Submission Review and Selection Process

Four reviewers are assigned to every submission, and no more than one student reviewer is assigned to a submission. There is always one expert reviewer on each session. Reviewers are assigned based on session content match to reviewer background (as indicated by the reviewer upon registering to volunteer for this service).

How does the acceptance decision get made?

Each year, the SIOP program is assembled by the SIOP Program Chair executive committee, which consists of the outgoing program chair, the current program chair, and the incoming program chair. This committee sets cut-score thresholds based on the reviewer ratings for the different submission types (types are symposiums, panels, debates, etc.). These cut scores are established to balance a variety of constraints, such as the amount of available program time, need for 50 versus 80-minute sessions, desire to have a diversity of formats, etc. Once those cut-scores are established, any session above the cut-score for that submission type will be accepted, and any submission below that score will be rejected. No other factors are considered in making the acceptance decision. This ensures a certain degree of fairness in the process as all submissions of the same type are treated equally. Importantly, the program chairs don’t have any discretion to accept individual sessions that are below the cut score. In the end, the acceptance decision comes down to whether the session was evaluated favorably by reviewers.

When will I hear whether my submission has been accepted?

Notifications are typically sent by early December.

For more information on how the program is built, see the following TIP article: Peering Behind the Curtain of the SIOP Program Building Process