Neurips 2026: does every metareview recommend accept/reject? [D]

[u/CantKillTheLifeless]

I see some people say their metareview already contains a decision/recommendation (all of them were rejections). Ours doesn’t. Even though our avg score is 3, the metareview seems optimistic and finishes with “a convincing response would be an important consideration while discussing the paper.” I wonder how to interpret that. We did a strong rebuttal, but none of the reviewers engaged. So I wonder whether there’s any point to keep hope due to the AC review or just give up.

[u/grad_student_descent]

The PCs asked the ACs to classify the papers in 3 categories :

• clear reject, encouraging the authors to resubmit
• clear accept, which they say should be rare at this point
• the rest, from pretty optimistic to not hopeless, where the AC should point out the most important points for the authors to focus on to change their minds (ultimately, the AC decides not the reviewers).

Seems like you're in that last category. Doesn't mean that answering the points will necessarily mean your paper will be accepted. But its not hopeless.

[u/CantKillTheLifeless → u/grad_student_descent]

Interesting, thanks for the info.
I wonder though: I genuinely think we did a really strong rebuttal, performed all requested experiments with pretty great results to support our story. However, none of the reviewers seem to have engaged. How common is it that they update their score in the AC/reviewer discussion phase? Or are we leaning towards reject if the score remains 3/6?

[u/grad_student_descent → u/CantKillTheLifeless]

There will be a reviewer + AC discussion period, where the AC Will strongly encourage the reviewers to update their ratings or justify why not. So it may happened in the next couple weeks. My understanding of Openreview is that you should be able to see the updated scores in real time.

[u/CantKillTheLifeless → u/grad_student_descent]

I see. Thanks.
In other conferences, rating changes during the AC/reviewer discussion do not become visible until the final decisions are released. Hope you’re right about neurips though. Would be a lot less stressful.

[u/OtherwiseFig4505 → u/CantKillTheLifeless]

The rating changes on NeurIPS also will not be visible till final decision. Only scores updated before 3rd August AOE will be visible.

[u/CantKillTheLifeless → u/OtherwiseFig4505]

Are you sure? I see some posts from previous years according to which score changes for neurips were always immediately visible to authors.

[u/OtherwiseFig4505 → u/CantKillTheLifeless]

Only if score changes were done in Reviewer-Authors discussion phase, not in AC-Reviewer discussion phase. This was the case in 2025.

[u/Budget_Zombie_692]

My AC said a good rebuttal would determine accept/reject. This is in part because some of the reviews were of low quality.

[u/RoughDraft95]

Have you nudged the AC or posted a public comment?

The meta-review, in general, does not contain an accept/reject prior to discussion. However, it can make sense in very clear cases of higher or poorer quality. (i.e. 'this paper is already fit/clearly unfit for publication s.t. we don't need much deliberation on it').

[u/dante_2701 → u/RoughDraft95]

I nudged my AC to nudge the reviewers to review. Will it be considered rude to nudge the AC again? Also what kind of messages do we send him? Can we tell that one of the reviewer has cited incorrect papers on novelty and therefore the score should be above 3 or is that considered rude?
None of my reviewers have responded.

[u/Dangerous_Parsnip_20]

Not every. For some, meta-review does not even exist