I don't understand thw whole process either. However, when a school such as NOVA (or any other school this year) gets 3,500 applicants during a matter of weeks, you don't have the time to look very closely at every application. My guess is that there is some sort of random criteria (such as 20 or above on rc, or something like that). Regardless of how high a student's GPA or overall DAT score was, if that student doesn't match their specific "weeding out" criteria, they are rejected. Doing it that way, there will be many students with great stats rejected, but there are plenty others with great stats to choose from. I'm probably way off, but it makes sense to my brain.