If you fail one section of the CFA you will fail the whole test. So if you max out everything, but you can only do 5 push ups, you fail and is very very unlikely that you will be accepted. But if you do very well overall, you might get extra points to your candidate score. The CFA is only 10% of your candidate score, but sometimes you will need that CFA score to push you over into "appointment" territory. I was Wait Listed last year and there are usually about 50-150 in the nation to be put on the Wait List, a couple more points I could have been appointed, a couple less points and I would have gotten a flat TWE without a Wait List. I guess it really depends on your overall assessment (test scores, gpa, leadership, etc), and how much you want to leave up to chance.