Need advice on how to improve my application

Answered

Hi Guys,

So I'm kinda in a situation that's not ideal, so I'm asking on here if anyone can give me some advice. I'm a rising senior at a very competitive high school in Illinois, and I've had good grades my sophomore and freshman year (almost all A's with 2 B+'s) BUT... during my junior year I screwed it up because of covid, fam issues, my first year of AP's, etc. this year and I got (shivers) ... 4 C's Total over the entire year. I know, it's really bad. I'll give you guys my stats and extracurriculars (which I think are very strong [referring to clubs, etc. not stats], but I want advice). BTW I was hoping to apply to schools like Duke, idk if that's still possible tho :(( what do you guys think?

After my junior year grades, my stats are: (context: I come under the asian category and I'm female so not super impressive stats or anything compared to my future competition)

unweighted GPA: 4.45/5 this translates to a 3.45/4 for admission process :(

weighted GPA: 5.2(ish - it's gonna go higher cuz I'm getting an honors thing but idk by how much.)/5 this would translate to a 4.2(ish)/4

SAT: aiming for a 1500+ soon but not there yet

If it helps, I got an A in a Econ program at UChicago, so maybe that helps alleviate the bad grades;

Still waiting on AP Exam scores, so hopefully I did good on those

My extracurriculars tho: (SheEesh or maybe I'm just hyping myself up in hopes that I go to a good uni idk)

- Director of a state wide program that has to do with mental health, has a good brand name + implemented across the country.

- NHS

- Music Honors Society + First chair in my orchestra

- Commissioner of Link Crew (another organization thing that is in multiple schools)

- Student Voice Committee (we make SEL lessons that are taught in the entire school and get brand deals from companies sometimes)

- Doing an Internship with a non profit in Africa to provide education for women and children

- volunteer hours: reaching 100 by the end of the summer @ a food pantry + some online volunteering

- went to state for business professionals of America (this probs doesn't count tho since state is the first round lmao)

- varsity girls track and field (maybe captain next year?? I have a good chance)

Additional Question:

When universities look at my application, there's usually a cut off, so will they reject my app without looking at it, just based on my unweighted GPA? Some schools look at Weighted GPA, so in that case, I think I should be fine, but would the reject my application after seeing the bad letter grades? The bad grades are from rigorous classes like AP Physics 1 (our school has the rep for the hardest course in the country being THE AP Physics taught at our school), APUSH, and Pre-calc Honors. Let me know what you guys think. Thank you for reading all of this :)