Merema M. Ahmed was a high school senior in Fargo, N.D., when she first heard about QuestBridge, a college matching program for low-income students.

A 4.0 student, she was still unsure how she would afford college. She said her family’s financial situation was “definitely not well-off or stable.”

The program’s early application deadline meant a scramble to research as many schools as quickly as possible. “Being from the midwest, I don’t know too much about Ivy League schools,” she said.

Now a freshman at Vassar on full scholarship, Ahmed said that Harvard might have been a possibility had it been a partner school.

While Harvard’s peer schools, such as Princeton and Yale, use QuestBridge to access more low-income students, Harvard pursues socioeconomic diversity on its own. Because of such independence, Harvard may be missing out on exactly the kinds of students it is looking for.

OPTING OUT

Students applying to the QuestBridge National College Match Program rank up to eight colleges and submit an application by Sept. 30, months before normal deadlines. The majority of applicants are from households with incomes of less than $60,000.

When students get their decisions, they are required to attend the highest-ranked school that admits them, with the exception of a few schools that are non-binding.

Each student accepted this way receives a full scholarship. If they don’t gain admission in the early round, their applications are put through the regular decision process.

Colleges participating in the program include Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, and the University of Chicago. Last month, the University of Pennsylvania joined the list.

204 students were admitted with full scholarships through QuestBridge last year.

Harvard’s financial aid program, recently revamped to reduce the cost of college for middle-income households, offers full scholarships to families making under $60,000 a year. Families making between $120,000 and $180,000 pay only 10 percent of their total income.

Fitzsimmons, explaining why Harvard passes on the National College Match Program, said that the College’s current outreach to low-income students was at its maximum and, in turn, produced a “very, very strong applicant pool.”

Fitzsimmons also said that the fee colleges must pay in order to participate in the program is a deterrent.

“That amount of money you pay to a program is money that could go into financial aid,” he said.

Though lacking concrete figures, he said he knew of a “reasonably large” number of QuestBridge participants who ended up attending Harvard anyway through the regular application process.

QuestBridge Scholars constitute a small portion of each entering class at partner schools. Yale, for example, last year admitted 19 QuestBridge Scholars on full scholarship.

Finally, Fitzsimmons noted that the early program deadline went against Harvard’s decision in 2006 to end its nonbinding early admission program.

A representative from QuestBridge declined to be interviewed.

‘I MIGHT HAVE APPLIED’

One QuestBridge Scholar, Jackson W. Brebnor, currently a freshman at Pomona College in California, said that the QuestBridge program’s early deadline meant he ruled out Harvard before he knew more about it.

“I felt like not being informed about Harvard as a college was an issue. If I had known the liberal arts feel, I might have applied,” Brebnor said.

Brebnor’s list included Amherst, Bowdoin, and Williams.

Rose A. Aldea, a QuestBridge Scholar and freshman at Columbia, said she “probably” would have applied to Harvard if it were part of the program, but she was doubtful she would have attended, as Columbia was her first choice.

Joseph L. Barnett, a QuestBridge Scholar at Princeton, came from a rural, underdeveloped area and lived in a two-bedroom apartment while attending a large public school. He would have definitely applied to Harvard had it been on the list, he said.

Princeton happens to be one of the schools that offers non-binding admission through QuestBridge, but Barnett ruled out applying to Harvard regularly since he had already applied to nine schools through the match program.

If it came down to a contest between the two, he said, he would have chosen Princeton.

Ahmed, the QuestBridge Scholar at Vassar, stressed the value of the program.

“My parents together made less than $30,000 in the last year. Definitely if I did not that type of scholarship, I wouldn’t be here for sure,” she said.

—Staff writer Lingbo Li can be reached at lingboli@fas.harvard.edu.