I don't think it's true at all that he's an exception to the rule. I'm a student at a DO school that's considered one of the most prestigious (it is linked to 2 allopathic schools, it falls under the same umbrella) Our stats are very close to the allopathic schools, and we have plenty of students with mid 30 MCATs and high GPAs who wanted to be DOs and could have gone to MD schools. I know of at least one student with a 40+ MCAT, who could have gone to allopathic schools but chose our school. It bothers me that so many students still look down on osteopathic schools and osteopathic students, assuming we just couldn't get in to allopathic schools.
I also want to say, just as there's a difference between first and 3rd tier allopathic schools, there's a different between some osteopathic schools. I don't know why people lump all schools in together - if one has lower standards, it means they are all bad. It's not true. And I also am bothered that osteopathic is always lumped with foreign medical graduates. Some osteopathic schools are better regarded than local allopathic schools. I don't know why people always want to lump things together...there are good allopathic schools and bad allopathic schools, there are good osteopathic and bad osteopathic schools. Maybe osteopathic schools used to accept students with lower scores, but at our school, our GPA and MCAT for matriculated students was pretty similar to the allopathic schools we're affiliated with.