you asked for comforting and you got it. Kudos to those helping you out.
I’m going to take a different tack so if you don’t like it, ignore it. My message is this has been a wakeup call.
You write “I thought I was doing things right” but at the same time you admit your “essay was OK but not wow, ECs were lackluster”. This is the only time you’re applying to college but it wasn’t worth putting as much effort as you can into your essays? Your ECs did not have the leadership and/or achievement very selective schools look for, which you describe as consisting of an internship and that you “worked and volunteered and did some clubs”. Yet top colleges were supposed to pick you anyway?
It’s clear you’re a smart kid from your gpa and ACT, but smart alone isn’t going to put you high up on the ladder. Not in college admissions, not in job search after graduation, not in a lot of things. You may not have believed this before, but I hope you do now with the college results at hand.
You seem to have lots of potential but it’s going to be up to you to translate that into achievement. Now a lot of kids are unsure of what they want to do at age 18, even those that think they are sure change their minds a few times, but its still worth giving it some thought and effort along the way instead of drifting along and then repeating this experience 4 years hence when you look for a post-college job. A few months back you wrote
If you don’t spend the time looking for experience in the field, get to know some profs, then you’ll be at a disadvantage compared to those that have. Add to that the glut of PhD’s in the sciences which means the job outlook for someone with just a BS degree in Chem/Biochem isn’t great, often lower-level jobs without much advancement. In HS you say you “didn’t spend HS prepping for college apps” and you now see the results that gave you against peers competing for top colleges. In college you can devote time to prepping for the job market, or not. But know that other kids will be…