steeple chase in college?

Steeplechase sounds like a great option for you. If you are a decent 5k runner, with good hurdling ability and anaerobic capacity you have all the prerequisite skills to be a good steepler.

For most athletes with the desire and skills to run steeple there is a chance to be more competitive than in a "flat" race. I also think being able to run something totally different during the outdoor season will keep you fresh and excited after indoors, during a time when the weather may still be crappy and you may struggle to match your indoor times in the flat races.

I don't think there is a whole lot of need for you to run longer races on the track, as long as you're still running XC... although you might find you might be more competitive. Just keep developing your mid-distance and hurdle skills.

If you start looking at colleges, you may want to consider a program that has a coach experience developing hurdlers and/or steeplechasers.

You certainly sound like a good candidate. I remember that Cornell recently had an excellent (female) steepler who had successfully run distance races, hurdled, and triple jumped(!) in high school.

If you're a female (just guessing from your screenname), the steeple could be a very nice "hook" to help with college admissions, as well. I know that NYS has a steeplechase (written as one word, BTW, though abbreviated SC) in its HS State meet, so NY kids typically get a fair number of chances to try it; but most kids from other States don't. I'd urge you (maybe soon after your school's season is over) to try to find a race in an open meet.

Actually that advice would apply to a guy, too. Successful SCing at the high-school level makes you more attractive to college coaches.

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Two things to be aware of in steeplechase races:

First, most runners with a hurdles background have to shift mental gears a bit, when they switch to steepling. Instead of "attacking" the barriers, as in sprint hurdle races, you'll do better overall by "flowing" the hurdles, taking them as part of the overall distance race rather than by charging each one.

Which ties into caveat number two: There is no "rig" like steeplechase rig! It's not like a flat race, where your speed might gradually drop off after an overambitious start. In the steeple, if you start off too fast (or else get prematurely tired from changing speed each time you approach a barrier), your pace can slow catastrophically. (And of course a slower speed makes hurdling more difficult, which fatigues you more, which slows you down more, etc.)

The only thing I can compare it to is what you see when a short-distance sprinter runs a 400 (or especially 500 or 600) full-bore all the way, then is practically walking in the homestraight. Except the bad part for the sprinter is over in maybe 20 seconds--for the steepler, it can go on for five minutes or more. So a good sense of pace is really a must.

Yes, I am a female runner. I live in Florida so I don't know of any highschool meets that have SC. I've been working on being able to maintain a steady pace and speeding up because of cross country and the 800.