By Borislava Panayotova

Did he just say Vanderbilt University? As in the fancy Vanderbilt University that is in Tennessee and is for super-duper smart kids? That is amazing. And Waley Lin, one of the seniors, has a special opportunity to try out to get into 12 of these fancy colleges. This is all thanks to the QuestBridge College Match Program.

Waley was the one finalist from our school. His personal essays caught the attention of the program and he managed to get to the matching part. The matching progress is why the QuestBridge Program is called College Match. After making it to finalist, Waley had to write 12 essays to match with the schools in the program. If matches with any of them, he will get a full four-year scholarship to that school.

Since the Program is very much essay based, Waley gives this advice. “Ask for other people’s opinions on how you write it [the essay].” He explained that it is very important to have people look over your essays. It allows you to see if they are understandable by other people. Trying out for this program can help you understand what sort of things colleges are looking for even if you do not make it as a finalist. It’s important to try even if you might not get it.