A Record 17 Stuyvesant Seniors Match Through QuestBridge

On December 1, dozens of Stuyvesant seniors anxiously awaited their QuestBridge Match Day results, which determined the college that they would receive a full ride to attend. For the first time in the school’s history, a record 17 seniors successfully matched with a school and were each awarded a scholarship worth over $90,000 per year.

QuestBridge is a non-profit organization that “helps high achieving students from low income backgrounds” connect with top institutions. The National College Match Program—its flagship program—offers selected students four-year scholarships that fully cover tuition, room and board, and travel fees. Since 1994, it has helped thousands of students gain acceptance into colleges of their choice. “I initially didn’t know much about the Match, but I heard about it through the Prep Scholars Program, which is a precursor meant to prepare you for applying to college,” said senior and incoming Boston University freshman Jolin Suyono in an email interview. “I decided to apply because I thought it would look good on my application [to other colleges] and help me get more engaged with the idea of applying to college.”

To earn admission into the program, high school seniors must share their academic records, extracurriculars, and financial situation. QuestBridge then selects the most qualified students as finalists. “QuestBridge was specifically made to give FGLI [first-gen, low-income] high schoolers a chance to attend universities that may seem out of reach due to socioeconomic disadvantages,” Suyono said.

Finalists then rank their top 15 schools among QuestBridge’s partners, which include Ivy Leagues such as Harvard and Yale, as well as other prestigious institutions like MIT and Stanford. Suyono said, “Lots of great schools are QuestBridge partners, which also gave me a lot of variety.” The matching process is highly competitive, with only 10 to 15 percent of all national QuestBridge applicants gaining admission to one of their selected schools. However, this number rose to 28 percent this year at Stuyvesant.

While all finalists are required to rank schools, students differed in how they approached this decision. “I took a lot of factors into consideration, but I feel like the main ones were which schools I felt had better opportunities for my major and the location (as in, other than wanting to go to college in a city, I found that I ranked schools closer to New York higher on my list). Then, if I genuinely couldn’t decide between schools, I would just rank the one with a lower acceptance rate higher,” senior Stephanie Wiljaya said.

However, since ranking these schools does not guarantee admission; seniors must have a backup plan if they do not match. “A lot of people were warning me not to go through with QuestBridge because there was a high chance I would become a finalist and not match, so not only was that additional stress for me but that meant I decided to also work on my EA applications to CUNY/SUNY during that time period, and it was just a lot of work to do in a very short amount of time,” Wiljaya said.

Additionally, many applicants also emphasized the challenges of this process, encouraging students to manage their time when completing the application. “You should start working on your application as early as possible so that you have enough time to put your best effort into your writing and do enough research to make sure you actually want to go to the schools you’re ranking,” Wiljaya said.

Despite the extra work, QuestBridge finalists felt that applying through the program gave them more freedom to showcase who they are compared to other application portals, such as the Common App. “The biggest difference is that QuestBridge gave me more opportunities to be more detailed and showcase more of my personality, as not only does the personal statement have an 800-word limit (compared to Common App’s 650), but I also got to write another short essay, explain additional circumstances, answer fun, brief questions such as favorite books/movies, how I spend a typical weekend, and record an optional video about a topic of my choice,” Wiljaya said.

 Matching with one of QuestBridge’s partners is binding—once a student is accepted, they are required to attend. Contracts are not typically broken, since students receive a full scholarship and early admission into one of their top schools. If a student does not get accepted into any schools through the Match Program, they can use QuestBridge’s Regular Decision path to apply to partner schools with the same application. But in Suyono’s and Wiljaya’s cases, they were able to match with the colleges they ranked. “Thanks to the Match, I’ll be attending a great university for the next four years with zero parent contribution to my tuition. My mom is the only parent in the household, so being able to further my career without burdening her makes me incredibly grateful and proud of the work I’ve done to get here,” Suyono said.