OP- you sound fantastic.
There are only two things to do right now-
1- prepare your letter of interest for Columbia and give it your best shot.
2- forget about Columbia- for the time being- and find a couple of schools where you are sure to get admitted to, which your family can afford, and where you can thrive.
You love Columbia- they know that, you applied ED. You have multiple family connections there- they know that too. You worked at Columbia. They know that. For whatever reason that none of us know- you got deferred.
Now you need to fall in love with a few more colleges which are NOT Columbia which ought to be easy since there are several thousand of them in the US!
Continuing to focus on Columbia is not helping you. You’ve been deferred, you’ll either get in in April or you won’t. Trust me- there are dozens of colleges which you could fall in love with if you’d give yourself the chance.
Applying to Cal Tech, Harvard, Stanford, etc. as the “solution” to not getting admitted to Columbia is beyond illogical. Sure- apply there. But presumably you’ve learned enough statistics to know that buying four lottery tickets doesn’t change the math of the lottery.
Relying on some competitions in January/February to push you in-- yet another lottery ticket. Great- so you know own 5 lottery tickets. It’s like the guy who spends $100 on lottery tickets and then quits his job waiting for the call that he’s won the 50 million dollar jackpot.
Don’t be that guy. Go fall in love with CMU, Pitt, RPI, Vanderbilt, Missouri M&T, UIUC. Then spend the winter pining away for your lottery tickets, knowing that you’ve got some solid prospects in the pile as well.