# Application rounds and selecting a cohort

> Open an application round, bring in portal applications, assign reviewers, check the calibration, select the cohort and approve the decision emails.

Source: https://delsivo.com/help/syndicates-and-cohorts/application-rounds-and-cohorts · Updated 2026-11-06

## Key takeaways

- A round has open and close dates. Applications submitted on your portal between them join the round when you click Add portal applications.
- Assign reviewers in one go; each application gets the round's number of reviewers and the load is spread evenly.
- Reviewers are blind to each other until they submit. The calibration view shows who scores harshly or generously and where reviewers disagree.
- A person selects each application as Selected, Waitlist or Declined. The ranking only advises and nothing is decided on its own.
- Decision emails are drafts until an admin or partner who approves outbound messages sends them.

An accelerator picks a cohort from an application round: applications come in through your portal, reviewers score them in batches, and the selection committee decides. **Cohorts** in the sidebar holds your rounds. Each round has tabs for **Applications**, **My reviews**, **Calibration**, **Selection**, **Decision emails** and **Settings**.

## Create a round

1. Open **Cohorts** and click **New round**.
2. Enter the **Round name**, **Applications open** and **Applications close** dates, **Places in the cohort** and **Reviewers per application**.
3. Click **Create round**.

The dates are in your fund's time zone, from the start of the opening day to the end of the closing day. The scoring criteria start as Team (weight 3), Problem and insight (2), Early traction (2), Market (1) and Fit with the programme (1). Change them on the round's **Settings** tab: rename, reweight with the slider, add or remove. Once reviews are submitted, criteria can be renamed or reweighted but not added or removed, so scores stay comparable.

## Bring in applications

Founders apply on your portal as usual. On the **Applications** tab, **Add portal applications** adds every application submitted between the round's dates that isn't in the round yet; the button shows how many are new. **Add a company** adds a deal by hand, for a company the team sourced or a late application. The trash icon takes an undecided application out of the round, with its reviews, and offers **Undo**.

Set the round's status from the menu at the top: **Planning**, **Applications open**, **Reviewing**, **Cohort selected**, **Programme running**, **Done**.

## Assign reviewers

Click **Assign reviewers**, tick the people and click **Assign**. Each undecided application gets the round's number of reviewers from the people you picked, spread so everyone's load differs by at most one. Existing assignments stay. Reviewers are admins, partners and analysts. An analyst sees only the rounds they review and only their own batch, and can read the applications assigned to them even when they don't own the deal. See [Reviewing applications in a round](/help/syndicates-and-cohorts/reviewing-applications).

## Calibration

The **Calibration** tab shows how each reviewer scores against everyone:

| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| **Submitted** | Reviews submitted out of those assigned |
| **Mean** | The reviewer's average weighted score, 1 to 5 |
| **Spread (SD)** | How much their scores vary |
| **Against everyone** | **Generous by** or **Harsh by** the gap to everyone's mean, or **In line** |

A reviewer's habit is removed from the **Calibrated** score once they have three submitted reviews: each review is moved by the gap between that reviewer's mean and everyone's. **Where reviewers disagree** lists applications whose reviews are 1.5 points or more apart, with **Read the reviews**.

## Select the cohort

The **Selection** tab ranks applications by calibrated score and shows **Places filled**. For each application choose **Selected**, **Waitlist**, **Declined** or **Undecided**; an **Undo** appears after each change. Selecting past the number of places asks you to confirm. Recording a decision sends nothing and doesn't change the deal's stage.

Only an admin, or a partner who approves decisions, records the selection.

## Approve the decision emails

The **Decision emails** tab has a template for each decision, with the placeholders `{founder}`, `{company}`, `{fund}` and `{cohort}`. Edit and click **Save templates**. Below, each decided application has a draft filled in for its founder, with the recipient masked and a state: **Draft**, **Sending**, **Sent**, **Failed** or **No founder to write to**.

1. Click **Read the email** to check a draft.
2. Tick the drafts to send, or **Select every unsent draft**.
3. Click **Review and send**, check the count, and click **Approve and send**.

Emails come from your fund's name in your portal colours and carry only what the template says, never scores or reviewers' comments. The same email is never sent twice. If you change a decision after its email went out, the new decision gets a new draft. Only an admin, or a partner who approves outbound messages, sends.

## Who can do what

| Role | See | Run the round | Review | Decide | Send emails |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| **Admin** | Every round | Yes | When assigned | Yes | Yes |
| **Partner** | Every round | Yes | When assigned | Yes, with approvals | Yes, with approvals |
| **Analyst** | Rounds they review | No | When assigned | No | No |
| **Committee member**, **Member** | No | No | No | No | No |

## Frequently asked questions

### Does a high score select an application?
No. The ranking only advises. A person chooses each decision.

### Can a founder see their score?
No. Founders see only the email you approve.

### What if an application has no founder account?
Its draft shows **No founder to write to** and it can't be sent from here. This happens for companies added by hand.