http://calnewport.com/blog/2010/03/26/how-to-get-into-stanford-with-bs-on-your-transcript-failed-simulations-the-surprising-psychology-of-impressiveness/
All of your activities, including your shadowing and hospital volunteer work, are easily simulatable. Tens of thousands of applicants do similar actives - how will schools decide which of you is most likely to thrive in their environment and take advantage of their resources? Hard work isn’t enough.
The good news is that you are a sophomore, so you have time on your side. Many distinctive applicants didn’t start until their sophomore years. But if you want to stand out, then you need to pick one of your activities or something related to your interests and invest time in it to acquire expertise and then take it in a direction which is not easily replicable. Cal Newport’s recipe is a fairly sensible one:
1. Choose a field. If you have a deep interest, this makes the choice obvious, but don’t over think this decision: you don’t need some mythical perfect match with some equally mythical innate talents or passions — your interest will grow with your involvement.
2. Get your foot in the door. Join a community; volunteer; attend a conference: whatever exposes you to the inside workings of the field
3. Pay your dues. The more you exceed expectations, the quicker you’ll rise to insider status.
4. Once you’re an insider — and not before — seek projects with failed simulation effect potential. If you start this search before your an insider, you’ll end up with generic ideas that are easily simulatable.
Science Olympiad, HOSA, Key Club, Student Council, Academic Team, FBLA, hospital shadowing/volunteering are all generic/standard things. Find something that adds a twist.
Here’s one idea just as an example. You volunteer in a hospital/shadow, so you have some interest in medicine. You also are in art club. I don’t know if this is a minor activity, or how artistic you are. But suppose you are a fairly talented artist (you don’t have to be Picasso). What about trying to bridge the two and explore the idea of art therapy in hospitals or rehab centers for patient recovery?
http://www.arttherapy.org/upload/medicalsettingstoolkit.pdf
http://www.chop.edu/services/creative-arts-therapies#.VetUZGA9b8k
You could pick a target population - children, geriatric patients, oncology patients, surgical patients, trauma patients, etc. - and talk to your hospital’s volunteer program about whether anything currently exists. Look around your area for hospitals or rehab centers with such programs. Invest some time understanding the state of the field and the literature, and what is involved. Maybe you could get your art club to come work with patients and get them involved in artistic therapy. This is all “picking a field”, “getting your foot in the door”, and “paying your dues”. You make this project your baby and put most of your effort into it; maybe you drop a few of your generic ECs, and keep the others that are most meaningful to you. Do this for a year or year and a half and suddenly you’re an “insider” - the “art therapy” kid who volunteers. If other kids are involved, you are still the one who came up with the idea - now you have “leadership” credentials. Then you can look at taking it to the next level and giving it “failed simulation effect” potential. Reach out to state or national organizations. Get written up in local publications. Write a paper about the experience with a physician mentor, or even a book. Look at creating a non-profit or volunteer network that spans multiple locations. Get involved with broadening it to other target populations - you are an “expert”, so people will want to copy what you did and consult you for your expertise. Then when you go to apply to colleges you are the “art therapy kid” (adcoms love applicants who can be uniquely identified by short descriptive phrases; they are different; they stand out) who created a multi-site program across your state working with [target population] and participated in national conferences/wrote a book about it. You didn’t follow the easy paths or the herd, you created your own opportunity, and most people won’t know where to start to replicate it. The person reading your file will say to himself/herself “that’s really cool; I wonder how someone does something like that?”. So you will be different than anyone else applying. Assuming you are academically qualified, you will have a huge edge. 2 years from now, when you are ready to apply, you will be a completely different applicant from who you are today.
That’s just one example. It may not actually work for you, or it may notinspire you (anything that you do should genuinely light you up). But it should give you some idea of how to proceed.