🚨 Beat NeurIPS Desk Reject: Three Must-Fix Pitfalls Before Submitting
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Pulling a NeurIPS all-nighter? I’ve already seen friends lose papers to instant rejections this week, so run through the checklist below before you lock in your submission.
1. “Placeholder” Title & Abstract
NeurIPS explicitly warns that titles or abstracts with little real content will be binned on sight. A single sentence teaser like “We introduce a new semi-supervised algorithm” isn’t enough.
Quick rescue
- Open your draft in OpenReview.
- Expand the abstract into a concise but information-rich paragraph: What problem, what method, what result?
- Save. Don’t wait until the final deadline. Desk rejections for this reason are already rolling out.
2. Incomplete Author Profiles
Every author must have a complete OpenReview profile before the deadline. Required:
Field What to do Affiliations List current + last 3 years DBLP link & publications Import via the DBLP URL Advisor / Relations Add supervisors, frequent co-authors, etc. Email Prefer institutional addresses DBLP 30-second guide
- Search your name at https://dblp.org.
- Copy your author page URL.
- In OpenReview → Edit Profile → paste into “DBLP” and click Import.
- Tick your papers, save.
No publications yet? That’s fine — the profile can still be “complete” as long as you have shown a best-effort in filling the fields above and your experiences.
3. Missing Checklist in the PDF
- The NeurIPS “paper checklist” must live inside the main PDF.
- Append it after references (or after the appendix if you have one).
- Copy the checklist block from
neurips2025.tex; comment out the instruction lines between
%%% BEGIN INSTRUCTIONS %%%and%%% END INSTRUCTIONS %%%. - Answer every item.
Skip this, and your paper may never even reach a reviewer.
Spot Anything Else?
If you know another desk-reject booby trap, drop a note below — your tip might save someone’s semester.
Good luck!
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NeurIPS official email further clearified today:
For your DBLP page: “If you have a valid DBLP page/link please add it. If not, it's perfectly fine, but please import your publications manually instead.” For author addition/removal: “Author addition/removal are not allowed after the abstract deadline. Due to the size of the conference, there is no operational capacity to handle any exceptions”
