QuestBridge scholar gets matched

ON A QUEST

Imagine spending six hours filling out just one application for a scholarship. The tedious and oftentimes rigorous process for college-bound students can give anyone pause and ask whether it’s really worth it. But ask Kristy Salazar, a senior at Shadow Ridge High School, and she’ll tell you it is. After her marathon application process for the QuestBridge scholarship, she recently found out she was matched with Columbia University in New York City, where she’ll get a full ride to pursue her dreams. “I heard about Questbridge during my junior year,” she said. “I thought I fit the qualifications that they had talked about for students they accept. So, I decided to go for it.”

One of the requirements, a commonplace in scholarships and college applications, was an essay. Kristy decided to write about her experiences with volleyball at Shadow Ridge. She was cut by the team early in her high school career. But she fought through adversity and worked her way back to earn a spot on the varsity team her Junior and Senior year. “Once you do the initial application, they tell you that you are a QuestBridge finalist. And then from there you rank up to 12 colleges, and you have to do all the applications for those separately.”

Kristy applied to Columbia University, Stanford, and Yale without ever visiting the schools. In fact, she’s never been to New York, where she will be heading this fall. “It’s scary. It’s going to be the farthest I have been from home,” she exclaimed. “I’ve done a lot of research online, and the things I’ve read and what I heard from other people, I think I will be a good fit there though. I knew I wanted to go to a big city.”

Kristy has decided on an area of interest and will study Environmental Science at Columbia University. “I’m really interested in researching climate and things like that,” she says with a beaming smile on her face. Kristy was one of 1,127 students nationwide who were selected as a match scholarship recipient. In addition to QuestBridge, Kristy was named as a semifinalist for the National Merit Scholarship Program, which represents less than one percent of high school seniors. “It still doesn’t even feel that real, to be honest,” she said. “It is really exciting though because now I am done with applications and have an idea of where I am going in life.”