Hi everyone! I’m a junior in a competitive public high school who is looking for schools to add to her potential college list. I’m a very strong humanities (English and History) and music student, and I’m doing much better in Math and Science this year than in the past.
As of sophomore year, my unweighted GPA is 3.8 (which will likely go up because as I said, I worked hard to improve my Math and Science grades) and my ACT score is a 32 (I’m not taking it again).
I’m looking for rigorous schools in the Northeast only who have one or more of the following majors or minors: Creative Writing, Journalism, Mass Communications, Music Non-Performance, and Music Industry…or programs similar to those I listed.
Other stuff I do that I remember from top of my head…
-Started high school’s only a cappella group freshman year- I am the founder, music director, and arranger
-Has been in three school musicals so far (one lead role)
-Runs varsity spring track every year of high school
-Does Model United Nations club since freshman year
-Has been taking piano lessons since 5 years old
-Attends religious school
-Participates in the North American Federation of Temple Youth (NFTY)
-On my Temple Youth Group’s board
-Got into Wind Symphony (advanced band in school)
-Published on Thought Catalog
-Works as songwriter (with a some jobs and collaborations)
-Sang backup on a record for an up and coming band and currently works to promote them
-Is a babysitter
-Participates in a community service youth alliance
Any thoughts? Please let me know what matches with my stats, academic preferences, and the rest. I really want to see if you all recommend some of the schools I’ve looked at, to see if I’m on the right track. Thank you so much!!
Boston University would be a match school, and their journalism program is excellent. The same school (College of Communications) also has a PR/Ad-Comm major. They also have a lot of music opportunities for non-majors, including at least a dozen a cappella groups (at LEAST) and a pretty good musical theater group (BU On Broadway).
Important question: what’s the financial situation? Do you need to chase financial aid (high need), or merit? Or does cost not matter?
For creative writing and a good selection of courses in the literature and history of music, Hamilton. This choice would work best if you have a desire to explore a variety of academic subjects along with those in which you would like to concentrate.
Why not try the ACT one more time at the end of Junior year? Your score is great, but it might go up enough to help you to be more competitive for merit scholarships.
As a journalist, I will give you the same advice I give other aspiring journalists: Don’t major in journalism. Instead, do this: Go to any college that has a DAILY student-run newspaper that is independent of the university (i.e., not supervised or “advised” by faculty, not part of a class or program, and does not receive funds from the university). Examples: Cornell Daily Sun, Michigan Daily, Badger Herald (Wisconsin), Daily Trojan (USC). The newspaper should cover local and state news (and optimally, national news as well) in addition to campus news.
Look at various student newspapers online to get a sense of them. When you arrive on campus, go into the newspaper office on day one. Someone is always in there. Find out how to join. Then move up the ranks. By your senior year you should have a top editing role (EIC, managing editor, news editor, opinion editor, etc.). You will graduate with loads of actual work experience and a bucket-load of clips.
As for academics, major in a liberal art discipline like economics, political science, history, classics, English lit, or a foreign language. Even music nonperformance would be fine.
Northeastern (very competitive) or maybe Emerson College (good journalism program and pretty artsy, in terms of you saying you have been in plays and started an a cappella group)
Oh wait…Northwestern is the very competitive one…oops. Northeastern is still a very good school and you should look into Northwestern even though you said the Northeast.
I don’t know if these would be considered rigorous schools like the others mentioned, but for communications and broadcasting I know that Syracuse and Ithaca College have a choice of interesting majors. These might be good safeties for you.
As a recently retired journalist, I will second what @brantly says about not majoring in journalism. Here’s a recent article about the more-than-a-dozen Washington DC media folks who went to a college that doesn’t offer a journalism major - not necessarily to push you towards Vassar (which does have a big music program), but to give you an idea about the various paths students take to careers in writing/journalism/media: https://vq.vassar.edu/issues/2015/03/beyond-vassar/creative-capitol.html
Thank you all for your feedback! Very helpful! I do have to stay in driving distance in the Northeast, because I want to stay close to my family and twin sister. I do think that I have a lot of options though. Thanks again!