Your EC’s are really amazing and WILL interest top universities. In addition, the GPA/test score disconnect may either raise red flags (ie., you didn’t work hard in school) or point to a high-performing school (with grade deflation). So don’t worry about it, since your ECs do show tremendous work ethics, I doubt universities will think you’re a slacker.
You’re right that your GPA is going to be a problem for tippy-top schools. So, you want schools where EC’s matter a lot rather the CSU’s where they won’t look at these awards at all.
For now, I’d suggest you stop beating yourself up on your grades and plan a lighter senior schedule with AP calc, AP CS, AP social science (psych or human geo if you want sth easier, Euro if you want something harder), a “fun” English credit, and Ap Physics 2, plus one foreign language and 1-2 community college dual-enrollment classes (depending on whether you take one of the above classes at your HS or CC, ie., Calc1, CS1, Foreign Language, art, any social science or seminar not offered at your HS…)
This summer, you might want to start taking a community college “fun” class to diversify your profile - you don’t want to look and sound like a robot, you should be able to have favorite books, favorite tv shows/bands, things you do “just for fun” (an elusive quality for some “high strung” applicants, and thus a way to distinguish yourself) and have classes that aren’t directed toward improving college admission odds or increasing your GPA or accelerating you, but show that for you learning is fun (whatever class that might be, anything that’d pick your interest and ISN’T science. If you have a question about stepping out of your comfort zone in an interview or as a prompt, that’s also be the perfect experience to recount.)
Your EC list is what will matter - so, you don’t want universities that’ll mostly look at numbers - so, Cal Poly SLO and almost all UCs (you should apply to UCB, UCLA, UCSD, UCSB including College of Creative Studies since they’d highly value these ECs, plus UCSC). HarveyMudd and CalTech will be huge reaches, Stanford too, but they’ll be interested enough in your ECs that you shouldn’t prevent yourself from applying. For matches, Case Western, Olin (for CSE), William&Mary perhaps. I’m thinking Shreyer, at Penn State (Pennsylvania’s public flagship), would be a good possibility - they only look at course rigor (yours is fine), EC’s (yours are stellar), essays, and recommendations - not test scores and not GPA… and Shreyer is the “real deal” in terms of Honors Colleges. Of course, you could also apply for the Robertson and the Jefferson scholars programs (respectively, at Duke/UNC and at UVA), at the GTech presidential (beware: very early deadline!) Scholarship committees will LOVE how good you are at science research.
You may want to read http://publicuniversityhonors.com/ or buy the book to investigate honors colleges.
An issue to discuss with your parents: what
Any adcom who reads:
-USACO SILVER, taking GOLD soon
-Chem Olympaid High Honors
- Physics Olympaid SILVER
-ISEF Finalist
-Siements Semi-Finalist
-Davidson Finalist
-Google Science Fair Finalist
will be interested. So make sure you give them reasons to keep on reading - the rest of your academic profile is not as stellar as those ECs, but it’s fine - so the difference will be made on the little things; forget about grades and having a schedule harder than what I pointed to above- but keep working on these science competitions.
Another issue is to discuss budget with your parents. How much are they willing to pay? (Don’t bring it up but they may tell you they’ll make a difference between different types of colleges).
Thanks for the feedback!