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name: wacv-review-process description: Use when reasoning about how WACV decides a paper, covering the two-round model, the Round 1 Accept / Revise-and-Resubmit / Reject recommendations, the optional Round 1 rebuttal, the no-rebuttal Round 2, area-chair consolidation, double-blind confidentiality, and where author leverage actually exists across the two rounds.

WACV Review Process

Use this to model the machine WACV runs your paper through, so effort lands where it moves a decision. WACV's pipeline is unlike its CVF siblings: it is a two-round, journal-style process with an explicit revision path. Facts below are the WACV 2026/2027 cycles as read on 2026-07-09; reopen the current Reviewer Guidelines and Dates page before relying on a date or rule.

The two-round pipeline

Each Round 1 submission is seen by at least three reviewers; the area chair consolidates the reviews and issues one of three recommendations:

R1 outcome	What it means	What happens next
Accept	The paper clears the bar as submitted	Proceeds to camera-ready
Revise and Resubmit	Not accepted, but plausibly fixable within the cycle	Invited into Round 2 with reviewer-requested revisions
Reject	Concerns too large for a short-timeframe revision	Out for this cycle

Round 2 then reviews two populations together: the revised R1 (Revise-and-Resubmit) papers and brand-new Round 2 submissions. Round 2 recommendations are Accept or Reject only. The scale of the middle band is the headline fact: in WACV 2025's Round 1, of 1381 submissions, roughly 12% were accepted outright, ~37% rejected, and ~51% invited to revise — most papers live or die in the revision lap, not the first review.

Where the rebuttal fits (and where it doesn't)

• Round 1 has an optional one-page rebuttal. After R1 reviews arrive, authors may file a single-page PDF (rebuttal template in the author kit) to correct factual errors and answer the reviewers before the recommendation is set.
• Round 2 has no rebuttal. For revised R1 papers, your "response" is the revision plus the change summary, not a rebuttal PDF; for new R2 submissions, there is simply no author-response step. Plan accordingly — an R2 paper cannot argue itself out of a weak first submission after the fact.

Confidentiality and conduct

Reviewing is double-blind: authors do not learn reviewer or AC identities, and reviewers should not be able to infer authorship beyond reasonable doubt. Review content is confidential; do not seek reviewer identities, post reviews, or contact chairs to circumvent the process. Treat the AC as the reader who must reconcile three reviews into one recommendation — clarity aimed at the AC pays off more than point-scoring a single reviewer.

Author leverage, by stage

R1 reviews land      → optional one-page rebuttal: fix factual errors, answer the top blocker
R1 = Accept          → move to camera-ready (see wacv-camera-ready)
R1 = Revise&Resubmit → the real work: make the reviewer-requested changes, write the change
                       summary, keep paper and artifact in sync for Round 2
R1 = Reject          → harvest the reviews; re-target (see wacv-topic-selection) or rebuild
R2 (revised paper)   → no rebuttal; the revision *is* the argument
R2 = Accept/Reject   → terminal for the cycle

The highest-leverage moment at WACV is not the rebuttal — it is executing a clean Revise-and-Resubmit. A paper that reads its R1 reviews as a concrete revision spec, makes exactly those changes, and documents them, converts far more often than one that argues.

Reading a recommendation honestly

• A Revise and Resubmit is an invitation, not a soft reject: it means the reviewers believe the gap is closable this cycle. Treat every requested change as load-bearing.
• An Accept at R1 is rare and clean — do not reopen the paper beyond camera-ready fixes.
• A Reject with substantive reviews is still valuable input for a sibling venue or the next cycle; separate "reviewers missed it" (rare) from "the paper did not answer the obvious question" (common).

Reverify each cycle

• Whether the two-round model, the three R1 recommendations, and the R2 Accept/Reject set still hold.
• The Round 1 rebuttal format and length, and the confirmation that Round 2 has none.
• Reviewer count per paper and any reviewer-side LLM or conduct rules.
• The exact R1/R2 review and decision dates (reported for 2027 — reconfirm).

Output format

[Stage] R1 reviews / R1 decision / R2 review / R2 decision
[R1 outcome] Accept / Revise&Resubmit / Reject
[Highest-leverage action now] <rebuttal fix | revision spec | re-target>
[If R&R] reviewer-requested changes enumerated: yes/no
[AC-facing clarity] <the one thing the AC must be able to conclude>