Q: What does the status "Awaiting Reader Selection" mean?
One month ago I submitted my article to a top-tier journal. Today I checked my submission status. It said "ADM: name" and below, "Awaiting Reader Selection". What should I assume from it? That my article overcame the first editorial check?
Are you sure the status is “Awaiting reader selection” and not “Awaiting reviewer selection”? If it’s the latter, you can rest assured that your paper has cleared the initial editorial screening.
However, if the status is “Awaiting reader selection,” it would mean something completely different. This status is rather uncommon. Since the status is also showing "ADM" (which means "admin") my guess is that the manuscript is still in the admin check phase. “Reader” in this case probably refers to an admin person who will read the manuscript and check that all the journal guidelines have been met before assigning it to an editor.
You can check the journal website to see if they have mentioned what this status means. If you don’t find any information, you can consider writing to the journal to get more clarity on this.
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This content belongs to the Journal submission & peer review Stage