What does it mean to go directly from "under review" to "decision in process"? I submitted a paper to an Elsevier journal in mathematics, which is right now in &quot;decision in process&quot;. The status changed in the following manner:
Submitted to journal----(after 1 day)---&gt;with Editor----(after 8 days)--&gt;under review-----(after 15 days)--&gt;decision in process.
But there was an intermediate stage (&quot;required reviews completed&quot;) between &quot;under review&quot; and &quot;decision in process&quot;, which was not followed.
What does this mean? Is it a bad sign?
Manuscripts move from &quot;Under review&quot; to &quot;Required Reviews Complete&quot; when all the necessary reviews to make a decision have arrived. This is usually journal-dependent, e.g. some journals can move the status when one review has been submitted, while others might ask for 2 or 3 or more. Manuscripts move from &quot;Required Reviews Complete&quot; to &quot;Decision in Progress&quot; when the editor's ready to make a decision.
In this case you didn't see &quot;Required Reviews Complete&quot;, which could mean:

Editor decided to make a decision before all the reviews have arrived. This could be for all sorts of reasons, e.g. the status moves when 2 reviews have arrived, but only one reviewer submitted a review and the editor's making a decision anyway. Or the editor decided to terminate the review process on the strength of that one review. Etc.
Editor &quot;got to&quot; the manuscript before you did. In other words, there really was a &quot;required reviews complete&quot; status, but the editor was monitoring the journal at the time and moved the manuscript along before you saw the status change.

In all cases there's nothing to do except wait.