Who's telling you it's not the problem? And are they telling you something else that is?
Your MCAT score is below the mean of all test takers, not just matriculants, and not just applicants. It's an objective weakness. Your GPA blows mine out of the water, and though I felt I had some pretty solid extracurriculars, yours are far better if even half of them are true. You can't figure out what went wrong, but dismiss this obvious red flag. Being "too cheap to retake it" is penny wise and pound foolish. Even a 26 would probably make a world of difference, and the couple hundred bucks invested in another test date and a few prep books would potentially be the difference between you being a reapplicant or starting on the road to making $175K or better. Every year that your don't retake but don't get in, you miss out on hundreds of thousands in opportunity costs.
I think you have to eliminate every weakness before you can get too far into blaming the system. It's obviously flawed, but it's workable. You need to start playing the game. And it doesn't end when you matriculate. The people getting into Sigma Sigma Phi aren't always the best the school has to offer, and the people honoring rotations don't necessarily know the most about medicine. Settle in and get used to it.
I agree, that person was wrong to say that. Applying early is critically important, especially for osteopathic schools, and becomes more so if you have any weak points in your application.
Interviewing and being waitlisted doesn't mean you're good at interviewing. The rest of your application becomes less important at this point, and if you have a history of interviewing without acceptances, I'd entertain the possibility that you should tweak your approach.
