Hello! I'm a current student!
I can't really answer questions about what makes an application stand out because I'm not on the admissions committee. I know some people in my program got in with very few hours of observation/volunteering, but some people have had TONS. A bunch of people worked for years in relevant sites (ex two or three ladies have worked in assisted living communities, one worked as a child life specialist at a hospital, a couple worked at a mental health facility). But there's also a lot of people who are fresh out of college... probably 50%.
Most of the people I've chatted with seem to have gotten in off the waitlist. I think that's because the state schools are SO much cheaper than NYU. As to whether it's worth the cost, it's hard to say, especially since I haven't been to any other schools and I'm not finished with the program yet. I know a lot of other programs in the area are smaller populations (we have 55 in my class as opposed to 30). That could be claustrophobic but it also could be intimate; a 50 person class is not terribly personal. I'm a little frustrated by the lack of community within the program, I know some other schools are much better about that. Part of that is because so many people commute that they never stay around to socialize, so you tend to choose your friends in the first week and mostly say with the same people. I'm also frustrated by the way they teach anatomy, but after I found a second year to tutor me for an affordable price it got a LOT better (there are no tutors available from the university). I also have a second year buddy which has been amazing.
Some of the professors are great. A lot of them are ok. The workload is manageable once you accept that you can't do everything (ex you cannot do all of the readings). You can get by without doing that much of the homework but then you'll be struggling around exam time and your understanding won't be as great. You all know how that goes