I hear this all the time, but, like, who? What kind of perceived "defects" would the applicant possess in the eyes of the admin.
It's something you hear from someone somebody knows, or someone on the internet whispers... yet I have never met a single person with comparable stats who have failed at the admin cycle.
People with stats like this get into UC med schools (which seems to be a goal of most Californian premeds) Those I've met are normal functioning wonderful people of our society with a great CV.
edit: what i meant by FAILING at the admin cycle is that they fail to gain acceptance to even one school.
Yes, it happens. I have argued to the rest of the adcom against accepting students who I think are not a good fit for my school no matter how good their stats are, and I have voted against accepting them. Other adcoms, both students and faculty, have done the same. But there are lots of reasons why people with good stats could be rejected.
As someone else already said, there are some applicants with perfect stats (or nearly so) who don't have the rest of the app to go with it. I think my school is pretty representative in this sense, in that we expect a total package: clinical exposure, probably some kind of community service, other significant ECs like research, sports, jobs, etc. Someone who got straight As without these other things will have a difficult time answering the questions, "Why medicine," and "What have you done to show leadership ability?"
There are some who don't put thought into their apps or don't interview well. And there are some applicants who are just socially, um, challenged. You'd be amazed at the stupid things some applicants do and say. Mind you, I'm not saying people shouldn't ask questions and get answers that satisfy them. I'm just saying you should act like an adult while you're here. Since I've been on the adcom, there was one applicant who told their student host that we were their safety school. There was one who trashed their host's apartment. There was one who bragged about their stats and then grilled their host about the host's stats. There were a few who did things during the school presentations like check their email, play games on their iphones, or lay their head on the table and go to sleep. There have been a few who were nasty to the admissions secretary or rude to the students who come to the lunches to meet with the applicants. If you don't think that stuff gets back to the adcom....
There are some who don't apply wisely. Applications should be planned with a strategy in mind; otherwise you could be spinning your wheels no matter how good your stats are. For example, my state schools (FL) don't take many OOS students. Unless you have strong ties to this state, you're not going to have a very good chance of getting into one of our state schools. Applying to too few schools (unless you're applying ED) also falls into this category.
I often see premeds commenting on SDN about how the admissions process is random. It's not random, but it *is* somewhat subjective. The adcom has an idea of the kind of students who belong here and the kind of class we want to assemble, but we don't always agree on who the right individual candidates are. In the end though, I think we do a pretty good job as a group of picking the right people.