<p>OP, if you’re reasonably happy at your current high school, why not start by seeing where the older siblings of your classmates have gone? You should also be floating your list of candidate schools with your college counselor to see if students from your school are getting into the schools you’ve mentioned with similar stats and ECs. I’d especially suggest this for the UCs. Many, many students were surprised last year to get rejected from UCs they’d regarded as matches and safeties.</p>
<p>You don’t mention if you’ve toured any schools when school’s been in session. If you have, giving people here examples of what you’ve liked and what you haven’t liked will help. If you haven’t done any tours yet, try to take a few quick local tours. Look at UCLA, USC, the Pomona consortium, Occidental and UCSB, EVEN IF you have no interest in going to some of these. Since you’re interested in film studies, go check out Chapman College as well. You might hate the Pomona area, but end up really liking the students at Pitzer or CMC (but not both, since they’re very different populations). Or you might love the feel of the USC campus, but hate the surrounding area. Figure out what you like or hate about these campuses and student bodies, and then use that to ask other people here about the schools you haven’t visited. </p>
<p>Go check out the Facebook groups for the schools on your list. Look at the discussion groups here. There are video tours of different schools, and admissions blogs. Slog through it all.</p>
<p>One last thing you didn’t mention but might want to consider is the presence of a Jewish community. Coming out of a small private Jewish high school in SoCal, this may be something you’d like to have, or something you want to run away from 
Take a look at what’s available for Jewish students on campus by looking at the Hillel website.</p>