The National College Match is a binding, early admission program similar to Early Decision. In traditional Early Decision programs, a student can apply to only one college through Early Decision, and if admitted, agrees to enroll at that college and withdraw applications to other colleges. Under the College Match, students can select up to eight QuestBridge partner colleges that they rank in order of preference. If admitted to one of their ranked colleges with a College Match scholarship (i.e. "matched"), they agree to enroll at that college and must withdraw any other college applications.**

Students can only be "matched" with one school: the highest ranked college on their list that admits them with a scholarship. Because of the binding nature of the College Match process, applicants must abide by the following policies:

• College Match applicants cannot apply to other colleges through Early Decision, Early Action, or Single-Choice Early Action (also known as Restrictive Early Action), even if all the schools ranked are non-binding schools. Think of it this way: QuestBridge is a doorway to many selective colleges, each of which has their own early application policy. Applying to QuestBridge and another early program therefore violates the policies of many of our participating partner colleges.
• College Match applicants may simultaneously apply to other colleges through those colleges' Regular Decision (non-binding) processes.

Please note that students who are not selected as finalists are not subject to any agreements with QuestBridge and are free to apply to any colleges for early or regular decision. Finalist notification is on October 22, 2012. 

**With the exception of four non-binding partner colleges: MIT, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale. For these schools, matched students are not obligated to attend the school, and may apply to other schools through Regular Decision and wait until the spring to decide where to enroll.

Exceptions to the QuestBridge Early Application Policy:

• Students may apply to any college or university that requires an early application for eligibility to special scholarships or programs, as long as the admissions decision is non-binding. 
• Students may apply to their home-state college or university with a non-binding early application option, as long as applying to QuestBridge does not violate that college's policies.
• Students may apply to any college or university with a non-binding rolling admission process. 

If you are considering applying early to a school that does not fall under one of the exceptions listed above, please write an e-mail to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  for clarification. 

For questions on our early application policy, please see our Frequently Asked Questions. 

Learn more about applying early to college.