True. But it's like climbing Everest for the ORMs. Especially male ORMs. We have to jump through so many more hoops. I'm all for diversity in the medical profession but at some point it becomes so disheartening to be rejected because of something that is out of my control.
I'm Asian too and I've found it really unproductive to dwell on this issue or, for that matter, to really spend too much mental energy worrying about the general "competition" for med school. I like to think of it as "this is me, and these are my experiences and my app is unique in its own way and they can either take me or leave me." Like you said, how race may or may not be viewed in admissions is out of your control and it's more productive to direct your mental energy toward finding things that you're passionate about and can talk about at length/get really excited about than devoting it to being bitter affirmative action (which I completely 100% support personally but that's another discussion). Also, as others have pointed out here, it's hard for anyone to get into med school and I think this idea that "ORMs" have to do so much more to get accepted is largely a myth. (Also, as Asians, we're privileged to generally not have to deal with random people stereotyping us as not being smart or capable or of being the "affirmative action acceptance" or even people thinking that we don't really go to a school when we walk around campus. Being cast as the "model minority" has its own issues and challenges way beyond med school admissions, of course, but I think it's important to recognize your privileges too.)
Since you're a freshman, the college admissions process is probably super fresh for you and there's just way too much hand-wringing about how race plays into college admissions. I hope that as you learn and grow in college (and I think LAC are particularly good at helping people develop personally!) you'll come to reassess this stance. This has nothing to do with med school admissions, but The Case for Reparations is a really good, relatively short read that might be a good starting point.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
Regarding your actual question, I think that if you find activities that you really care about and pursue things that align well with your personal mission, you'll set yourself apart naturally.
🙂 Also, I personally found that I was interested in a lot of non-"typical premed" activities - I spent time working at foundations and doing nonprofit consulting and basically didn't do any research and barely any shadowing. It's certainly a less traditional path in some ways (and I definitely had my doubts at times when I was like "oh gosh why didn't I just bite the bullet and check off that box???") but I got accepted anyway.
🙂 College is such a great time to figure out what you care about - and it might not even be medicine! - and I hope you get to take advantage of and enjoy that. Best of luck!
