Are my college goals realistic? Please help, I'm so lost!

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

College is stressing me out and I’m not even in it yet. I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing and that I have no chance at doing what I want…sigh. Anyway! I have a couple of colleges picked out that I really like and will probably be applying to:

Hunter College
Barnard (reach school)
SVA
McGill
Pratt
Baruch College
SOKA

Obviousy I really want to go to school in NYC…lol. I am nearing the end of my junior year in HS. I have a 3.0 GPA, mostly mix of As and Bs, I’ve never failed a class. I have taken 4 APs so far with good grades in them, I plan to take more next year. I took the ACT my freshman year to get a feel for it, and I got a 25 with no study, so i’m thinking my score will go up (striving for at least a 30). I have a variety of hobbies I do and have experimented with outside of school, i.e music producing, coding, photography, various art activities, video editing. I like to think I have a multitude of skills from this. I have also self-taught myself Korean for the past 3 years and I’m pretty good…I’ve found I have a passion for language and travelling and different cultures. Bottom line is, I feel like my grades aren’t the greatest because I’d rather focus on things that appeal to me, things not offered in school. My strongest acedemic strengths are English and history, as I’ve always been an avid reader and a strong writer. Math and science are really my downfall.

I’ve been in 5 clubs throughout my HS life, but currently, I’m only in one. One club I was in was a community service club, I was a member my entire freshman and sophomore year. I don’t know the exact amount of hours, but I think it’s around probably 20?

I want to go to a good liberal arts college and earn an English degree, and see where that takes me. I know I really love language and learning about things foreign to me.

If anyone is familiar with any of the above schools, could anyone please tell me if I have a chance? Or what I can do to better my chances? I hope I explained enough about myself.

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I don’t know much about schools outside of NYC, but I did apply to Barnard, Baruch, and Hunter in high school and all three are good choices. However, if you aren’t strong in math, Baruch is probably not your best option because their academics and recruiting are centered around finance/accounting, both of which are very quantitative. Hunter is better suited for the humanities, especially if you are considering grad school and don’t want to spend all of your college savings on your undergraduate education. With your grades, you’ll definitely get into any CUNY, which I would recommend over schools like Pratt and SVA. If you don’t already live in or near NYC, though, finding housing will be challenging as Hunter is the only CUNY with decent dorms, even though it’s still mostly a commuter school. Most CUNY students commute from home (renting anything in the city will either be outrageously expensive or too far away for convenience) so the campus spirit is a bit lacking. NYU is pretty much the same story: I know it wasn’t on your list, but you seem to want to go to school in New York so I thought I’d mention it. If you want the traditional college experience with a close-knit campus, Barnard is the only NYC school I can think of, but you’ll need to work on raising your GPA and ACT scores this fall if you want a good chance of getting in.