How Waddle Street verifies a program is open, and what statuses mean

Where does Open come from?

Only from the firm. We read each firm's own careers site and the application system it posts on, such as Workday, Greenhouse, or a bank's own portal. When a program's posting is live there, the program reads Open, with the time we last saw it and a link to the posting itself.

In season we check the most watched programs every hour and the rest several times a day. A program also stays Open only while we keep seeing it. If we have not seen the posting within our freshness window (a day in season, three days off-season), the status says when it was last verified instead of claiming it is still live.

Some firm portals block automated reading. For those, a person on our side checks the firm's own site and records what they saw. It goes through the same rules and shows the same way. It is never copied from anywhere else.

What does each status mean?

Every row on Waddle Street shows a status word, because a date with no status is how students get burned. These are the words and exactly what stands behind each one.

• Open: we saw the live posting on the firm's own site within the freshness window.
• Open, some offices: the firm posted the program for other offices but not yet the main one, for example Houston before New York.
• Open, last verified: the posting was live when we last saw it, but that was longer ago than the freshness window.
• Expected: not seen yet this cycle, and last cycle's public record says when it opened. We show last year's date beside it.
• Reported: students told us they saw it open or closed, and we have not confirmed it on the firm's site yet. We show how many.
• Closed: we saw the posting come down on the firm's own site.
• No data yet: no posting, no public record from last cycle, and no reports. We say that plainly instead of guessing a date.

Where does Expected come from?

From last cycle's public record. That means the firm's own posting or announcement, or a dated public post by a student that names the date, collected by hand with the source written down. We project that date forward one year and label it Expected, with last year's date shown, so you can judge it yourself.

When a firm has no public record we can point to, we leave the date empty. A missing date is honest. An invented one would teach you to trust a number that could cost you a cycle.

Why does Waddle Street not use third-party trackers?

Because their dates are not ours to show and we cannot check them. A tracker that projects last year's dates, or lists a posting that has since come down, is exactly the mistake we exist to fix. Repeating it would make us wrong in the same way.

We may glance at outside signals privately to decide which firm site to check next. Nothing from them is stored as a posting, shown, or cited. A program moves to Open only after we see it on the firm's own site.

How do student reports work?

Any student can tell us a program opened, closed, or that something on the page is wrong. Each report carries the student's school, class year, and time. Reports show as Reported with a count, never as Open, and they send us straight to the firm's site to check.

If you see something wrong, report it from the program page. It is the fastest way to get a status fixed, and it helps the next student who looks.

1. Open the program's page on Waddle Street.
2. Use the report option to say what you saw: open, closed, or wrong.
3. We check the firm's site and update the status when we confirm it.

Questions students ask

Can a program be open on the firm site before Waddle Street says Open?

For a short time, yes, between our checks. In season the most watched programs are checked hourly. Report it from the program page and we check right away.

Why does a program say No data yet when I know it exists?

It means we have not seen a posting, have no public date from last cycle, and have no reports. Tell us from the program page and we will look.

Is Expected a promise?

No. It is last cycle's public date projected forward. Firms move dates, so track the program and wait for Open.

Why do you show a time on every status?

Because a status is only as good as when it was checked. The time tells you how fresh it is.

Does a model or AI decide the status?

No. Status is computed by fixed rules from what we saw on firm sites, the public record, and reports. A model never sets it.