essay about first year of college

Cornell Office of Undergraduate Admissions

Search cornell admissions, my experience as a first-generation college student.

My name is Emely Rodriguez. I am a first-year student from Long Island, New York. When I was offered admission to the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, I was overjoyed and extremely eager to commit to a program that so closely aligned with both my personal and professional goals. Nonetheless, I was equally anxious at the thought of attending such an esteemed institution as a first-generation college student. Naturally, I was worried that my limited prior knowledge and connections would hinder my success as a student. I also feared that being away from home would slowly detach me from my Dominican culture. As my freshman year comes to a close, I can confidently say that my fear was unfounded, both in a social and academic sense.  

During my college selection process, I attended Cornell Days, where admitted students and their families are invited to campus to take a tour, learn about resources, and take advantage of opportunities for connection building. I was approached by a first generation ILR ambassador who immediately made me feel extremely comfortable and welcomed. I expressed my concerns, and she responded by sharing her experience, reassuring me that once I arrived on campus, I would be surrounded by many opportunities and resources. Most importantly, she guaranteed I would find a community that fit me best.  

Supportive Student & Campus Organizations

As a first-generation Dominican immigrant, my culture, traditions, and heritage are sacred pillars that form my identity. The anticipation of new experiences marked my journey to Cornell, but also the apprehension of leaving behind what was familiar. During Clubfest, I met members of the Dominican Students Association, also known as Quisqueya. I was so happy to have found a warm home away from home in an otherwise unfamiliar environment. In joining the executive board, I was able to contribute meaningfully to this vibrant community. Joining Quisqueya was more than just an opportunity to connect with fellow Dominican students; it was a chance to immerse myself in the broader Latino community at Cornell, where I felt a sense of unity and belonging.  

Coming from a background where college education was not the norm, navigating the complexities of a prestigious institution like Cornell felt like charting unknown territory. However, joining the Minorities in ILR organization (MILRSO) gave me much-needed reassurance. Realizing that many individuals within the ILR School shared similar backgrounds, struggles, and aspirations was incredibly comforting. It was empowering to know that I was not alone in my experiences and that there were peers who understood the nuances of balancing academic pursuits with the expectations and challenges unique to first-generation students. It reaffirmed that while the journey of a first-generation student might be fraught with challenges, there are communities and networks ready to uplift and support us.  

One of these communities and networks is the Pre-Professional Program (P3), a program for minority students run by the Office of Academic Diversity and Inclusion. Professionally, P3 has been instrumental in preparing me for a future in law. The program offers a wealth of resources tailored to meet the unique needs of students like me, who strive for careers in competitive fields but may need more support networks to guide us there. Through workshops, seminars, and one-on-one guidance, P3 has equipped me with insightful knowledge and skills crucial for a pre-law student. However, the impact of P3 extends far beyond the professional realm. Socially, the program has been a lifeline, connecting me with a community of peers, mentors, and advisors who understand the challenges of being first-generation. While challenges are inevitable, P3 demonstrated that with proper support, certain obstacles in my life can be transformed into steppingstones for success.  

What I Learned 

My first year at ILR has been a profound journey of self-discovery, growth, and empowerment. The transformation from uncertainty to confidence did not happen overnight. My experiences have taught me an invaluable lesson: the key to overcoming the challenges of being a first-gen student lies in actively seeking out new connections and opportunities. It is imperative for students to realize their unique backgrounds are assets, not hindrances. At the ILR School, students and staff are deeply committed to fostering a nurturing environment where everyone is dedicated to supporting and uplifting each other, truly embodying the school's ethos of collaboration, inclusivity, and mutual respect.  

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Whether you are a first year student of a second year PhD student, reflecting on your academic year can be significant with how you plan to grow in the future, personally, professionally and academically. Check out these questions to help you start thinking about your previous year and how it has impacted you.

• Did I achieve the grades I aimed for?
• Which subjects did I excel in, and which ones presented challenges?
• How did my study habits evolve throughout the year?
• Did I effectively manage my time between classes, assignments, and extracurricular activities?
• How have I changed as a person since starting college?
• What new skills or knowledge have I acquired?
• Have I become more independent and self-reliant?
• Have I made progress towards my personal goals?
• Did I establish meaningful connections with peers and professors?
• Did I participate in campus activities and clubs that interested me?
• Did I strike a balance between socializing and academic responsibilities?
• How did I handle conflicts or challenges within social circles?
• How did I manage stress and anxiety throughout the year?
• Did I seek support from friends, family, or campus resources when needed?
• Did I maintain a healthy work-life balance?
• How can I better prioritize self-care and mental health in the upcoming year?
• Have my career aspirations or academic interests changed?
• Did I explore potential career paths through internships, volunteer work, or networking?
• Am I satisfied with my major, or do I want to explore other options?
• What steps can I take to further my academic and professional development in the next year?
• How effectively did I manage my finances throughout the year?
• Did I stick to a budget, or did I overspend?
• Did I take advantage of opportunities for scholarships, grants, or part-time work?
• What financial goals do I want to set for the upcoming year?
• Did I prioritize my physical health by exercising regularly and eating well?
• Did I access healthcare resources on campus when necessary?
• How can I improve my overall well-being in the next academic year?
• Did I establish healthy routines for sleep and relaxation?

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First-gen Essays from Campus

Major: Journalism

I came to Richmond to play for the football team and live the dream of being a Division-1 football player. I quickly realized that this lifestyle was not for me, and I left the team after one season. Once I was removed from the support system of the team, I began to understand what it meant to be a first-generation student and the problems that come with it. My car broke down and I had trouble finding friends because I was intimidated by the apparent comfort that everyone else seemed to have. I felt as if I was the only student who wasn’t in a fraternity, and I felt that I dressed differently than everyone else. I did not feel as if I belonged at Richmond. Soon enough, though, I got connected with some professors in the journalism department who guided me toward opportunities that changed my life. I got involved with the student newspaper and met people who had similar interests as I did. The biggest thing I learned was that I do belong at Richmond, and that although it may seem that everyone else has it figured out, they don’t.

Assistant Director of Media and Public Relations, University Communications

I was the first in my family (of seven older siblings) to receive a college degree. Though my parents were supportive when I expressed interest in going to college, I basically had to navigate the process solo. I sought out counselors, set up campus visits, and talked with friends’ older siblings who were in college. I had to make my own way among family members who didn’t really understand higher education — let alone applying for financial aid, housing, etc. It was a tough but rewarding process, and walking across the stage after graduating from a small liberal arts college is among the proudest moments of my life.

Kevin Butterfield

University Librarian, Boatwright Library

I was the first in my family to attend college. Leaving a small town for a Big Ten university with 30,000 students gave me a big case of culture shock. The vital and supportive relationships I built during that first year carried me through my four years there.

Myles Estey, ’17

Major: Business Administration, Management Concentration

Minor: Healthcare Studies

My experience as a first-generation student has allowed for personal development people my age don’t typically experience. My "unfortunate" experience is something I cherish because it has shaped me into the person I am today. I know what it’s like to be raised in a single-parent household while receiving government assistance, but I also know that my socioeconomic status doesn’t limit my goals and aspirations. I’m motivated to be more than just a statistic, and by attending the University of Richmond, I think I have already accomplished that goal.

Andrew Gurka

Director, Office of New Student and Transition Programs

I grew up humbly, raised by a single mom who worked hard, always emphasized education, and was my biggest cheerleader. For me, college was a means to an end — my sights were always on the end (a diploma) and not on the journey of college. My days consisted of class, work at the library shelving books, class, grabbing some lunch and studying, class, going to work giving a campus tour, dinner, hanging out with some friends, and going back to my residence hall to study.

My support structures on campus were the staff whose offices I worked in during my four years at college – all of the “second mothers” that I had — like Maxine, the administrative assistant in the admission office, and others around campus who watched out for me, encouraged me, and helped me navigate the university structures and processes.

Senior Administrative Officer, Equity and Community

When I attended the hall social my first week at Davidson College I met women who had attended elite private schools and others who had spent the summer at camps where they sailed, hiked, and more. These were foreign experiences to me. I began to worry that I was already behind and lacking what I needed to succeed in college. I decided at the moment to work even harder, to dedicate myself to learning and exploring, and to keep an open mind. This mindset contributed to what turned out to be an amazing, transformative four years.

Chris Klein

Associate Director of Study Abroad, Office of International Education

I grew up in a very small town and graduated with 95 other students. My family was supportive of my plans to go to college and I did my studies at a large state university. I went to the advising center when I had questions about choosing classes and to the career office as graduation approached. I generally got good advice but I now see that much of it assumed that I knew what I was doing, and that was not always true. What I needed most was a basic explanation on how to make choices so that my college years would be as helpful as possible in getting me to the life I wanted. And I specifically needed to hear this from someone who understood the “culture” of college-educated people, yet could explain it effectively to someone like me who was not yet a member of that group. I never really found that kind of “cultural informant.” I changed my major several times and missed opportunities for internships and study abroad because I was still trying to figure out the basics of college for myself. My advice to other first-generation college students is to never be afraid to ask questions, big or small, of the faculty or staff. Many people in jobs like mine, and especially those of us who have shared our stories, are more than willing to talk with you about the world of college and what comes after.

Mari Lee Mifsud

Associate Professor of Rhetoric

Director of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Department of Rhetoric and Communication Studies

I was the first person in my immediate family to go to college. The story of why is a long and hard one, so I’ll stay focused on the experience. School and learning was for me a life raft and going to college a survival dream come true. When I arrived, I was in awe — of the freedom, the beauty and dignity of the space, the abundance of the library, the opportunities to study and learn and become human. That’s how much power I gave to college. I saw it as the way to become more human. I studied all the time, and I had a great social life. Which meant I never slept and hardly ate. Exercise was not even on my radar. Who has time for such things, I thought! Until my body gave out. I had to change and heal. So I did. I scheduled my classes in a smarter way to allow for more "down" time. I ended my over-extension in extra-curriculars. I kept a disciplined sleep, exercise, and eating schedule, as disciplined as my studies. And I learned to take care of myself, to avoid being a supernova — burning hot and fast and brilliantly, then quickly burning out! I am still living this lesson though, as I love school so much. Being a professor is a life raft, and a survival dream come true. I am in awe of our work as a University community, and I find I want to do everything all the time. But I have to remember to reserve time to take care.

Bianca Ortiz

Area Coordinator for Westhampton College

I am extremely proud to be a first-generation student, as my experience has challenged me to find courage, independence, and mentors. I always saw myself as a lover of academics and education. Applying to college was exciting but tough for me to imagine as no one in my family had any experience or financial means. I relied on really great educators, such as my college career counselor to help me pay for my ACTs and college applications. He taught me my first lesson, the importance of mentors. I have had so many throughout my educational journey who never let me feel like I did not belong in college. Transitioning to college challenged me socially as I felt it hard to meet others like me, but thinking beyond what I didn’t have, I focused on what kind of experiences I wanted in college. Finding my niche in working for Residence Life created a bridge to feeling socially acclimated to the new college environment. Being a first-generation student did present some financial challenges as I did not fully comprehend the financial side of paying for college. At the end of all the challenges that came from being a first-generation student, making it to graduation was one of my proudest moments. Being able to attend university and to graduate was not only a transformative experience, for me but also for my family.

Zach Perry, ’17

Major: Philosophy with a Concentration in Ethics

Minor: German Studies

Being surrounded by legacy students here at the University of Richmond definitely makes fitting in difficult. In addition to being a first-generation student, I come from a divorced family of now two handicapped parents and, as a junior, still struggle to fit in to the dynamic of the "Richmond stereotype.” While the stereotype itself is mostly a construct, having the extra baggage of finances, family burdens, and the societal pressure of "setting the first-gen precedent" creates a new kind of struggle that shouldn’t have to be fought alone. I found solace in being involved with the variety of cultural groups on campus and taking full advantage of the liberal arts curriculum here at Richmond. Music and theatre has also allowed me to express myself without feeling the need to prove I belong here and to embrace the idea of being a part of the "Spider Family."

Ann Pongsakul, ’16

Major: Health Care and Society

Not going to college was never an option. My parents always told me not to be stupid like them. It’s harsh but I always felt the need to do them justice and reach as far as I could. I had to navigate the college application process solo. Google was my best friend. I didn’t get in anywhere I wanted to because I didn’t apply to the right schools. I picked myself up and eventually landed at UR, where a wealth of opportunities opened up. But with that came challenges. I never knew transferring could be so emotionally and academically difficult. But I sought the help that I needed and still tried to put myself out there. The best present UR gave me was letting me study abroad in Switzerland for a year. Up until today, I’ve felt lost and helpless plenty of times. But I’m proud to say that I’m independent and strong, and my future is bright because I’m in control of it. Who knows, maybe I’ll live in Europe again one day.

Brittney Quinones, ’13

I didn’t know where to start. I was the only Latina in all honors classes. I thought I was on the right path. I was involved, getting good grades, working; simply self-motivated. Everything I heard about college was hearsay from my friends and their families from extensive college visits. Finally, the summer after my junior year, my mom and I took one trip and Richmond just happened to be on the list. How’d I find Richmond? The College Board matchmaker. In a big public school, you have to fend for yourself. Let’s just say, there’s much more to finding the right college than what you see on the websites. Somehow, after about 1,000 phone calls, we figured it out. It all seemed perfect until the beginning of my second semester at school. I felt alone, like I was the only one who felt unprepared for Richmond’s academic rigor. I didn’t fit in with the people who looked like my friends from home and I didn’t have money to eat outside of the dining hall basically ever, etc. It didn’t make sense to me. Why was everything so different here? I called home and my mom continued to remind me how good that Richmond degree would be. So, I kept pushing myself. I made an effort to build relationships wherever I went. I looked for opportunities and kept inserting myself everywhere until I finally found the right people — friends, club advisers, and even professors who helped everything make a little more sense.

Laura Runyen-Janecky

Professor of Biology

One of the strongest memories of college orientation is my parents being overwhelmed, not because they were anxious about leaving their first-born child at college (though I suspect that was part of it), but because they were in awe of all the prospects that laid before their daughter. Although both of my parents attended community college, obtaining a bachelor’s degree was not an option for them. Thus, I was the first in my family to attend and graduate from a four-year college. As such, there were certainly many challenges – much of them financial, some logical, and others social. But there was an unexpected benefit of being the first in my family to attend a four-year college, which I began to recognize on orientation day as I watched my parents marvel in all that this small college in Texas had to offer their daughter. That benefit was a deep appreciation that college held opportunities that others (like my parents) did not have, and this is what I used as motivation when times were tough. It never occurred to me to skip class (well, almost never), grumble about the food, or complain about all my homework on top work-study jobs. How could I, when my parents would have relished the chance to have this college experience! As a college professor, I’ve worked with many first generation college students who have found their own, personal “unexpected benefit” of a first-generation college experience, and used that to accomplish great things. Here’s to you finding yours….

Rosanna Thai, ’17

Majors: Biology and Psychology

Being a first-generation student means that I have had to grow up faster than anyone else. I had to translate for my parents and file FAFSA by myself. My parents were absent for many of my events, such as family weekend. At the beginning of my time at college, I had many problems. I often felt isolated by my peers because our socioeconomic statuses and our experiences were different from one another. I also felt unloved because my parents never called or visited; however, I soon learned that their love is different from others’. They work almost every day in order for me to have enough money to accomplish my dreams here at UR. As the oldest, I try to be the American parent to my siblings so they do not have to go through what I went through. I appreciate all the things my parents have done for me, and I have grown an independent spirit because of my experiences.

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Opinion Guest Essay

This Is Peak College Admissions Insanity

Credit... Illustrations by Pete Gamlen

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By Daniel Currell

Mr. Currell, a lawyer and consultant, was a deputy under secretary and senior adviser at the Department of Education from 2018 to 2021. He is a trustee of Gustavus Adolphus College.

• May 1, 2024

Selective college admissions have been a vortex of anxiety and stress for what seems like forever, inducing panic in more top high school seniors each year. But the 2023-24 admissions season was not just an incremental increase in the frantic posturing and high-pressure guesswork that make this annual ritual seem like academic Hunger Games. This year was different. A number of factors — some widely discussed, some little noticed — combined to push the process into a new realm in which the old rules didn’t apply and even the gatekeepers seemed not to know what the new rules were.

It happened, as these things often do, first gradually and then all at once.

It started with a precipitous rise in the number of people clamoring to get in. The so-called Ivy-Plus schools — the eight members of the Ivy League plus M.I.T., Duke, Chicago and Stanford — collectively received about 175,000 applications in 2002. In 2022, the most recent year for which totals are available, they got more than 590,000, with only a few thousand more available spots.

The quality of the applicants has risen also. In 2002, the nation produced 134 perfect ACT scores ; in 2023 there were 2,542 . Over the same period, the United States — and beyond it, the world — welcomed a great many more families into the ranks of the wealthy, who are by far the most likely to attend an elite college. Something had to give.

The first cracks appeared around the rules that had long governed the process and kept it civilized, obligating colleges to operate on the same calendar and to give students time to consider all offers before committing. A legal challenge swept the rules away, freeing the most powerful schools to do pretty much whatever they wanted.

One clear result was a drastic escalation in the formerly niche admissions practice known as early decision.

Then Covid swept through, forcing colleges to let students apply without standardized test scores — which, as the university consultant Ben Kennedy says, “tripled the number of kids who said to themselves, ‘Hey, I’ve got a shot at admission there.’” More applications, more market power for the schools and, for the students, an ever smaller chance of getting in.

Last year, the Supreme Court’s historic decision ending race-based affirmative action left colleges scrambling for new ways to preserve diversity and students groping in the dark to figure out what schools wanted.

Finally, this year the whole financial aid system exploded into spectacular disarray. Now, a month after most schools sent out the final round of acceptances, many students still don’t have the information they need to determine if they can afford college. Some will delay attending, and some will forgo it entirely, an outcome that will have lasting implications for them and, down the line, for the economy as a whole.

These disparate changes had one crucial thing in common: Almost all of them strengthened the hand of highly selective colleges, allowing them to push applicants into more constricted choices with less information and less leverage. The result is that elite admissions offices, which have always tried to reduce the uncertainty in each new year’s decisions, are now using their market power to all but eliminate it. This means taking no chances in pursuit of a high yield, the status-bestowing percentage of admitted students who enroll. But low uncertainty for elite colleges means the opposite for applicants — especially if they can’t pay the full tuition rate.

Canh Oxelson, the executive director of college counseling at the Horace Mann School in New York, says: “This is as much uncertainty as we’ve ever seen. Affirmative action, the FAFSA debacle, test-optionality — it has shown itself in this one particular year. Colleges want certainty, and they are getting more. Families want certainty and they are getting less.”

In 2024, the only applicants who could be certain of an advantage were those whose parents had taken the wise precaution of being rich.

The Early Bird Gets the Dorm

For Ivy Wydler, an elite college seemed like an obvious destination, and many of her classmates at Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School in Washington, D.C., were headed along the same trajectory. After her sophomore year of high school, she took the ACT and got a perfect score — on her first try, a true rarity. Her grades were stellar. So she set her sights high, favoring “medium to big schools, and not too cold.”

Touring campuses, she was dazzled by how great and exciting it all seemed. Then she visited Duke, and something clicked. She applied in the binding early decision round.

It’s a consequential choice. Students can do so at only one college, and they have to promise to attend if accepted, before knowing what the school’s financial aid offer will be. That means there is at least a chance an applicant will be on the hook for the full cost, which at Duke is $86,886 for the 2024-25 year. Students couldn’t be legally compelled to attend if they couldn’t afford it, but by the time they got the news, they would have already had to withdraw their other applications.

If full tuition isn’t a deal killer, as it wouldn’t be for Ivy’s family, the rewards are considerable. This year, just over 54,000 high school seniors vied to be one of only 1,750 members of Duke’s incoming class. The 6,000 who applied in the early decision round were three times as likely to get in as the 48,000 who applied later.

Until recently, early decision was a narrow pathway — an outlier governed, like the rest of this annual academic mating season, by a set of mandatory practices laid out by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, which is made up of college admissions officers and high school counselors. Those rules said, for example, that colleges couldn’t recruit a student who was already committed to another school or actively encourage someone to transfer. Crucially, the rules said that colleges needed to give students until May 1 to decide among offers (noting early decision, which begins and ends in the fall, as a “recognized exception”).

The Justice Department thought those rules ran afoul of the Sherman Antitrust Act, which bars powerful industries from colluding to restrain competition. At the end of 2019, NACAC agreed to a settlement mandating that the organization “promptly abolish” several of the rules and downgrade the rest to voluntary guidelines. Now, if they chose to, colleges had license to lure students with special offers or benefits, to aggressively poach students at other schools and to tear up the traditional admissions calendar.

At that point, nothing restrained colleges from going all in on early decision, a strategy that allows them to lock in students early without making any particular commitments about financial aid. Of the 735 first-year students that Middlebury College enrolled last year, for example, 516 were admitted via binding early decision. Some schools have a second round of early decision, and even what amounts to an unofficial third round — along with an array of other application pathways, each with its own terms and conditions.

With the rules now abandoned, colleges got a whole new bag of tricks. For example, a school might call — at any time in the process — with a one-time offer of admission if you can commit on the spot to attend and let go of all other prospects. Hesitate and it’s gone, along with your chances in subsequent rounds. “We hear about colleges that are putting pressure on high school seniors to send in a deposit sooner to get better courses or housing options,” says Sara Harberson, the founder of Application Nation, a college advising service.

To inform these maneuvers, colleges lean on consultants who analyze applicant demographics, qualifications, financial status and more, using econometric models. High school seniors think this is checkers, but the schools know it’s chess. This has all become terrifying for students, who are first-time players in a game their opponents invented.

Application season can be particularly intimidating for students who, unlike Ivy, did not grow up on the elite college conveyor belt. When Rania Khan, a senior in Gorton High School in Yonkers, N.Y., was in middle school, she and her mother spent two years in a shelter near Times Square. Since then she and her younger brother have been in the foster system. Despite these challenges, she has been a superb student. In ninth grade, Rania got an internship at Google and joined a research team at Regeneron, a biotechnology company. She won a national award for her study of how sewage treatment chemicals affect river ecosystems. Looking at colleges, she saw that her scores and credentials matched with those of students at the very top schools in the country.

One of the schools she was most drawn to was Barnard. “I like that it’s both a small college and” — because it’s part of Columbia — “a big university. There are a lot of resources, and it’s a positive environment for women,” she said. And it would keep her close to her little brother.

Barnard now fills around 60 percent of its incoming class in the early decision round, giving those students a massive admissions advantage. It would have been an obvious option for Rania, but she can’t take any chances financially. She applied via the general decision pool, when instead of having a one in three chance, her odds were one in 20.

Officially, anyone can apply for early decision. In practice it’s priority boarding for first-class passengers.

Unstandardized Testing

When selective colleges suspended the requirement for standardized testing, it didn’t really seem like a choice; because of the pandemic, a great many students simply couldn’t take the tests. The implications, however, went far beyond mere plague-year logistics.

The SAT was rolled out in 1926 as an objective measure of students’ ability, absent the cultural biases that had so strongly informed college admissions before then. It’s been the subject of debate almost ever since. In 1980, Ralph Nader published a study alleging that the standardized testing regimen actually reinforced racial and gender bias and favored people who could afford expensive test prep. Many educators have come back around to regarding the tests as a good predictor of academic success, but the matter is far from settled.

Remarkably, students still take the exams in the same numbers as before the pandemic, but far fewer disclose what they got. Cindy Zarzuela, an adviser with the nonprofit Yonkers Partners in Education who works with Rania and about 90 other students, said all her students took the SAT this year. None of them sent their scores to colleges.

These days, Cornell, for example, admits roughly 40 percent of its incoming class without a test score. At schools like the University of Wisconsin or the University of Connecticut , the percentage is even higher. In California, schools rarely accept scores at all, being in many cases not only test-optional, but also “test-blind.”

The high-water mark of test-optionality, however, was also its undoing.

Applicants tended to submit their scores only if they were above the school’s reported median, a pattern that causes that median to be recalibrated higher and higher each year. When Cornell went test-optional, its 25th percentile score on the math SAT jumped from 720 to 750. Then it went to 760. The ceiling is 800, so standardized tests had begun to morph from a system of gradients into a yes/no question: Did you get a perfect score? If not, don’t mention it.

The irony, however, was that in the search for a diverse student body, many elite colleges view strong-but-not-stellar test scores as proof that a student from an underprivileged background could do well despite lacking the advantages of the kids from big suburban high schools and fancy prep schools. Without those scores, it might be harder to make the case .

Multiply that across the board, and the result was that test-optional policies made admission to an elite school less likely for some diverse or disadvantaged applicants. Georgetown and M.I.T. were first to reinstate test score requirements, and so far this year Harvard, Yale, Brown, Caltech, Dartmouth and Cornell have announced that they will follow. There may be more to come.

The Power of No

On Dec. 14, Ivy got an answer from Duke: She was rejected.

She was in extremely good company. It’s been a while since top students could assume they’d get into top schools, but today they get rejected more often than not. It even happens at places like Northeastern, a school now ranked 53rd in the nation by U.S. News & World Report — and not long ago, more than 100 slots lower than that. It spends less per student on instruction than the Boston public schools .

“There’s no target school anymore and no safety school,” says Stef Mauler , a private admissions coach in Texas. “You have to have a strategy for every school you apply to.”

Northeastern was one of the 18 other schools Ivy applied to, carefully sifting through various deadlines and conditions, mapping out her strategy. With Duke out of the picture, her thoughts kept returning to one of them in particular: Dartmouth, her father’s alma mater. “My mom said, ‘Ivy, you love New Hampshire. Look at Dartmouth.’ She was right.” She had wanted to go someplace warm, but the idea of cold weather seemed to be bothering her less and less.

Meanwhile Rania watched as early decision day came and went, and thousands of high school seniors across the country got the best news of their lives. For Rania, it was just another Friday.

A Free Market in Financial Aid

In 2003, a consortium of about 20 elite colleges agreed to follow a shared formula for financial aid, to ensure that they were competing for students on the merits, not on mere dollars and cents. It sounds civilized, but pricing agreements are generally illegal for commercial ventures. (Imagine if car companies agreed not to underbid each other.) The colleges believed they were exempt from that prohibition, however, because they practiced “ need-blind ” admissions, meaning they don’t discriminate based on a student’s ability to pay.

In 2022, nine current and former students from an array of prestigious colleges filed a class-action antitrust lawsuit — later backed by the Justice Department — arguing that the consortium’s gentlemanly agreement was depriving applicants of the benefits of a free market. And to defang the defense, they produced a brilliant argument: No, these wealthy colleges didn’t discriminate against students who were poor, but they sure did discriminate in favor of students who were rich. They favored the children of alumni and devoted whole development offices to luring the kinds of ultrarich families that affix their names to shiny new buildings. It worked: Early this year, Brown, Columbia, Duke, Emory and Yale joined the University of Chicago in conceding , and paying out a nine-figure settlement. (They deny any wrongdoing.) Several other schools are playing on, but the consortium and its rules have evaporated.

This set schools free to undercut one another on price in order to get their preferred students. It also gave the schools a further incentive to push for early decision, when students don’t have the ability to compare offers.

For almost anyone seeking financial aid, from the most sought-after first-round pick to the kid who just slid under the wire, the first step remained the same: They had to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form, or FAFSA.

As anyone knows who’s been through it — or looked into the glassy eyes of someone else who has — applying for financial aid can be torture at the best of times. This year was the worst of times, because FAFSA was broken. The form, used by the government to determine who qualifies for federal grants or student loans, and by many colleges to determine their in-house financial aid, had gotten a much-needed overhaul. But the new version didn’t work , causing endless frustration for many families, and convincing many others not even to bother. At mid-April, finished FAFSA applications were down 29 percent compared with last year.

“The FAFSA catastrophe is bigger than people realize,” says Casey Sacks , a former U.S. Department of Education official and now the president of BridgeValley Community and Technical College in West Virginia, where 70 percent of students receive federal funds.

Abigail Garcia , Rania’s classmate and the 2024 valedictorian of their school, applied to in-state public colleges as well as Ivies. She couldn’t complete the FAFSA, however, because it rejected her parents’ information, the most common glitch. She has financial aid offers from elite schools, all of which use a private alternative to the government form, but she can’t weigh them against the public institutions, because they are so severely delayed.

For most students, 2024’s FAFSA crisis looks set to take the uncertainty that began last fall and drag it into the summer or beyond. “That’s going to reduce the work force in two to four years.” Ms. Sacks says. “FAFSA completions are a pretty good leading indicator of how many people will be able to start doing the kinds of jobs that are in highest demand — registered nurses, manufacturing engineers, those kinds of jobs.”

As the FAFSA problem rolls on, it could be that for the system as a whole, the worst is still to come.

Can Any of This Be Fixed?

On the numbers, elite college applicants’ problems are a footnote to the story of college access. The Ivy-Plus schools enroll less than 1 percent of America’s roughly 15 million undergraduates . If you expand the pool to include all colleges that are selective enough to accept less than a quarter of applicants, we’re still talking about only 6 percent of undergraduates. The easiest way to alleviate the traffic jam at the top is to shift our cultural focus toward the hundreds of schools that offer an excellent education but are not luxury brands.

Luxury brand schools, however, have real power. In 2023, 15 of 32 Rhodes scholars came from the Ivies, nine from Harvard alone. Twenty of this year’s 38 Supreme Court clerks came from Harvard or Yale. If elite colleges’ selection process is broken, what should we do to fix it?

Here’s what we can’t do: Let them go off and agree on their own solution. Antitrust law exists to prevent dominant players from setting their own rules to the detriment of consumers and competitors.

Here’s what we won’t do: Legislate national rules that govern admissions. Our systems are decentralized and it would take a miracle for Congress not to make things worse.

But here’s what we can do: Hold the schools accountable for their processes and their decisions.

Institutions that receive federal funds — which include all elite colleges — should be required to clearly state their admissions criteria. Admissions as currently practiced are designed to let schools whose budgets run on billions of taxpayers dollars do whatever they want. Consider Stanford’s guidance to applicants: “In a holistic review, we seek to understand how you, as a whole person, would grow, contribute and thrive at Stanford, and how Stanford would, in turn, be changed by you.” This perfectly encapsulates the current system, because it is meaningless.

Colleges should also not be allowed to make anyone decide whether to attend without knowing what it will actually cost, and they should not be allowed to offer better odds to those who forgo that information. They should not offer admissions pathways tilted to favor the rich, any more than they should offer pathways favoring people who are white.

It just shouldn’t be this hard. Really.

The Envelope Please …

Ivy has the highest academic qualifications available inside the conventional system, and her family can pay full tuition. Once upon a time, she would have had her pick of top colleges. Not this year.

Over the course of the whole crazy admissions season, the school she had come to care about most was Dartmouth.

Along with the other seven Ivies, Dartmouth released this year’s admissions decisions online on March 28, at 7 p.m. Eastern. Ivy was traveling that day, and as the moment approached, she said, “I was on the bed in my hotel room, just repeating, ‘People love me for who I am, not what I do. People love me for who I am, not what I do.’”

She was rejected by Duke, Vanderbilt, Stanford, Columbia and the University of Southern California, where Operation Varsity Blues shenanigans could once guarantee acceptance but, as Ivy discovered, a perfect score on the ACT will not. She landed on the wait list at Northeastern. She was accepted by Michigan and Johns Hopkins. And Ivy was accepted at both her parents’ alma maters: the University of Virginia and Dartmouth, where she will start in September.

For Rania, the star student with an extraordinary story of personal resilience, the news was not so good. At Barnard, she was remanded to the wait list. Last year only 4 percent of students in that position were eventually let in. N.Y.U. and the City University of New York’s medical college put her on the wait list, too.

A spot on a wait list tells applicants that they were good enough to get in. By the time Rania applied to these schools, there just wasn’t any room. “It was definitely a shock,” she said. “What was I missing? They just ran out of space — there are so many people trying to get into these places. It took two weeks to adjust to it.”

She did get lots of other good news, a sheaf of acceptances from schools like Fordham and the University at Albany. But then came the hardest question of all: How to pay for them? Some offered her a financial aid package that would leave her on the hook for more money than undergraduates are allowed to take out in federal student loans. Even now, some colleges haven’t been able to provide her with financial aid information at all.

Rania had all but settled on Hunter College, part of the City University system. It’s an excellent school, but a world away from the elite colleges she was thinking about when she started her search. Then at almost the last moment, Wesleyan came through with a full ride and even threw in some extra for expenses. Rania accepted, gratefully.

For Rania, the whole painful roller coaster of a year was over. For so many other high school seniors, the year of broken college admissions continues.

Daniel Currell, a lawyer and consultant, was a deputy under secretary and senior adviser at the Department of Education from 2018 to 2021. He is a trustee of Gustavus Adolphus College.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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Writing a Persuasive Essay

View in pdf format, the introduction.

Simply enough, the introductory paragraph introduces the argument of your paper. A well-constructed introductory paragraph immediately captures a reader’s interest and gives appropriate background information about the paper’s topic. Such a paragraph might include a brief summary of the ideas to be discussed in body of the paper as well as other information relevant to your paper’s argument. The most important function of the introductory paragraph, however, is to present a clear statement of the paper’s argument. This sentence is your paper’s thesis. Without a thesis, it is impossible for you to present an effective argument. The thesis sentence should reflect both the position that you will argue and the organizational pattern with which you will present and support your argument. A useful way to think about the construction of a thesis sentence is to view it in terms of stating both the “what” and the “how” of the paper’s argument. The “what” is simply the basic argument in your paper: what exactly are you arguing? The “how” is the strategy you will use to present this argument. The following are helpful questions for you to consider when formulating a thesis sentence:

• What is the argument that I am trying to convince the reader to accept?
• How exactly do I expect to convince the reader that this argument is sound?

Once you have answered these questions, the next step is to synthesize these answers into a single thesis sentence, or, if necessary, two thesis sentences.

For example: You want to convince your reader that the forces of industry did not shape American foreign policy from the late 19th century through 1914, and you plan to do this by showing that there were other factors which were much more influential in shaping American foreign policy. Both of these elements can be synthesized into a thesis sentence:

Fear of foreign influence in the Western hemisphere, national pride, and contemporary popular ideas concerning both expansion and foreign peoples had significantly more influence on American foreign policy than did the voices of industrialists.

This sentence shows the position you will argue and also sets up the organizational pattern of your paper's body.

The body of your paper contains the actual development of your paper’s argument. Each body paragraph presents a single idea or set of related ideas that provides support for your paper’s argument. Each body paragraph addresses one key aspect of your paper’s thesis and brings the reader closer to accepting the validity of your paper’s argument. Because each body paragraph should be a step in your argument, you should be mindful of the overall organization of your body paragraphs. The first step in writing an effective body paragraph is the construction of the first sentence of this paragraph, the topic sentence. Just as the thesis sentence holds together your essay, the topic sentence is the glue binding each individual body paragraph. A body paragraph’s topic sentence serves two main purposes: introducing the content of the paragraph and introducing the next step of your argument. It is important to keep in mind that the goal of the topic sentence is to advance your paper's argument, not just to describe the content of the paragraph. For example: The first part in your thesis on page two states that fear of foreign influence in the Western Hemisphere had more influence on American foreign policy than did industry. Thus, you need to elaborate on this point in your body paragraphs. An effective topic sentence for one of these paragraphs could be:

American fear of foreign influence was a key factor in the United States’ actions in the Spanish-American War. Subsequent body paragraphs might offer further evidence for the idea presented in this body paragraph.

A good way to test the strength of both your topic sentences and your argument as a whole is to construct an outline of your paper using only your paper's thesis statement and topic sentences. This outline should be a logical overview of your paper's argument; all of your paper’s topic sentences should work together to support your thesis statement.

The Conclusion

A basic purpose of your paper’s concluding paragraph is both to restate the paper’s argument and to restate how you have supported this argument in the body of the paper. However, your conclusion should not simply be a copy of your introduction. The conclusion draws together the threads of the paper’s argument and shows where the argument of your paper has gone. An effective conclusion gives the reader reasons for bothering to read your paper. One of the most important functions of this paragraph is to bring in fresh insight. Some possible questions to consider when writing your conclusion are:

• What are some real world applications of this paper’s argument?
• Why is what I am writing about important?
• What are some of the questions that this paper’s argument raises?
• What are the implications of this paper’s argument?

While the organization and structure described in this handout are necessary components of an effective persuasive essay, keep in mind that writing itself is a fluid process. There are no steadfast rules that you need to adhere to as you write. Simply because the introduction is the first paragraph in your essay does not mean that you must write this paragraph before any other. Think of the act of writing as an exploration of ideas, and let this sense of exploration guide you as you write your essay.

by Adam Polak ’98 and Jen Collins ’96

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An Honest Reflection Of My First Year At College

I remember entering my first accounting class at the university. It was 8:00 AM on a Wednesday. As soon as I entered the room, I looked around and noticed plenty of students sitting in the room who were just as anxious as I was. When the lecture began, I realized I had to take my studies seriously. My classes weren’t just going to be a walk in the park.

Now that the second semester has finished, I realize how much the first year of university has changed my life. There were many facts about myself that I had not found out about at first. I never thought that I would end up enjoying accounting courses as much as I expected. I never thought that I would discover more of my strengths and weaknesses as well.

I also found my first co-op and internship placement during my first year. This was a drastic change compared to what I had to endure last year when my placement was terminated accidentally. The interview process was daunting and challenging, with multiple rounds and intense competition. However, I prepared thoroughly, sought guidance from career services, and practiced my interview skills. In the end, my perseverance paid off, and I was able to push on and land a position.

After all, the first year of university taught me an important lesson: never give up on yourself. Sometimes, when it feels like the world is ending, you’re being pushed in a new direction. Because of that, you shouldn’t look at the negatives but at what you can control in your life. It’s crucial to maintain a positive mindset, believe in your abilities, and keep pushing forward, even in the face of adversity.

When I entered university, I felt hopeless regarding my progress. I entered after a placement termination, a setback that left me questioning my abilities and future. This, coupled with the realization that my previous program was not worth it for me and having experienced some horrible workplace incidents, led to a significant shift in my perspective. I felt my future was not better than I expected and that I lost myself throughout the process. The eager student who wanted to study and try the hardest to excel in courses was no longer who I was. She felt foreign to me, and I thought that the ambitious version of myself was just hidden in my personal history.

However, the first and second semesters of university allowed me to realize that giving myself another chance was perhaps the right answer. I witnessed and realized that I could achieve my goals if I put my mind to them and fully immersed myself in the process.

When my second year starts, I plan to fulfill and establish more goals as I strengthen my extracurricular experience. Moreover, I plan to engage more with my community by meeting more fellow students.

Starting all over again is perhaps the best decision you can ever make. By starting over, you’ll give yourself more chances to showcase your skills and work towards other achievements. Even if it feels like the world is ending, you’ll be more than prepared to see what you can achieve and more than happy to see your own progression.

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How Old is a Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior in High School?

May 3, 2024

How Old are Freshmen, Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors in High School? At what ages do most students in attend high school? Well, in the United States, youth go through four levels of education:

• Early Childhood Education

Elementary School

Middle school, high school.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics , in the fall of 2021 about 49.4 million students were enrolled in public elementary and secondary schools and 5.5 million students were enrolled in private schools. In this article, we’ll first consider each of the four levels of education, including the age ranges for each. Then we’ll dive into the high school years specifically, and what to expect from 9th-12th grade.

Early Childhood Education (ECE)

Typically, early childhood education takes place between the ages of 2-5. Options for early childhood education include both publicly- and privately-funded daycare, preschool, and Head Start services . While parents/guardians are not required by law to pursue early childhood education, the majority of children in the US have participated in some type of non-parental enrichment and/or care program by the age of 5 .

Academic studies indicate that children who participate in high-quality early childhood education programs experience benefits throughout adolescence . For example, according to the Office of the Administration for Children & Families :

• ECE can help children learn the foundational skills for reading, math, self-control, and positive relationships.
• All young children can benefit from ECE, but high-quality programs are especially helpful for children from families experiencing low household income, children with disabilities, and dual-language leaders.
• Participating in ECE programs can yield long-term advantages for individuals and society, including higher educational attainment, better adult health, and decreased involvement in crime.

Usually, children attend elementary school from Kindergarten to 5th grade, although some schools in the US extend elementary school through 6th grade. To some degree, the age range of elementary school students depends on the age at which students begin kindergarten and whether they repeat a grade . Typically, though, students attend elementary school from ages 5 to 10 or 11.

• Kindergarten : On average, students begin kindergarten at age 5. Each state provides different guidelines regarding kindergarten entrance ages . For example, students in California must turn 5 on or before September 1, whereas students in Missouri must turn 5 on or before July 31. If their children are on the younger end of the age range (September 1 birthday, for instance), parents may opt to postpone kindergarten enrollment for a year—until age 6. Moreover, only 20 states technically require kindergarten attendance, and the structures of kindergarten programs can vary, with some districts offering part-time or half-day options.
• 1st Grade: Ages 6-7
• 2nd Grade: Ages 7-8
• 3rd Grade: Ages 8-9
• 4th Grade: Ages 9-10
• 5th Grade: Ages 10-11

Middle school (sometimes called junior high school) starts with 6th or 7th grade and ends with 8th grade. Most students attend middle school from ages 11-13. Unlike elementary school, where children generally learn different subjects from one teacher in a single classroom, middle school students tend to move from classroom to classroom and teacher to teacher throughout the school day. Middle school facilitates the cognitive, social, and academic transition from elementary school to high school, and generally covers the “pre-teen” years. While middle school offers opportunities to develop academic interests, foundational skills, and strong study habits, colleges do not consider middle school grades in admissions .

• 6th Grade: Ages 11-12
• 7th Grade: Ages 12-13
• 8th Grade: Ages 13-14

High School starts with 9th grade and ends with 12th grade. Most students attend high school from ages 14-18 (the bulk of the teenage years), although ages can vary slightly depending on the age at which a student entered elementary school, whether they repeated and/or skipped grades before high school, and their performance and course load during high school. Research suggests that increasing the minimum school-leaving age to 18 both increases high-school graduation rates and improves the life outcomes of students.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have contributed to a greater range of variations in high school ages . Typically, though, these age variations extend—at most—about a year in either direction. Therefore, it remains relatively rare for a student to start high school before age 13 or graduate before age 17 or after age 19.

How Old is a Freshman? How Old is a Sophomore? How old is a Junior? How old is a Senior?

That is, in general, do high-school drop-out or early graduation rates affect the average age of high school students? Not really. High school drop-out rates decreased from 8.3% in 2010 to 5.2% in 2021 , and older students who did not graduate from high school tend to pursue a high school equivalency credential such as a GED certificate rather than return to high school.

• 9th Grade: Ages 14-15 (First Year of High School). Traditionally, 14- and 15-year-old high school students are referred to as “freshmen” and 9th grade constitutes a student’s “freshman” year. In recent years, however, there has been a push to refer to 9th grade students as “first-year students” or “first-years” rather than “freshmen.” Although more common at the college level , and in the UK , this semantic shift is increasingly common at the high school level as well, mostly due to pushes for greater gender-inclusivity in language. For example, the “freshmen” vs. “first-year” issue is comparable to stylistic guidelines that recommend referring to “human beings” or “humankind” rather than “mankind.”
• 10th Grade: Ages 15-16 (Second Year of High School). 10th grade students are “sophomores.” The term “sophomore” translates roughly to “wise fool” in ancient Greek. Depending on your perspective, you may find this meaning accurate or offensive! As with “freshman,” “sophomore” has fallen out of favor in the UK (where “second-year” tends to be used instead), but remains the norm in the US.
• 11th Grade: Ages 16-17 (Third Year of High School). 11th grade students are referred to as “juniors.”
• 12th Grade: Ages 17-18 (Fourth and Final Year of High School). 12th grade students are referred to as “seniors” and often fall prey to “senioritis”—particularly after college admission decisions are released. While often used humorously to describe one’s (understandable!) decline in motivation or performance, senioritis can present real challenges and result in unfortunate consequences—including, in severe circumstances, revoked college admission.

First- and second-year students (freshmen and sophomores) tend to be referred to collectively as “lowerclassmen” or “underclassmen,” whereas third- and fourth-year students (juniors and seniors) are “upperclassmen.” Unlike with the first-year vs. freshman matter, gender inclusive terms for these groupings are uncommon, especially at the high school level. The phrases “lower-division” and “upper-division” are gaining traction, however.

What to Expect During Each Year of High School?

The high school years are transformative, and meant to facilitate the transition into adulthood (marked, in the US, by one’s 18th birthday). By the end of high school (or at least by the end of the summer after one’s senior year), most students can:

• Drive legally
• Vote in elections
• Enlist in the military
• Choose to marry without parental consent or judicial approval

Academically, high school is meant to prepare students either for post-secondary education or for entering the workforce. Here is what you might expect during each year:

9th Grade (Freshman)

Your first year of high school is the one with the lowest stakes in terms of your future, although it can set the tone for the rest of your high school experience (and your post-secondary options). During your first-year of high school, focus on:

• Getting acclimated
• Developing strong study habits
• Honing in on your academic interests, including considering your school’s Honors or AP offerings
• Exploring Extracurriculars

10th Grade (Sophomore Year)

Things ramp up your sophomore year of high school, and not just because this is the year many students acquire a valid driver’s license! If your first-year is one of acclimation, your second year tends to be one of planning. During your sophomore year of high school, you might:

• Pursue leadership opportunities via extracurricular activities, athletics, or internships (there are many options— online internships , law internships , business internships , medical internships , etc.)
• Develop a relationship with your high school guidance counselor
• Take the PSAT and/or take the ACT or SAT early for practice (or start preparing for these tests)
• Explore Honors or AP offerings
• Begin a list of colleges in which you are interested and/or start planning or taking college visits

11th Grade (Junior Year)

Things get real during your junior year! If you have post-secondary education goals, this is the year of preparation. You’ll likely:

• Take the SAT and/or the ACT
• Zero in on your academic and career interests, and curate your courses accordingly
• Work with your family and guidance counselor to develop a list of colleges that align with your academic and career interests, as well as your personal inclinations and financial circumstances
• Cultivate relationships with teachers and others from whom you might ask for letters of recommendation
• Take AP Exams
• Continue with extracurriculars and other leadership opportunities
• Brainstorm or even draft your college application essay

12th Grade (Senior Year)

It’s go time! For college-bound seniors, 12th grade is divided into two “before and after” periods: before and after application deadlines and before and after admission decisions. During the first half of senior year, you’ll:

• (Maybe) retake the SAT or ACT
• Finalize your post-high school plans and, if applicable, your list of colleges
• Take any final college visits and consider whether you want to apply early decision or early action
• Write your college application essay(s)
• Request letters of recommendation
• (Probably) submit your college applications, as well as applications for scholarships and financial aid

During the second half of senior year, you might:

• Apply to colleges with late application deadlines
• Consider your college admission offers!
• Continue pursuing scholarships and other financial aid opportunities
• Relax a bit! But not so much that you jeopardize your college admission
• Attend prom, make graduation plans, and generally celebrate milestones
• High School Success

Jordan Conley

Jordan received her BA from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA, where she majored in Religious Studies and Classics. Following her undergraduate work, she spent several years teaching elementary school--first in northern Thailand as a fellow with Princeton in Asia, then in Bozeman, Montana. Jordan went on to receive a Master's in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School, and is currently working toward completing her PhD at Boston University, focusing on religions of the Ancient Mediterranean.

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The QuestBridge College Prep Scholars Program: A Comprehensive Guide

What Is College Prep Scholars Program?

Who Can Apply?

How to apply.

Powerful Benefits

A Pathway to Elite Schools

The QuestBridge College Prep Scholars Program helps academically motivated low-income high school juniors embark early on a successful transition to a great university. Each spring thousands of qualifying applicants who get accepted into the program enjoy unique support, including access to summer study programs, higher education mentors, college application resources, awards programs, and more. The program also elevates participants' visibility across a wide network of top-notch colleges and universities while helping to demystify the complexities of applying to college.

If your family is low income but you have an exceptional academic record and dreams of getting into a top school, keep reading to learn more about QuestBridge, the College Prep Scholars program, whose eligible, how to apply, and more.

What Is QuestBridge?

QuestBridge is a US nonprofit, founded in 1994, that partners with a network of member schools, all with the goal of helping low-income students — and often first-generation college students — successfully navigate the college application landscape.

• A vision for greater equity in top colleges and universities. A higher education nonprofit, the Questbridge mission is to “recruit, develop, and support motivated low-income students to be successful at America’s best colleges, graduate schools, and companies.”
• A powerful platform and network. To amplify its impact, QuestBridge actively partners with more than fifty well respected US colleges and universities , including Amherst, Claremont McKenna, Columbia, Dartmouth, MIT, Rice, Stanford, USC, Vanderbilt, and more — making it an exceptionally powerful partner for your quest to get into a highly selective school!
• A web of programs, people, and resources. True to its core mission of helping low-income and first-generation students navigate the college admissions process, QuestBridge offers participating students a kind of backdoor ticket to their dream college through its National CollegeMatch + Match Scholarship college recruitment program. In addition, QuestBridge has various academic award programs and provides informational resources and coaching support to help under-resourced students prepare for college, apply for college, and pay for college!
• Unfortunately, the program is not open to international students residing outside the US.

Given the quality of the partnering schools and today's competitive admissions landscape , QuestBridge offers a unique model, empowering motivated students who are striving to earn their way to a top school despite financial and generational challenges.

Keep reading for a deep dive into the College Prep Scholars Program , QuestBridge's competitive early entry program for qualifying high school juniors.

For first-generation or low-income students, the process of applying to college can feel like putting the puzzle together without the picture on the box for reference. That's why many students seek out free resources for college admissions assistance.

- josh moody, higher education reporter, us news & world report, what is the questbridge college prep scholars program.

If you’re a qualifying high school junior — more on that in a moment — the College Prep Scholars Program is an ideal way to get connected to QuestBridge services, resources, and university networks.

Key Features:

• It's free to apply
• It's an opportunity to win a full scholarship to a summer academic program at a top university
• Offers a potential fast track to the organization's flagship National College Match & Scholarship Program  .

The QuestBridge College Prep Scholars Program is designed for high school juniors with outstanding academics who come from low-income backgrounds (families earning less than $65,000 a year for a household of four).

Here’s what you need to know about the eligibility criteria:

General Eligibility

• Grade Level: You must be a high school junior planning to apply to college in the following year.
• Residency: Open to all students attending high school in the U.S., including U.S. Citizens and Permanent Residents living abroad. International students outside the U.S. are not eligible.

Academic Achievement

• Grades: Primarily A’s in challenging courses (Honors, AP, IB, summer bridge).

- Class Rank: Top 5-10% of the graduating class.

- Standardized Test Scores: Optional, but recommended if you have them. Typical scores for past Scholars:

- SAT: 1290 - 1460 (middle 50%)

- ACT: 26 - 31 (middle 50%)

Financial Qualifications

To qualify students based on income, QuestBridge looks at both family income, family size, and important family resources or assets.

• Income: Typically less than $65,000 annually for a family of four, with consideration given to higher incomes in cases of significant hardship.
• Assets: Includes all significant family assets (home, business ownership, savings, etc.).

Personal Circumstances

• Family Background: Many Scholars are first-generation college students, but it’s not required.
• Responsibilities: Involvement in extracurricular activities or significant family or home responsibilities.
• Personal Traits: Demonstrated strength in character and motivation.

We are looking for high school juniors who have shown outstanding academic ability despite financial challenges. We take a holistic approach to reviewing applications, and we do not have absolute criteria or cut-offs for GPA, standardized test scores, income, or other factors.

- questbridge.

To apply, you’ll need to submit the College Prep Scholars Program application using the online portal .

It’s free to apply, and you’ll find links to application support resources and application instructions here .

Application Components

• Information on your academics, activities, household, and financial background
• Writing section
• A recommendation from a teacher in a core academic subject
• Current high school transcript (unofficial transcripts are accepted)
• Any standardized test score reports to date (if taken) . You can submit PSAT, Pre-ACT, SAT, ACT , or AP test scores (unofficial test score reports are accepted).
• School Profile (optional, but recommended)

Why the College Prep Scholars Program Is So Powerful

Academic distinction and visibility.

The most game-changing benefit of being a College Prep Scholar can simply be the visibility it provides you within the organization’s network of partner colleges. In essence, the distinction itself pre-qualifies you for great future opportunities.

Your status as a College Prep Scholar signals to partner schools that in addition to meeting  program eligibility criteria, you’re an exceptionally committed and academically accomplished student.

Exceptional University Summer Programs

During the summer between junior and senior years, QuestBridge College Prep Scholars may get selected to take college-level courses on a world-class campus, preparing for college and college life.

This noteworthy benefit is a chance to experience life beyond high school while also exploring university-level academics before applying to college in your senior year.

Summer learning awards may cover the full cost of travel, tuition, housing and meals, and supplies.

According to QuestBridge, students who participate in a summer program will:

• Learn, study, and write at the college level with students from around the country.
• Attend classes and experience university-level coursework.
• Develop connections with and get to know faculty.
• Learn more about college life and the extensive resources top colleges offer to support students from low-income backgrounds.

Resources to Boost Your College Journey

As a QuestBridge College Prep Scholar, you’ll be in the running for a range of other awards and opportunities, including:

• Quest for Excellence Awards , such as a $1,000 award for a new laptop, or other resources to help you enhance your college applications
• Exclusive access to a QuestBridge National College Admissions Conference — an invitation-only event featuring workshops and a college fair with partner colleges and universities
• Access to one or more exclusive college essay workshops
• Campus visits with sponsorship from QuestBridge college partners
• Specialized guidance and resources for the college application process
• Peer-to-peer support in an online community

A Pathway to the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, and Other Great Schools

Whether you gain the distinction of being a College Prep Scholar or not, simply applying is a great way to signal your interest in QuestBridge programs and learn more about all they offer.

If you fit the eligibility criteria and you’re motivated to achieve academically in high school and college, QuestBridge can help you chart a course to any number of truly exceptional colleges and universities across a higher education network that includes seven Ivies, Stanford, MIT, and many more great schools. (As of this writing, Harvard was the only Ivy not partnering with QuestBridge.)

In addition to the visibility you get within their network of school partners ,  the opportunities for one-on-one admissions advising, essay coaching, peer and educator networks, and other resources can provide you access to a level of guidance you don’t often see for students, especially students whose families can’t afford private admissions counselors.

Empowering Students to Achieve Their Dreams

I've watched College Prep Scholars gain confidence in themselves and their college potential. Many go on to attend schools like Yale, UPenn, and Stanford on full scholarships through QuestBridge.

As a Questbridge College Prep Scholar you're not just being helped through the college application process, you're being actively encouraged and empowered every step of the way, until you cross the graduation stage.

If you have what it takes to be a College Prep Scholar, you have what it takes to succeed at the nation's best colleges. This program helps you make that dream a reality.

The power of the QuestBridge College Prep Scholars Program is hard to over estimate. It can be truly life changing for the students who participate. If you're an academically talented junior from a low-income household, I urge you to apply — it could be the single most important stepping stone to your future success.

Getting Accepted… Expert Tips and Insights

Here are a few tips to get you on track if you want to apply for the College Prep Scholars.

• Review 'how to apply' for links to guidelines, timelines, and instructions.
• Start early and craft your application thoughtfully.
• Highlight your dedication through your GPA , rigorous academics , and extracurricular achievements.
• Seek out recommenders who can speak genuinely about your character and potential.

Just to highlight the size and scope of the opportunity, 3,911 high school juniors — about 23% of those who applied — got selected to be College Prep Scholars in the last scholarship cycle , based on their academic achievement, financial qualifications, and personal character!

What Other Programs Help with College Admissions Planning?

While Questbridge is an exceptional program, and one that stands apart from most others, you can find some other organizations also eager to help deserving students with less financial resources get support for their college journey.

College Possible

• Advantages: College Possible offers extended academic mentoring and support, beginning as early as middle school, with the goal of helping under-represented students chart a successful path to and through college.
• Limitations: Most services are site based and only operating in a small number of states and locales.
• Tip: If you can’t connect with the program where you live, be sure to check out their nation-wide digital platform called CoPilot.

Get Schooled

• Advantages: Get Schooled offers access to resource banks and some real-time advising support; designed to help students with college applications, college success, job searches, and resumes. Programs and resources are advertised as being free, safe to access, and buffered from advertising.
• Limitations : While the program offers a way to text questions to advisors, there’s no comprehensive advising and mentoring programs.
• Tip: This platform might be a good resource to supplement the kinds of support you’d get from a college and career counselor at your high school.

Crimson Access Opportunity (CAO)

• Advantages: CAO has global reach and offers students from moderate-to-low-income families an opportunity to access financial support and admissions advising support and insights from Crimson Education , a global leader in the College Admissions Advising space.
• Limitations: CAO’s support is mostly for rising seniors navigating the college application process and transfer students are not eligible.
• TiP: You can also apply if you’re aiming to apply to college during a gap year, after high school, and CAO supports students from every country and nationality.

Final Thoughts

The Questbridge College Prep Scholars Program is more than just a scholarship program; it's a lifeline for high-achieving, low-income students who dare to dream big. As a college counselor, I’ve seen the impact it can have on students’ lives, offering them the resources, guidance, and confidence to pursue their college dreams. I strongly encourage eligible students to seize this opportunity and embark on a journey that could transform their future.

Your college journey is a reflection of your hard work, resilience, and determination. Programs like Questbridge recognize and celebrate that, providing a pathway to success for those ready to walk it. Remember, the future is bright for those who are brave enough to pursue their dreams, and the Questbridge College Prep Scholars Program is a formidable ally in that pursuit.

If you’re excited about exploring more opportunities and resources, with insights from Crimson Education, we’d be happy to explore your college dreams with you. You can schedule a free consultation here . Our counselors are excited to hear where you’re at on your journey!

What Makes Crimson Different

Key Resources & Further Reading

• Join our free webinars on US university applications
• Free eBooks and guides to help with the college application process

About the Contributor

The Crimson Education Strategists

Our Crimson strategists are top graduates from the world's most prestigious universities, including Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Oxford, and Cambridge. They bring their firsthand experience and deep insights to stay ahead of the curve in college admissions, providing you with the most up-to-date strategies for success.

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Crimson students are 7x more likely to gain acceptance to their dream college!

Remember, you don't have to navigate this journey alone. crimson provides a comprehensive suite of services, from academic mentoring and test prep to essay assistance, extracurricular guidance, and career mentoring, ensuring a holistic approach to your college preparation journey..

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, can i apply to the same colleges twice.

Hey everyone, I'm a little bit stressed about this. If I apply to a college and get rejected, am I allowed to apply to the same college again in the future (like after a gap year, or as a transfer student)? Thanks in advance!

Yes, you can apply to the same college again in the future if you've been rejected during a previous application cycle. However, you should keep in mind that the process and requirements may be different depending on whether you're applying as a first-year student (after a gap year) or as a transfer student.

If you decide to take a gap year and reapply as a first-year student in the following application cycle, you'll likely need to re-do the application process – including submitting a new application, updated personal statement, and new or updated recommendation letters. You'll also need a compelling reason for reapplying, such as substantial personal growth or improved academic achievements during your gap year.

If you're applying as a transfer student from another college or university, the process will be different. Each college has its own set of transfer-specific requirements and deadlines, which often include additional essays about your reasons for transferring. Moreover, schools will look at your achievements and coursework during your time at your current college or university. Keep in mind that transfer admission rates are typically lower than first-year admission rates, so it might be more competitive than applying as a first-year student.

To improve your chances of being accepted, research the colleges you're interested in and determine what they're looking for in transfer or first-year applicants. It's also crucial to consider your reasons for reapplying and make sure those reasons are well-reflected in your new application. Finally, focusing on your academics, extracurriculars, and any relevant experiences during your time at college or your gap year will definitely strengthen your application.

Good luck, and don't hesitate to reach out to the admissions offices of the colleges you're considering if you have questions or need clarification on specific requirements and policies.

About CollegeVine’s Expert FAQ

CollegeVine’s Q&A seeks to offer informed perspectives on commonly asked admissions questions. Every answer is refined and validated by our team of admissions experts to ensure it resonates with trusted knowledge in the field.

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