In other words, someone with a high GPA, experience being the president of their local pre-med organization, 1,000 hours of volunteering experience, LOR's from 5 AA's, but a low quantitative GRE score is going to get turned down in favor of an applicant who has zero extracurriculars but a high GPA and high GRE scores. Again, the evaluating criteria might have changed in the last year, but for the past few admissions cycles, that's been how it is.
To answer your other question, when I was rejected from every program following my first application attempt, I realized (and received confirmation from the AA schools I applied to) that my quantitative GRE score being low was the factor that was responsible for my application's cumulative rejections. So I studied harder and completed more practice problems and re-took the GRE; my score improved (and I thought at the time that it would be high enough to nab an interview with at least ONE program) and so I re-applied to Emory, South, and Nova.
I received a rejection letter from South a week later stating flat-out that my quantitative GRE score was still too low. A few months later and after never receiving an interview invite, I received another rejection email from Emory (they later told me it was due to having a low quant GRE score).
It gets interesting with Nova... when I applied the previous year, they told me that my GPA (3.6) was competitive but (surprise) that my quantitative GRE score was too low. Since Nova is known for interviewing applicants with lower stats than other programs are willing to interview, I felt SURE on my re-application attempt that they would offer me an interview even though Emory and South turned me down outright. Well, surprise surprise... even though my GPA had been considered competitive during the previous admissions cycle and only my GRE score had been uncompetitive, after I re-applied, they rejected me and told me that this time, not only was my GRE score still too low, but so was my GPA.
So I went from having a too-low GRE score and a competitive GPA during my first application attempt, to improving both my GRE score and GPA for my second attempt, only to be told that BOTH values were now uncompetitive. In other words, even though I improved both my GPA and GRE score, admission in general became substantially more competitive during the last admission cycle.
At that point, I realized that I wasn't going to become an AA. I also recognized that, even though going back to school to become a nurse (especially since I just recently graduated with a bio degree) would be a hassle, I had already wasted more time during my two failed AA program application attempts than it would've taken me to just return to school and get a nursing degree. I could apply a third time and give it one more shot, but if I get rejected yet again, then I will supremely regret not having decided to just become a nurse. I have also heard people say that, if someone hasn't been accepted to an AA program after 2 application attempts, it just isn't going to happen for them. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but I'm not willing to test the proverb.
Sorry to get so long-winded... let me know if you have anymore questions! Good luck.
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