🎪 ACL 2025 Reviews Are Out: To Rebut or Flee? The Harsh Reality of NLP’s "Publish or Perish" Circus
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The Verdict: ACL 2025 Review Scores Decoded
This year’s Overall Assessment (OA) descriptions reveal a brutal hierarchy:
5.0 "Award-worthy (top 2.5%)"
️ 4.0 "ACL-worthy"
3.5 "Borderline Conference"
3.0 "Findings-tier" (Translation: "We’ll take it… but hide it in the appendix")
1.0 "Do not resubmit" (a.k.a. "Burn this and start over")
Pro tip: A 3.5+ OA avg likely means main conference; 3.0+ scraps into Findings. Meta-reviewers now hold life-or-death power—one 4.0 can save a 3.0 from oblivion.
Nightmare Fuel: The 6-Reviewer Special
"Some papers got 6 reviewers—likely because emergency reviewers were drafted last-minute. Imagine rebutting 6 conflicting opinions… while praying the meta-reviewer actually reads your response."
Rebuttal strategy:
- 2.0? "Give up." (Odds of salvation: ~0%)
- 2.5? "Worth a shot."
- 3.0? "Fight like hell."
The ARR Meat Grinder Just Got Worse
New changes to the ARR (Academic Rebuttal Rumble):
5 cycles/year now (April’s cycle vanished; June moved to May).- EMNLP’s deadline looms closer — less time to pivot after ACL rejections.
LLM stampede: *"8,000+ submissions per ARR cycle!
"Back in the days, ACL had 3,000 submissions. No Findings, no ARR, no LLM hype-train. Now it’s just a content farm with peer review."
How to Survive the Madness
Got a 3.0? Pray your meta-reviewer is merciful.- 🤬 Toxic review? File an "issue" (but expect crickets).
ARR loophole: "Score low in Feb? Resubmit to May ARR and aim for EMNLP."
The Big Picture: NLP’s Broken Incentives
- Reviewer fatigue: Emergency reviewers = rushed, clueless feedback.
- LLM monoculture: 90% of papers are "We scaled it bigger" or "Here’s a new benchmark for our 0.2% SOTA."
- Findings graveyard: Where "technically sound but unsexy" papers go to die.
Final thought: "If you’re not gaming the system, the system is gaming you."
Adapted from JOJO极智算法 (2025-03-28)
Share your ACL 2025 horror stories below! Did you rebut or run? -
My initial scores are OA 2.5/2.5/2
It got raised to OA 2.5/2.5/2.5 ... Well, become a bit better LOL!
Any chance for findings? -
Some review scores I have seenStronger or Mid-range Submissions
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OA: 4/4/4, C : 2/2/2
Concern: Low confidence may hurt chances. -
OA: 4, 4, 2.5, C : 4, 4, 4
Community says likely for Findings. -
OA: 3, 3, 3, C : 5, 4, 4
Possibly borderline for Findings. -
OA Average: 3.38, Excitement: 3.625
Decent shot, though one reviewer gave 2.5. -
OA average: 3.33
Reported as the highest OA seen by one reviewer – suggests bar is low this cycle.
Weaker Submissions
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OA: 2.5, 2.5, 1.5,
4, 3, 3
Unlikely to be accepted. -
OA: 2, 1.5, 2.5,
4, 4, 4
Most agree no chance for Findings. -
OA: 3, 3, 2.5,
4, 3, 4
Marginal; some optimism for Findings. -
Only two reviews, one with meaningless 1s and vague reasoning
ACs often unresponsive in such cases.
Some guessing from community
Findings Track:
- Informal threshold: OA ≥ 3.0
- Strong confidence and soundness can help borderline cases
Main Conference:
- Informal threshold: OA ≥ 3.5 to 4.0
- Very few reports of OA > 3.5 this cycle
Score Changes During Rebuttal:
- Rare but possible (e.g., 2 → 3)
- No transparency or reasoning shared
Info on review & rebuttal process
- Reviews were released gradually, not all at once
- Emergency reviews still being requested even after deadline
- Author response period extended by 2 days
- Confirmed via ACL 2025 website and ACL Rolling Review
- Meta-reviews and decisions expected April 15
To summarize
- This cycle’s review scores seem low overall
- OA 3.0 is a realistic bar for Findings track
- OA 3.5+ likely needed for Main conference
- First-time submitters often confused by lack of clear guidelines and inconsistent reviewer behavior
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Continued sample scores from zhihu
🟩 Borderline to Promising Scores
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4 / 3 / 3 (Confidence: 3 / 4 / 4)
Hoping for Main Conference acceptance.
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4 / 3 / 2.5 (Confidence: 3 / 4 / 4)
Reviewer hinted score could increase after rebuttal.
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3.5 / 3.5 / 3 (Meta: 3)
For December submission. Ask: is that enough for Findings?
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3.5 / 3.5 / 2.5 (Confidence: 3 / 3 / 4)
Author in the middle of a tough rebuttal. Main may be ambitious.
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3.5 / 3 / 2.5
Open question: what's the chance for Findings?
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3 / 3 / 2.5 (Confidence: 3 / 3 / 3)
Undergraduate author. Aims for Findings. Rebuttal will clarify reproducibility.
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3.5 / 2.5 / 2.5 (Confidence: 3 / 2 / 4)
Community sees this as borderline.
🟨 Mediocre / Mixed Outcomes
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2 / 3 / 4
One reviewer bumped the score after 6 minutes (!), but still borderline overall.
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2 / 2.5 / 4
Rebuttal effort was made, but one reviewer already dropped. Probably withdrawn.
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2 / 3.5 / 4
Surprisingly higher for a paper the author didn’t expect to succeed.
🟥 Weak or Rejected Outcomes
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4 / 1.5 / 2 (Confidence: 5 / 3 / 4)
Likely no chance. Community reaction: “Is it time to give up?”
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3 / 2.5 / 2.5 (Confidence: 3 / 3 / 5)
Rebuttal might help, but outlook is dim.
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1 / 2.5, confidence 5
Probably a confused or low-effort review.
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OA 1 / 1 / 1
A review like this existed (likely invalid). Community flagged it.
Additional comment from community- Some reviewers are still clearly junior-level, or appear to use AI tools for review generation.
- Findings threshold widely believed to be OA ≥ 2.5–3.0, assuming some confidence in reviews.
- Review score inflation is low this round: average OA above 3.0 is rare, even among decent papers.
- Several December and February round submissions are said to be evaluated independently due to evolving meta-review policies.
️ Summary- Score distributions reported in the Chinese community largely align with Reddit’s (see my previous post), which is 3.0 is the magic number for Findings, 3.5+ needed for Main.
- Rebuttal might swing things, but expectations are tempered.
- Many junior researchers are actively sharing scores to gauge chances and strategize next steps (rebut, withdraw, or resubmit elsewhere).
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See here for a crowd-sourced score distribution (biased ofc): https://papercopilot.com/statistics/acl-statistics/acl-2025-statistics/
