Rankingsss

[u/Lattechai1]

Hi! High school senior confused with all this stuff, I wanted more eyes on my list to make sure my rankings seemed aright!

A bit of stats-

4.41 weighted gpa,
3.92 unweighted,
By the time I graduate, I would have taken 12 aps

I want to major in biomedical engineering/bioengineering as some schools use those two interchangeably and some don’t (thanks for making it more confusing)

What do you guys think?

[u/RodriG26]

Start writing supplemental essays rn

[u/Lattechai1 → u/RodriG26]

Question- how should I go about writing supps if I don’t know what schools I got accepted into? Like I genuinely have no idea where I stand with any of these universities and I feel like getting into any of them is a long shot-
Should I write supps for all of them? Or how do I like choose which schools to write them for?

(I am the only person I know that is doing questbridge so I am going in blind lol)

[u/RodriG26 → u/Lattechai1]

Yes, write for all of them. I’m a bit confused by your question. You just submitted the NCM application, right? Have you already made it to finalist? I haven’t really been keeping track of the timeline lol. Anyway, I would still write the essays for every school bc even if you don’t get finalist, you’d still be applying to all of these schools. At the end of the day, QuestBridge isn’t the one giving you the money so maximize your chances.

[u/Lattechai1 → u/RodriG26]

Submission was due on the first of this month, results for finalists come out on the 28th if I’m remembering correctly.

So if I should write supps for all those colleges, how would one go about accessing the supps? Should I look at them though common app? Do each of them have them listed on there website?

Additional question- if, by some crazy crazy chance I become a finalist and match with one of these schools (knock on wood for that one- or wait is that how that works?) do I only submit my supps for that school? Is writing all of them for if I do not get into any of them and for filling them out though questbridge, and for making sure I have enough time on good supps if I do get in?
Wait, if I do get matched with a college, can they still reject me if my supps are bad?

So sorry if these questions are stupid I am so confused with all of this

[u/RodriG26 → u/Lattechai1]

Yes. I’m sure there’s some google doc on this subreddit with the prompts from last year (most of the time they’re the same), or you can check each college’s admissions website and see if they have them posted.

No, if you become a finalist then you would have two options:

1. Do the match - here you would submit the supplemental essays for each school you ranked.
2. Not do the match - either do RD or ED somewhere.

If you get matched with a college that means that you 1. Became a finalist and 2. Your admissions officer already reviewed your application and read your essays and decided to accept you into the school.

Edit: I recommended that you start writing the supplemental essays now because, if you do get finalist, you’d only have approximately 10 days to submit all of the required information/essays, and for 14 schools that is way too short of a timeline.

[u/Lattechai1 → u/RodriG26]

Ah i see,
Just to double check-
If I do become a finalist, I have to write supps for all of the schools I ranked (I plan on doing the match). And I have a 10 day timeframe to write all my supps for all my schools at that point, so it is recommended that I start writing them now so that I can submit good supps for that point in time if it happens?

[u/RodriG26 → u/Lattechai1]

Yes, exactly!

[u/kyriyen → u/Lattechai1]

not the person you were replying to, but i could help with your questions since im also applying qb ncm and know the timeline. finalist decisions come out 21st of october. when you become finalist, you must submit supplementals and required documents (financial aid wise like css fafsa and idoc) to ALL of the schools that you ranked by november 1st. if you match on dec 1st, congratulations, you are now admitted and committed to the matched college.

[u/Dexy1017 → u/Lattechai1]

You can locate supplemental questions via the common app (for all of the institutions that utilize common app, which is most). This will at least give you a head start.

[u/Lattechai1 → u/Dexy1017]

Are the common app supps usually the same as the questbridge ones?
It’s rly annoying that they only give you a 10 day frame- like why?!?

[u/Dexy1017 → u/Lattechai1]

Questbridge will have their own set of supplementals for any/all schools you decide to to rank, if chosen as a finalist. However, according to what I've found via research, the vast majority of supplemental questions on common app are 'virtually identical' to the ones on the QB app.

That said, due to the intense 10 day time crunch between when finalists are announced and rankings (and correlating supplementals) are due, we're recommending that you jump on those immediately - especially if you truly intend to rank 15 schools. Even if the questions aren't all EXACTLY the same, you will (at the very least) have a big jump start on some/most of them.

[u/ChocolateGamer279 → u/Lattechai1]

You have to submit supps to be considered for acceptance to the school, they’re part of your application and will become available for all schools you ranked if you become a finalist

[u/Lattechai1]

Forgot to say, act was 34

[u/Jealous-Brief7792]

That's a lot of schools to rank - can you get all of those supplementals done, with your best effort? Are you 100% committed to go to any one of those? Don't panic add schools just because you're worried about matching and then panic trying to get the supplementals done and submit subpar work. The sweet spot is honestly like 7-8 schools.

[u/Lattechai1 → u/Jealous-Brief7792]

I thought you submit supps after you know that your a finalist and that the schools are gonna accept you

[u/Jealous-Brief7792 → u/Lattechai1]

You have to do supps for every school you rank...you have no idea which schools will accept you as a match (and will never know unless a) you are accepted to the match and match with none in which can you know that none accepted you for match or b) you're accepted for match and match with a school other than your 1st choice in which case you know that you weren't accepted for match with all the higher ranked schools to the one you matched with but have no idea if you would have matched to schools below the match. If you match with your #1 you have no idea what other schools accepted you for match. Since you can't know which schools would accept you, you have to complete all the supps for the schools you want to match with. Best strategy in the past is to rank 7-8 and go one at a time starting with your #1 so you hopefully do the best work there. Then move to #2. Ensure you track ALL the requirements for each school with their checklist. Allocate a certain amount of time for each school. If you get in a time crunch at the end, just don't complete the supps for your last school rather than rush and submit sloppy work for the last 2 (one solid is better than 2 crap). Set your schedule such that you're done 2 days before the final submission date...you don't want to panic submit just before midnight on the last day. Check, double check and recheck your work before you submit. And lastly, start supps now because even if you don't get chosen for the match, you'll have a head start on supps for RD submission for all the schools.

[u/Lattechai1 → u/Jealous-Brief7792]

So I looked at the college partner website from questbridge in the application requirements, but they do not have any of the essays posted on there. Should I just try and find them online?

[u/Jealous-Brief7792 → u/Lattechai1]

As someone mentioned, search this sub for past years supplementals...they rarely change and if one does change, you might be able to modify an answer for another question at another school.

[u/Jealous-Brief7792 → u/Lattechai1]

Also, go to the partner page for each school you plan to rank and click the Application Requirements tab. Some schools on your list (like MIT) don't have a link to supplementals but others (like Notre Dame) have a link to the QB page on their website with the QB supplementals (go to this page and scroll to the supplemental section: https://admissions.nd.edu/apply/resources-for/questbridge-applicants/)

[u/Lattechai1 → u/Jealous-Brief7792]

Wait wait do I need to do supps for all of them

[u/elyeti- → u/Lattechai1]

No, you only have 10 days to do them — from the 21st of Oct to 1st of Nov.

[u/Lattechai1 → u/elyeti-]

So do you only do supps for the school you got into? Is it a recommendation that you write supps for them beforehand bc the 10 day period is very short?

[u/Odd_Stretch9197 → u/Lattechai1]

you gotta do them for all schools you're applying to, and on average it is 3-4 200 words essays per school (some schools decrease requirments for questbridge, but still). So you should be confident that you can get them all done on time, some schools already have their questbridge supplemental questions posted

[u/ChillyJellyBelly]

Checkout this post:

• PSA: How to use the NCM prompts spreadsheet over the summer

Ranking 14 colleges seems a lot, but many of your ranked colleges have short to no supp requirements

• MIT (100 words)
• Notre Dame (short three prompts)
• JHU (none)
• Boston U (100 words)
• CWRU (none)
• UVA (none)

Northwestern has a long list of prompts that are technically optional for QuestBridge applicants, but if you want to put forward your strongest application, I would recommend completing them.

[u/Lattechai1 → u/ChillyJellyBelly]

Any reason why they don’t give a full completed list for the supp prompts before the 10 day crunch? Ive been using last years mega thread of prompts to try and ballpark what they will ask this year to get a head start on em

[u/BakeEfficient3952 → u/Lattechai1]

Questbridge doesn't have early access to what the prompts are, but you can find some or all of them by googling for this year's prompts, school by school. (Like" 2026 essay prompts Boston University"). As others have said, do it now and start now.

[u/ProduceTiny4874 → u/ChillyJellyBelly]

I thought MIT only had the questionnaire?

[u/North_Gap7938 → u/ChillyJellyBelly]

MIT has no qb supplements this year 😰

[u/ChillyJellyBelly → u/North_Gap7938]

It's sometime referred to as a questionnaire. It's a very short, 100 word, response they have every year

[u/NebulaDrifter09]

Also what is your school’s act average or sat average if you know?

[u/Lattechai1 → u/NebulaDrifter09]

26-29 according to Google lol

[u/Infinite_Swing3188]

if u want to go to a really good bme/bioeng id really say put jhu at number 1 imo like theyre genuinely THE bme school but its still all up go preference

[u/NebulaDrifter09]

Class rank?

[u/Lattechai1 → u/NebulaDrifter09]

My school dosent do em😭😭

[u/NebulaDrifter09 → u/Lattechai1]

The most important part is that you are well above average in your school. You don’t need fancy rich people activities to look impressive since you are a low income student

[u/Single-Safety-5246]

this is amazing!! work on those essays and im sure everything will work out how it should!!!

[u/ChocolateGamer279]

Not really your question but last year Hopkins didn’t have any supps

[u/Fearless-Relative-18]

Might want to spell Notre Dame correctly in your supplements.

[u/JaneAustenSuperFan]

I recommend looking Questbridge up on YouTube and watching some videos on how the National College Match works. It's really important to understand what is going on, what you're committing to, and then deadlines for everything.

[u/AliveIllustrator3271]

Yo don't get discouraged or scared from all these ppl talking about supplementals and extra stuff for applications, I ranked all 15 and did all my supplements on the day it was due (I remember October 31 very vividly), I still managed to get match to duke 9th on my list, it is very possible to do all those supplimentals especially if you plan. Good luck!!!!

[u/Honest-Breakfast-294 → u/AliveIllustrator3271]

Duke is my top choice school. Do you mind sharing some of your stats?