Some low-income students will have a new way to apply to Penn this fall.
Penn will partner with QuestBridge - a non-profit program that links low-income students with scholarship opportunities at top colleges - for the first time this year.
Through the QuestBridge National College Match, high-achieving, low-income high-school seniors are offered admission and full four-year scholarship grants at 26 partner colleges.
QuestBridge and Penn have been in discussions for several years, QuestBridge co-founder Michael McCullough said, adding that he is "really excited" about the new partnership.
"Penn's partnership with QuestBridge is an important component to the institution's commitment to identify and enroll deserving students from economically deprived backgrounds," Dean of Admissions Eric Furda wrote in an e-mail.
According to Furda, QuestBridge is a good way for the University to reach out to first-generation college students, in addition to other students Penn might miss during the normal recruiting process.
That has at least been the case at Bowdoin College -- which has partnered with QuestBridge for the past four years.
QuestBridge "has brought Bowdoin to the attention" of some students who otherwise wouldn't have considered the school, said Linda Kreamer, Bowdoin's senior associate dean of admissions.
Kreamer added that Bowdoin has admitted an increasing number of students through the match program each year. The first year of Bowdoin's partnership, she said, the college admitted only one student through QuestBridge.
Now, 18 students admitted through the program are enrolled at Bowdoin.
While applying, students rank up to eight QuestBridge partner schools. QuestBridge then selects the finalists and forwards those students' applications to their top-choice colleges.
Furda said he expects to receive the names of about 1,500 students who listed Penn among their top eight choices.
If they are accepted, applicants receive a binding admission to their highest-ranked college.
Last year, 204 students were admitted through this process nationwide.
Finalists who are not matched to a school or who opt not to apply through the binding process can apply regular decision using their QuestBridge application.
Seven-hundred QuestBridge participants were admitted through the regular decision process last year.
In total, the more than 900 students who participated in QuestBridge last year received more than $90 million in financial aid from partnering colleges.
There is not a minimum income level to apply to the program, McCullough said.
"Each college determines its own threshold," he said. "We try to be as inclusive as our most lenient school."
At Penn, the financial resources for students admitted from QuestBridge will come from current institutional financial-aid funds, Furda said.
Penn's capital campaign is "committed to raising financial aid funds for Penn's ongoing and enhanced financial-aid initiatives," he wrote in an e-mail.
