Can my GPA be made up for by really good EC's and essays for competitive colleges?

To answer your question, it's difficult to say because you don't disclose what your unweighted GPA is. If it's a 3.9+ then that's going to show admissions officers that you are a very serious student that spends a lot of time on homework and perfecting your academic record. If you have a 3.4.-3.7, not so much and the reader might think you need to have amazing ECs and really good essays to make up for that. No one can really answer your question because there is not enough context to what your real grades and current ECs and essays look like. If you are a national level musician, artist, athlete, or have been published in a national journal or won the Intel Science Award or started a business that raised $1mm for charity, that might be good enough for many colleges. When you say competitive, I'm assuming you mean a top 100 to 200 school because I consider a top 50 to 100 school like UCSB, UCD, UPitt, Syracuse, very competitive and 25 to 50, highly competitive and top 25 elite colleges. Having amazing ECs and essays will have more weight with lower-ranking schools, not so much when you get to the elite ones. Some of the top schools have GPA thresholds that are based on unweighted. Most elite universities either use an unweighted GPA or recalculate GPA for the core or just 10th, 11th, 12th back to unweighted so they can compare other candidates like apples to apples. If you tried to compare weighted GPAs they don't really mean anything. For example, your 4.2 could mean you have a 3.4 through 4.0 unweighted GPA right? So if you have a 3.9 unweighted GPA that could be higher than someone with a 4.4 GPA who really has a 3.75.

Most schools have a holistic approach to the admissions process. If you can show your passion for "making a difference" through your essays and extracurriculars, I am sure that many schools will be willing to overlook a not so high GPA. Also, remember that colleges often look for an upwards trend in grades, so if they can see that there is improvement since sophomore year, that's a good sign. Also, many schools, have admissions officers who look at the applications of students from specific regions, allowing them to see everything in context. If they see that you took many challenging courses, I believe they'd like that better than someone who took really easy classes and got straight As. Bottom line is, most of the time, one stat isn't the only thing colleges consider when looking at your application, so make sure that all other aspects are really good.