Ellie Park, Photography Editor

Seventy-two QuestBridge scholars matched with Yale on Dec. 1. The new batch of Bulldogs is the first to join the class of 2028.

The QuestBridge National College Match Scholarship connects low-income high school seniors with full scholarships to 50 prestigious universities. QuestBridge students who match with Yale are required to matriculate and will receive a $0 parent share award. This year, QuestBridge saw a record-high number of match recipients nationwide.

“QuestBridge continues to serve as a powerful pathway for high-achieving students from lower-income backgrounds to connect with schools like Yale that offer extraordinary need-based financial aid,” Moira Poe, director of Yale’s QuestBridge partnership and senior associate director of Strategic Priorities at the admissions office, wrote in an email to the News. “I believe Yale’s partnership with QuestBridge sends a powerful signal that we care deeply about access and our commitment to affordability.”

Poe added that Yale does not advantage students who choose to apply through the QuestBridge application.

Yale has been a QuestBridge match partner for 17 years. This year, with 72 matches, the University welcomed one of its largest QuestBridge cohorts to date. The largest QuestBridge cohort in University history was the 87 match students who joined the class of 2024.

This year, 20,800 students applied to the college match, and 6,683 were selected as finalists. Each finalist can rank up to 12 of QuestBridge’s 50 college partners. Students match with the highest-ranked school that chose to admit them. This year, 2,242 finalists matched with one of QuestBridge’s college partners.

Any student who did not receive a match but who ranked Yale is automatically entered into the regular decision pool. Students who did not receive a match and who did not rank Yale may opt for their QuestBridge application to be forwarded to Yale. 

Jeremiah Quinlan, dean of Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid, said that it is likely that Yale will welcome more QuestBridge scholars by the end of the 2023-2024 admissions cycle.

“We were immensely impressed with the strength of this year’s pool of QuestBridge applicants, and the Yale admissions office is very happy to continue considering the many hundreds of QuestBridge Finalists who are still active in our applicant pool,” Quinlan wrote in an email to the News. 

According to Quinlan, the University usually admits more QuestBridge finalists through its regular decision pool than through the program itself. 

He added that the admissions office looks forward to seeing more strong applicants from lower-income backgrounds in future decision pools.

“We are thrilled to welcome this historic number of QuestBridge Scholars,” wrote Ana Rowena Mallari, co-founder and CEO of QuestBridge, in a Dec. 1 press release. “These Scholars will bring a depth of thought and range of experiences to our college partner campuses that will surely enrich their new communities.”

Recipients of this year’s QuestBridge Match Scholarship included students from all 50 states.