I especially would not have expected it with a min 9 requirement, since I thought the conventional wisdom was that it has to look very much better from the outside than the grade being requested (tough when that is already 9) in order for them to have the confidence to open it up...
I have submitted in a similar scenario and asked min 8.5 just to give that little extra breathing room and had it just come back 'min grade'.
One difference is that my example was a very prominent HOFer---do we think they use a different standard, even if subconsciously (even though I know their written protocol claims everything is treated the same).
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