Some theory I could extrapolate from past years' results is (especially last year's):
1. If your latest update is in November (i.e., do not move on to the second phase before the end of the year), you are most likely desk-rejected for some reason -- likely you forgot to redact something.
2. Updates until the start of March do not matter. Almost everyone — if they did not have their application desk-rejected — will go through a similar (if not very same) review process (e.g., each "update" until March likely means a review or some multi-stage process that everyone goes through, depending on the agency). Thus, the updates between December and end of Feb mean nothing more positive than that you passed the "desk-reject" from #1 -- which is good, but nothing to really keep yourselves stressed over, I think, by checking the application every day.
3. March -- especially the end of March -- is the critical period. I know it's pretty close to the finalist announcement date, which is at the beginning of April, but what I've observed is that the latter half of March matters the most. There is one "final update" date before the finalist announcement date, which seems to vary each year, and you must have your application updated on that final update date to receive the ticket for winning. Again, this "ticket" does not guarantee a win, but I noticed that everyone who received the award had their portal updated on the final update date. However, a few people also had theirs updated on the final update date but did not win later. But the chance of getting the final update seemed to strongly favor winning the award.
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What does my theory mean?:
1. If you did not get an update until early December, I recommend you to keep your hopes low and just check back in March.
2. If you did get an update in December, I recommend you not to attach symbolic meaning to update dates and just check back in March.
3. If you got the "final update" in March, congratulations, you are potentially in the award pool, but don't keep your hopes too high yet, since the actual result will come out the following week or two.
