First of all, you have an extremely impressive academic record. I think that you were actually on your way to an impressive set of ECs, too, had it not been for Covid basically killing most ECs for the last quarter of your sophomore year and all of your junior year. But rest assured, everyone else is in the same boat.
I want to scream when hard-working, high-achieving students are called “try-hards”. You’re supposed to try hard! That being said, try to cultivate a friendly relationship with your counselor. That cover letter is important; in fact, the counselor can often say things for you in her letter that you cannot say about yourself without it sounding like bragging, or if their were challenges that you faced, as if you were looking for sympathy or pity.
My friend’s daughter is in the Altman program at Tulane and LOVES it. She is a very hard-working, very high achieving person - the type of woman who will probably be a leader in her generation. I think it would probably be an excellent place for you, for many reasons, plus they offer significant merit money. It does, however, include study abroad in your target region as a component of the program. The reason that I think it would be great for you is that I think that you need the social training that the program would effectively offer you, because it seems to be a group cohort type of program, that would offer you some goal-oriented social interaction.
Your statement about having had zero social life in high school and planning to have no social life in college worries me. In fact, you sound as if you scorn having friends, as if social life in college were only about cheering like sheep at sports events and having premarital “romantic” relationships that may not be part of your culture. It’s far more than that. It’s about hanging out talking with people. It’s about going to the dining hall together and talking, sharing ideas.
It’s about working out together, talking, joking. It’s about studying together because you can help each other to achieve more than any of you could achieve alone. It’s about becoming comfortable doing all these things with people of the opposite sex, of different races, of different sexual orientation, because you are going to have to work with different types of people throughout your life, not to mention the fact that it will enrich your life tremendously. You will not develop “soft skills” by doing internships or going to networking dinners - it’s way too late by then. People develop these skills through a lifetime of social interaction - if you do not have these skills, it will be evident, even in college interviews, and most definitely in job interviews and in internships. Even if you get the internships, you won’t be asked to return for a job if you make people uncomfortable, and if you don’t have social skills, you are very likely to make people uncomfortable.
The most important IQ is social IQ, for success in life. Of course, the pandemic killed everyone’s social life, but things are getting back to normal. I would urge you to invest time in social time during senior year in high school. This doesn’t necessarily mean attending school games together, or getting a girlfriend, or going to wild high school parties. It means making friends who share your interests, and spending time with them doing things that you like, together.
If you’re planning to apply to Tufts, be forewarned that Tufts has a habit of rejecting highly qualified applicants whom they fear will wind up enrolling elsewhere. So if you’re going to apply there, make sure that you show a LOT of “demonstrated interest” by attending remote events, visiting campus if possible, reaching out to the admissions office often with eager questions. In fact, it doesn’t hurt to give every admissions office the impression that they are your absolute first choice school.