please double-check that the fax was sent using the correct bar-coded cover sheet, and allow 48 hours for it to be processed. You can then check its status on your "My Locker" page. If it still does not appear, please allow extra processing time before you try resending it, as we may have to process the fax manually. Why can't I enter my high school information in the application? It is likely that you are trying to manually enter the name and address information for a school that is already in our database. Please clear all the information that you have entered in the high school section, then click the "Find Your School" button. That will open a pop-up window in which you should enter only:
Then click "Find Your School." Please select your high school from the list that appears. This will cause the pop-up window to close and your high school information to be automatically entered into the application. At this point, do not change any of the information that was automatically entered; instead, please enter the dates you attended the high school, then click "Save & Continue." If you continue to have trouble, please contact us for assistance. Why isn't my account linked to my recommender's? We use e-mail addresses to link student accounts to their recommenders. It is likely that you have listed a different e-mail for your recommender than the one your recommender used to register his/her account. Please clarify with your recommender which e-mail address you should use for them and then update your account. Please ask your recommender not to change the e-mail address on his/her existing account, as this will not create a link to your account. Instead, please change your recommender's e-mail address on your "My Locker" page. Submitting a QuestBridge application and supplementary materials Does QuestBridge accept paper applications? No. College Prep Scholarship applications must be completed and submitted online. Teacher recommendations may be submitted by fax, but must be sent using the appropriate cover sheet provided in the student’s application. Do I need to submit my transcript and test score reports to QuestBridge? If so, how do I submit them? No, transcripts and test score reports are not required for the College Prep Scholarship. If you would like to submit these materials, however, please go to the "My Application" section of your "My Locker" page and print a fax cover sheet for transcripts and test scores. Either you or your guidance counselor may fax these materials to QuestBridge. The relationship between QuestBridge's programs What is the relationship between the QuestBridge College Prep Scholarship and the QuestBridge National College Match? The College Prep Scholarship (CPS) and the National College Match are both programs offered by QuestBridge. The CPS is open to high school juniors and grants awards designed to prepare high-achieving low-income students for the QuestBridge National College Match as well as the college admissions process in general. The National College Match is open to high school seniors and serves as a joint application for admission and full four-year scholarships to QuestBridge partner colleges. The information that applicants submit for the CPS application as juniors is automatically transferred into the National College Match application if a student chooses to apply to the National College Match program once they become a senior. Applicants will still be able to edit their information before they submit their applications for the National College Match. Is the College Prep Scholarship application required in order to apply for the National College Match? No. Students may apply to either one or both. Will winning a College Prep Scholarship award make me more likely to win a National College Match award? Probably. The College Prep Scholarship awards are designed to prepare students to be strong applicants for the National College Match as well as for the admissions process for selective colleges more generally. At the same time, it is important to note that many past applicants have received College Match scholarships without having applied for or received a College Prep Scholarship award, and not all College Prep Scholarship awardees go on to receive College Match scholarships. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||