Do you have publications planned before you apply?
One of my colleague's sons just got accepted to a program. Another program mentioned that it was odd he didn't have that many publications (he's been doing research since high school, but his lab just doesn't publish a lot).
You need grades, research, pubs, MCAT, shadowing, a good story, etc.
These programs are so ultra competitive.
You can do well on the MCAT. I did a PhD before med school. I was out from undergrad for 7 years and got a 520 (equiv). It can be done. I did a Kaplan course and took their practice tests like it was my job.
Thank you for the response Dral. The company I work for has a business to run, so publishing our work into the ether, where our competitors live, is a pretty hard sell. However, I'm leading a research team right now for a certain project and plan to talk extensively about that on my application, as the methods involved are integral to the PhD I want to pursue. It may be possible for me to publish some of this new research, since it is methods-based rather than competitive knowledge. But doing so would require another year's delay of medical school.
I did a M.S. in mechanical engineering and my GPA was 3.84. Followed up with a diy post-bacc of biology I-II, orgo I-II, and biochem, landing a 4.0 for the five courses. If I were judged on these GPA's alone, I'd be in great shape. Unfortunately, my undergrad GPA of 3.55 brings the whole boat down. I did a thesis for my master's but never published, so I doubt that helps. I have a lot of volunteering hours (300+), good shadowing experiences, and hopefully a good story.
Very nice score! But again, I believe I will be at about a 512. I have no doubt I could score higher, maybe upwards of 516. But that will come at a cost to my family. Beyond that, I'm not sure it's a great precedent to set--for example, scoring a 520 if the work required for that score isn't sustainable (work-life balance). I have a suspicion that, if it requires me to wreck my life outside of medicine to score a 520, I will be entering a program that demands this same level of effort for the indefinite future. It may be the case that if I cannot score sufficiently high with a proper work-life balance, that I just don't have the smarts for the MD-PhD. And I'm ok with that, honestly.
The sentiment of the OP was 'are the stated MCAT and GPA insurmountable for MD-PhD adcoms?' Since the focus of this forum has thus far been 'hold on, there's no reason you can't score a 528', I venture to guess the stats from the OP are trending towards too darn low.