In 2004, a summer program for high-achieving, low-income students from East Palo Alto, Calif., transformed into an unprecedented model for college admissions: QuestBridge. With Amherst College as an inaugural partner, QuestBridge saw its first cohort of students admitted with full scholarships.

 

Two decades later, how do current QuestBridge students support the Amherst community, and how does Amherst support them? I sat down with three current students to hear their stories. The most compelling commonality was how, in some way or another, attendance at Amherst impacted every student’s family or greater community back home. “QuestBridge did such a good job of bridging that barrier,” as Summer Le ’27 said. “I’m kind of in awe.”

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