@scc2016 if you choose to apply to Cornell, then you apply to one specific college in the school, so for English you would apply to the College of Arts and Sciences. Most SAT statistics that you can find on Cornell are for the university as a whole, so it factors in people who applied to the College of Engineering and other STEM based fields/colleges. Your math SAT score will not be held as much against you because Cornell is all about fit, and your other SAT scores show that you are a good fit for an English field. Also, I know many people (myself included) who were accepted to Cornell with SAT scores that are lower than yours.
I reintroduced Cornell because I thought I might have under-recognized its general suitability for those whose primary stength is English/writing. However, of the schools mentioned thus far, I still don’t think it’s the best fit for you.
Statistically, I think your core group of schools should be those at which your CR+M score, ACT composite, or both, are at or above the 25th percentile. Within this group, you will also find several colleges where your CR score does not significantly exceed the 75th percentile, so in these cases you will not feel you are being compromised by considering schools where you will be an extreme over-performer in English. You can add exceptions to these purely statistical considerations as your preferences dictate. I am not making a case against “reach” schools. I do think, however, that you may have gotten side-tracked in thinking that schools which have familiar names to you are better – or even “reachier” – than schools you hadn’t previously heard of.
I’ll say here as well that I hope you are looking forward to exploring subjects such as astronomy, geosciences and perhaps appropriate mathematics in college. You should not feel that you are weak in science and math, but only that your potential has yet to be determined.
The University of Rochester, not yet mentioned, is another school with a relatively flexible curriculum.
Based partly on @SJJunior’s comments, keep Cornell in consideration. Your 31 ACT is certainly within their general range.
Deciding on whether you are more interested in a purely undergraduate focused environment, as at a LAC, or a university experience, as at Cornell, will help you further refine your list.
Vassar is another college worth researching. Together with Kenyon, Grinnell and Hamilton, this would give you a core group of smaller schools where your admissions prospects would be at least reasonably good.
College of the Holy Cross was recently ranked in the top 10 for English departments and it would be a solid match for you. Bennington could be a good safety.
I would consider matches 1° colleges with a 30%+ acceptance rates that also 2° have a bottom 25% that matches your math and 3° have a top 25% no lower than 700 CR OR W/ 31-32 English OR Reading.
This will require careful combing.
Apply to all “flexible curriculum” colleges listed above. It’s likely they’ll be more flexible regarding your math/science scores (which aren’t bad, just not as stellar as your English/Reading scores).
Once you have a rough idea of which schools you are interested in, you can research some statistical parameters by inputting prompts such as the name of the individual college followed by, as examples, “Class of 2019 Freshman Profile,” “Distribution of Standardized Test Scores,” “Mean ACT score,” etc. Make sure you make a distinction between matriculated/attending students and admitted/accepted students, since both may come up.