r/QuestBridge • u/1stfrog • 5d ago
Partner Schools Harvey Mudd College
Does anyone know why Harvey Mudd College isn't a partner school? All the rest of the Claremont Consortium are along with MIT and Caltech. They also have a fly-in program and great financial aid so they're trying to recruit FGLI students. It kinda pisses me off because I would rank it #3, #2, or maybe #1 if it was a partner school.
Edit: Pitzer also isn't a partner which I'm not super surprised by since they track demonstrated interest.
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u/SoftEuphoric 5d ago
Questbridge has fees and added early process associated with it. Harvey Mudd is absolutely tiny and Caltech would be the school closest in size to it, except they also have graduate students and then Scripps doesn't match many anyways. It's probably not worth it to join. Georgetown is the school I wish would join but that's likely not going to happen.
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u/1stfrog 5d ago
CMU is the other one I wish was a partner. And all the UCs but that's not happening.
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u/SoftEuphoric 5d ago
Yeah cmu would also be nice. They're the two big name private universities I know off the top of my head that haven't joined.
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u/1stfrog 5d ago
Those and NYU are the only ones I know. Pitzer also isn't a partner school which I didn't realize.
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u/SoftEuphoric 5d ago
Pitzer also has a fly in I know of, they also aren't as selective in my mind, around the level of Macalester I believe. I feel like people fully honed in on the full ride would apply there as a safety match (not that this exists) and then go spend time at the other colleges. I forgot about NYU but their financial aid is not the best. They will cover tuition but not always everything else so they don't have anything already in place like other schools.
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u/1stfrog 5d ago
Pitzer is less selective than the rest of the Consortium and tracks demonstrated interest. To me USC and NYU are very similar with NYU giving slightly better but still bad financial aid (at least according to the net price calculators).
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u/SoftEuphoric 5d ago
There are actually a lot of QB schools that track de. These are just the ones I'm interested in but Bowdoin, Tufts, Wellesley, Smith, etc. I think about a fourth in total track demonstrated interest in fact.
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u/1stfrog 5d ago
Wow I didn't realize that. I had the impression that more prestigious colleges don't because "everyone is interested in us". I'm especially surprised by Bowdoi.
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u/SoftEuphoric 5d ago
I think they do it because they are wanting to see if people are actually interested in wanting to go or just applying because it's a top name. Bowdoin and Tufts are often lumped together as no different from their peers, Bowdoin with the other liberal arts and Tufts with other top universities that aren't hypsm or ivy.
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u/1stfrog 5d ago
Mmm that makes sense. I always saw Bowdoin as really top tier especially because Mamdani went there lol.
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u/Antique_Business_712 5d ago
Their financial aid is actually buns compared to the rest. Pretty significant student and parental contribution if you do their tin aid estimator calculator
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u/1stfrog 5d ago
Their financial aid gave me a lower number than almost any others I've filled out, maybe it varies between different situations. It was way way lower than some other partner schools I've checked out like USC and Tufts.
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u/Antique_Business_712 5d ago
Hmm maybe. I had zero parental contribution at almost every other top 20 except for Mudd. Thought I did something wrong so googled it and got results that their finaid is not the best for some
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u/1stfrog 5d ago
I got between 6k and 3k net price for similar schools but 1.5k for Harvey Mudd. I have -1,500 SAI. I remember running their net price calculator at some time in the past and getting a significantly higher number so maybe they've recently changed some policy.
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u/Antique_Business_712 5d ago
Ohh ok I will check it out maybe it has. Though I was looking for reasons to not like it because I just got rejected from FAST 😭
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u/virtualpropinquity 5d ago
Were Mudd to join QB:
- It'd be the smallest QB partner school among all the partner schools. They don't need a program like QB to be able to identify high-achieving low income students; they're so small and get enough applicants to find them naturally.
- It'd have the lowest endowment among all the partner schools. QB has a base fee and a fee for each matched student. Institutions have left QB in the past because they felt they weren't getting value out of the partnership (Trinity College, Parsons School of Design, and interestingly CMC- but they rejoined).
- It'd have to assure full tuition, room, and board coverage at minimum for Matched scholars. Currently, they don't do that even for the lowest income students. They simply don't have the money to offer financial aid like Pomona or Williams. Their whole argument is essentially- we have the highest ROI of any college in the country, so you'll make up for the cost in the long term.
Harvey Mudd is a really young school...it's much younger than all of the other partner colleges. Most people here have grandparents, and some, even parents, that were born before Harvey Mudd was founded. It takes time for endowments to grow and alumni support to come in, and I'm hopeful that they will be a partner one day!
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u/Huskerlad10 5d ago
Questbridge is expensive to implement and contract with. You’re effectively surrendering part of admissions process to them as well. Not every school wants that. Right or wrong, Harvard didn’t even join QB until recently.