<p>I'm a rising senior and my top 5 so far is:
georgetown
gwu
columbia
brown
nyu</p>
<p>stats:
4.3/4.0 gpa
rank 5/140
ACT: 27 (doing prep, hoping for a 30+)
SAT: 1830 - 590 w 620 cr 650 m
SAT2: 620, 610, 550, 540 :(</p>
<p>filipino girl from CA
ECs
-Congressional Page (1 semster junior year, basis for my personal essay)
-Key Club President (soph-senior year)
-Class President (soph)
-Mock Trial (attorney)
-JETS day at stanford (frosh - senior year)
-school ambassador (recruiting other kids, etc)
-200+ hours of community service</p>
<p>I'm hoping for a school in an interesting/fun/lots of things to do location. I'm thinking of english or political science/public policy for my major. or maybe a film/screenwriting school that is NOT usc! </p>
<p>I feel like your top 5 schools are all over the place georgetown gwu columbia nyu and brown, are all different in their own way. Why are these your top 5? if it's simply because of location?</p>
<p>Being from California you should automatically have some of the UC's as matches or safeties. You definitely don't want to disregard the benefit of attending a UC. UCSB could be a match. It's definitely in a great location, a fun school, and good academics.</p>
<p>I'd also look into Occidental, and maybe some of the Claremont Colleges like Pitzer or Scripps.</p>
<p>i never thought of my list as being all over the place, but now that i think about it, that makes sense.
gtown + gw = the idea of being back in dc doesnt bother me & combined political science/public policy program
columbia because it has an awesome ir/public policy program (also creative writing)
nyu for dramatic writing or film & television. i liked it when i visited.</p>
<p>I don't thnik your test scores are good enough to get into georgetown, columbia or brown no matter what the rest of your application looks like. Take liek0806's advice and look into some uc schools or the claremont consortium...consider Santa Clara and UCSC.</p>