<p>There are many advantages. For one, you get to apply to more than one school early. For another, the packages that schools give through QB are sometimes different from the ones they give to low-income students accepted through RD/ED - eliminating loans or lowering the work-study expectations (you’ll have to compare each). Being selected as a QB finalist is also an academic honor that you can put on your other applications. The biggest advantage to QB, I think, is not so concrete - which is that it flags you as a high-achieving, low-income student. QB is a big name now in college admissions, so when colleges see that you were selected for it, it tells them two things: one, you are from a very underrepresented group of students, more underrepresented than any ethnic minority except maybe Native Americans, and two, you are an accomplished student, so much that you were singled out by an organization that’s the leading expert in identifying the best students who are underprivileged.</p>
<p>Another advantage is the application itself, which is longer and likely more intensive than any application you will do. Some of the colleges that you apply to will look at the QB app, some won’t; others look at it as a supplement to their own (or the Common App). Doing the QB app also makes every other app pretty easy - not only do the others look like a breeze by comparison, but in many cases you can actually reuse the essays you wrote for the QB app. You also get automatic app fee waivers through QB, which can be a hassle otherwise.</p>
<p>Given the above, QB confers an advantage that no other application can offer: you can do the application (and reap the benefits discussed above) and be selected as a finalist (thus getting an additional academic honor, as well as the other benefits associated with being chosen), but choose not to go through the National College Match, instead asking them to forward your application to the RD round to as many schools as you like. That way, you don’t go through the binding Match process, you can apply early to whichever school(s), and you get the benefits of having additional information/essays in the RD round (if you don’t get in early), giving the admissions officers a clearer picture of your potential.</p>
<p>Finally, for some schools, QB is safer than applying to those schools’ early programs. If you don’t get in through the Match process, you will automatically be considered again in the RD round. If you apply early to say, Stanford, there’s a high chance you will be rejected rather than deferred. To be blunt, given your stats, NU will be a reach, and the others will be reaches as well, including UChicago. You’ll need all the help you can get, and QB can provide the advantages that might tip you into the ‘accept’ pile at NU, UChicago, etc. I think that applying to UChicago through QB would bode much better for your chances, given that UChicago has a low yield (mid-30s) and only has EA otherwise, so binding students through QB, as in ED, gives you a big advantage at UChicago: they know that you will attend. It’s not quite the same at NU, which has ED anyway, but the other benefits are the same.</p>