Awaiting AE recommendation - Can be rejected? I already referred to this post, post, post
I recently submitted my paper to a journal 40-45 days back.
For the first 10 days, it was reviewed by the managing editor and sent to us for some format issues, etc.
Later, it has been under &quot;Awaiting review scores&quot; for the past 25 days.
And from the past few days, I see it as &quot;Awaiting AE recommendation&quot;. I know the next stage is to Editor In chief. But my question is as below
a) Is it possible to be rejected at this point? Because we didn't receive any email till now on clarifications, request to revise something, etc. Could it mean direct rejection? Like reviewers gave low scores and it is bound for rejection?
b) For ex: Let's say the paper requires some revision based on reviewers. In that case, will it be communicated directly to us (by the managing editor) or even request for revisions/clarifications will also happen through &quot;AE&quot; and &quot;EIC&quot;
c) Am I right to understand that based on the info that I shared, there are only two possible outcomes. Either outright reject or acceptance notification is the next possible step? No revisions because it is already &quot;Awaiting AE recommendation&quot;
In journals that use Manuscript central, there are a few possibilities. Since there is no way to know specifics, in general, and AE can do one of the following depending on how the recommendation task is set up:

Make a recommendation. (Accept, reject, more reviews needed).
Make a decision. (some journals allow this at this point in the workflow)
Add more reviewers, and continue the peer review process.

Hope this helps.
Note: I am a ScholarOne employee, but my opinions/answers are my own.