Another thing occurred to me earlier today. If the majority of applicants will be taking the GRE this month, next month, and probably through October as well, and if ETS won't be sending out score reports to schools until November 8-10th, then that means that all the AA programs will be receiving a massive load of completed applications around the same time in mid-November. In other words, for everyone who has yet to take the GRE, their applications to AA programs won't be complete until mid-November... even if they are taking the GRE next week.
It seems like this could be a bad thing, especially when you consider that Emory alone could receive 300+ completed applications during the same week in November. If that happens, they'll easily be able to select 15-20 super competitive applicants from the pool of 300+ applications that just poured in.
Does that make sense to anyone else but me? It's essentially a bottleneck effect that won't be relieved until mid-November.
At the same time, maybe it's a good thing, because with so few completed applications being received throughout the months of August, September, and October, maybe they won't be able to afford to be as picky when it comes to selecting candidates to interview for the first couple of sessions.