In an effort to open doors to students from more diverse backgrounds, leading institutions are increasingly partnering with third-party programs that match low-income applicants with schools often deemed inaccessible to them.
QuestBridge and the Posse Foundation - non-profit organizations that link qualified low-income students with colleges and universities for full four-year scholarships - have recently teamed up with Penn.
Such initiatives, which are growing in size and visibility across the country, represent a drive to "help identify talented students who wouldn't normally think about a place like Penn because they don't think they can afford it; they think we are too elitist; or it just wouldn't be on their radar," Admissions Dean Eric Furda explained.
To date, QuestBridge is partnered with 27 colleges, ranging from Wellesley College to Yale University. The Posse Foundation is partnered with a larger range of schools, 36 in total, including University of California, Berkeley, and Oberlin College. Posse, unlike QuestBridge, also has graduate-school partners.
Both QuestBridge and Posse have grown exponentially since they were founded. Since 1994, QuestBridge has become a powerful actor, helping over 1,000 students receive admission and scholarship for the academic year 2008-2009. The Posse Foundation started 20 years ago by partnering with one school, Vanderbilt University, and a mere five students. According to its website, Posse has since sent 2,650 students to top-ranked colleges and won $265 million in scholarships.
QuestBridge is in its second year at Penn, and the Posse Foundation is now in the first year of its admissions partnership.
Though both programs concentrate on increasing opportunities for low-income students, they have different programming focuses.
QuestBridge supplies a College Match Program that encourages students to apply to selective - and often expensive - colleges. "You may be concerned about tuition costs, but QuestBridge's partner colleges offer generous financial-aid packages that cover 100 percent of demonstrated financial need, making them very affordable for low-income students," its website explains.
The program provides a free application for the College Match, and then applicants complete an application by late September for early admissions. In the College Match, applicants rank their top 8 schools of QuestBridge's 27 partner colleges. QuestBridge applicants are required to attend the highest-ranked school they are admitted to. A regular decision process is also available.
For Penn, Furda said, QuestBridge applicants differ from early-decision ones in terms of "timing." QuestBridge applicants enter a third admissions process, where Penn chooses its top picks from applicants who ranked Penn in their eight choices. QuestBridge applicants also get a decision in early December, a few weeks before early-decision applicants.
The Posse Foundation has a different method for connecting with schools. For one, Posse "identifies students based on their leadership potential," Rassan Salandy, national director of university recruitment and public relations for the Posse Foundation, said in an e-mail.
Posse applicants are first nominated by their high schools or community-based organizations, and then interviewed. Salandy said last year over 9,000 students were interviewed and 430 Scholars were selected.
"Once we admit this group of students in mid-December, they basically create a bond with each other from December until they show up here on campus," said Furda. "They go through a leadership curriculum for eight months until they get here."
The Posse Foundation remains in contact with students, Salandy added, making "regular campus visits to check in on Scholars," while campus mentors meet with them weekly.
Posse is also city-specific, focusing on cities such as Atlanta, Boston and Miami.
Both QuestBridge and the Posse Foundation have been successful in connecting low-income students with top colleges, and continue to grow. QuestBridge will partner with Brown University and Washington and Lee University.
The Posse Foundation is seeing new growth at Penn as well. "We are the first Ivy League school to partner with Posse," said Furda. "Because of our financial-aid policy, it seemed like a good match with Posse."
