General chances

<p>I'm a junior in high school and I'm just starting to be serious about my college search. I've looked at a few here and there, gotten letters from a lot of places, and my guidance counselor gave me a list of schools to look at.</p>

<p>SAT - won't get my results til April 7th
APs: USH, psych (both this year), french, english and maybe comp sci next year.
Other classes: all honors except for Calculus, which I'm taking academic because my school doesn't offer it at honors level.
GPA: weighted 4.1-4.2 (I'm not sure what it is unweighted)
Rank: not sure, but we only have about 150 students in our grade, I'm expecting that I'm top 15% or 20%
ECs:
Varsity swimming all 4 years, all league awards, member of the district team 4 years
Club water polo 2 years, varsity 2 years (it wasn't a school sport until this year)
District webmaster 11th and 12th grade (builds school websites for all schools including elementary, middle, and HS. maintains current ones, answers emails, etc.)
Yearbook 10-12, co-editor 12th
Recs: My guidance counselor is in love with me, so I'm not worried about that. I'm also going to ask my 10th/11th grade honors English teacher, who was a tough critic last year but gave me glowing reviews at parent/teacher conferences a few weeks ago. I'll also ask my yearbook advisor, who was my English teacher in 9th grade. We're really close and I have full confidence that he'll write a great rec.</p>

<p>All together, I'm playing a sport consistently 3 hours a day, 5 days a week (sometimes 6) from September until March. Yearbook requires after school commitment as well because it isn't a class at my school.</p>

<p>Other stuff:
Lifeguard at local country club during the summer
Teaches swim lessons
Volunteers for the country club swim team</p>

<p>I want to go to school for English/Literature or Creative Writing or Communications/Journalism. My dad works for a newspaper company that just filed for bankruptcy, so he wants me to stay away from publications like newspapers and magazines since their futures aren't looking very bright. However, I have no interest whatsoever in being an English teacher. I want to do something that requires more creativity.</p>

<p>The schools I've been looking at the most closely are:
Syracuse (awesome communications school and writing program, I visited already), Boston U, and NYU. My guidance counselor wants me to look at BC too but I feel like that might be a reach.</p>

<p>What are my chances for Syracuse, BU, and NYU? BC as well? Also, can you suggest some good writing schools that are around PA? Going as far as Boston would be my limit.</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

<p>I would say you're a match for BU and Syracuse, but NYU seems to be at least a low reach for everyone as they are getting massive numbers of applications each year.</p>

<p>I feel that BU and Syracuse are a match like applicannot said, but as for NYU your SAT scores will decide a lot whether you have a good shot or not, and thats goes for BC as well. You should look at BC (i think thats where im going to be going next year) however if you like schools like BU and NYU, BC is kind of opposite. BC is not in the city but the others are integrated into it.</p>