Did good on the GRE - does it really matter though?

[Amabam]

So I have been itching to go back to school after spending a few years in the workforce. I didn't take my undergraduate studies seriously and spent most of my time on drugs and partying. As a result I squeaked by with a 3.03 GPA (final semester was me redoing 5 core classes I had bombed to reach that 3.0) and wound up in a totally mediocre career path.

Now I've begun taking things seriously and got my CPA license and a few years experience in public accounting. I would like to go back to school for data analytics or engineering. I took my GREs today and did better than I expected (165 V 166 Q). Now I am thinking I could actually do this and get into a good program. I am wondering to what extent those scores make up for my lackluster GPA ? Do most serious programs have a hard January 1st deadline? I will most likely not be ready to submit apps by mid Jan...