One of my kids, unhooked, got into Cornell with a 3.0 unweighted. It was about 10 years ago. He was also a National Merit Scholar. We thought his grades would eliminate him too, but he had no Cs or D’s, took very the most difficult courses
He got into several selective schools
But we didn’t countnon it during the application process. He also go rejected from some schools that would have been easy matches if it weren’t for his grades. I think a research directed essay that hit some personal notes which was very unusual was instrumental since he got notes from colleges about it.
I do not think Hopkins or like school would be a go unless you have a professor from there who really pulls for you. OR, if you apply as a Social Sciences major making a clear case for wanting to entering that field with the work you have done. As a science major, With all of the top drawer apps they get, I cannot see it. You’d have to make a strong connection with your work and a school and major at Cornell too, not an oversubscribed one.
Understand these are lottery ticket chances. Those schools are in single digits for acceptance as it is.
A lot of good advice upthread. You should research your schools and make sure you have a number of them that are realistically with your GPA with your test scores as a sweetener, not using those scores as a match. Clark is a great school, SUNY Buffalo is a hidden gem. ; I know both schools well. I don’t know if Union college has programs that fit you , but I know they have taken outliers from their parameters. My friends DD was loath to transfer from URI to Cornell under some deal Cornell offers a limited number of applicants if they perform well freshman year at whatever school they do end up choosing. She stayed at URI, getting amazing research opportunities there and went to grad school at Cornell instead So there are a lot of possibilities out there. Most of the state universities with graduate level research facilities offer great opportunities in their fields. Just some schools better known than other, often thanks to their football team Also private schools with some excellent work being done. I truly cannot recommend Clark, UB, Union , URI highly enough in these regards.