I think the schools want strong GPA and strong MCAT. My GPA and work/research experience is stellar in my opinion. My MCAT is "ok" and I think that's where one of my weaknesses is. I spoke to ABP and they did say that the schools look for "recent undergraduate" work to show you can handle school. So again, not sure if that disqualifies me since I finished school a few years ago. This was something an academic advisor actually recently told me back in the USA as well. I had an appointment a few weeks ago. Even though I might have work experience that far outshines a new grad, she said "we know that going to school and work are much different", "we need to see you balance multiple courses", "we don't want to accept students who will then fail out or be unable to handle the demanding workload", basically she emphasized that working full time or having publications doesn't adequately show an ability to handle courses. She said to me that if I want to improve my chances I need to take recent sciences, e.g. night classes after work, at least 2 per semester, 1 is not enough as it doesn't show an ability to handle mulitple classes.
To me this is frustrating for sure. I wish they would give more students a chance, maybe even have an exam at the end of first year and those who can't keep up fail out. But at this point, being older, going back to pay and redo classes to then again just apply and "maybe get in" is very very frustrating. I can sort of see where they are coming from but at the same time I feel like I can handle myself well in school and have the background and research needed to probably outdo a lot new grads when it comes to application, pharma, etc.
