Mount St. Mary Academy senior, Emily Van Ecko, has been awarded a full four-year scholarship through the 2020 QuestBridge National College Match program.
Emily was one of 6,885 students who were selected as finalists out of an application pool of more than 18,500 in this year’s college match program. Of those finalists, she was one of 1,464 matched to a QuestBridge partner and one of 25 selected nationally for admission to Hamilton College. She will attend the private liberal arts college in Clinton, New York, on a generous scholarship package covering the full cost of attendance for four years, including tuition, room and board, books and supplies, and travel expenses.
“When I opened my results, I was stunned and started crying,” Emily said of her initial reaction to learning she had been named a Match Scholarship Recipient. “It was so surreal that I kept refreshing to page to make sure it wasn’t a mistake. I am so excited and look forward to making the most of this wonderful opportunity.”
“We are so proud Emily was selected to receive a prestigious QuestBridge Match Scholarship,” Emily Coffey, MSM college counselor, said. “Her love of learning and asking questions, desire to understand material, commitment to activities in our school and community, and genuine personality certainly made her application stand out.”
QuestBridge, a national nonprofit based in Palo Alto, California, connects the nation’s most exceptional high school seniors from low-income backgrounds to some of the nation’s top colleges. Its 42 college partners include top liberal arts colleges such as Amherst, Hamilton, Pomona, Swarthmore and Williams and exceptional research universities such as Columbia, MIT, Princeton, Stanford and Yale. Students must demonstrate high academic achievement that meets or exceeds the admissions standards of the partner colleges; they are selected as finalists based on their academic, financial and extracurricular credentials. This year’s recipients come from 48 states, including the District of Columbia, as well as the territories of Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico.
“The achievements of our 2020 Match Scholarship Recipients are particularly exceptional in the midst of a year marked by challenging circumstances,” said Ana McCullough, CEO and co-founder of QuestBridge. “The fact that our college partners awarded a record number of scholarships this year bolsters our hope for a brighter, more equitable future.”
More information about the program may be found on the QuestBridge website at www.questbridge.org/.
Mount St. Mary Academy, sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy, develops young women with a moral and intellectual foundation rooted in Catholic tradition. Mercy-minded and college-prepared, our students meet the future with wisdom, compassion and integrity.