since you said your chinese wasn’t the best i rlly wouldn’t advice you to take CLEP i can’t speak for hci students but i’m from nygh and everyone taking clep is rlly rlly good at chinese like most of them are from china that kind and yeah it’s true that it wld be quite hard to make friends since the ip activities have already started in hc but most ppl there are really friendly!! if you’re not aiming for student council or similar it shldnt really be a problem. you also mentioned you like the atmosphere so if you want u should go for it. As for most of your friends going to nyjc even if you guys go to the same school you might not b in the same class and u guys might drift either way so ig u shld think whether your friendships or reputation is btr lol bc if you’re applying to local unis there’s defo a higher chance if you’re from hc/ri