After you hit submit.

The form says thank you and goes quiet. For most people, that’s the end — not because the video was bad, but because there were 16,000 of them and 18 seats. For the rest, here’s what’s coming, in order.

The silence

Normal. Serious Survivor contenders hear back in the autumn; Big Brother contenders between early March and mid-May. But the range is wild. Emily Flippen heard the day after she applied. Star Toomey, two weeks. Hayley Keel waited four months after a Race open call. Tyson Apostol’s version: they say next week, three weeks pass, and a text arrives saying sorry, we don’t know yet.

Big Brother is the only show that publishes a hard stop: if you haven’t heard by May 31, you didn’t make it this season. For the others, no news simply means no news.

The first call

It comes from a casting producer, and it isn’t a courtesy call. Malcolm Freberg said his casting director was infamous for trying to rattle you to see how you’d handle it. Tannenbaum FaceTimes at different times of day to check you’re consistent. Casting has already read your social media. Katherine Woodman, who got on Big Brother 27, described the stretch after the first contact as forms here and there, randomly, on top of copious interviews — and her one piece of advice is to be as available as you can be, because for a long while everyone’s replaceable.

Then more forms: an applicant agreement, a medical history, consent to the background check. They have deadlines, and missing one ends things.

The interviews

Survivor’s next round is a Zoom with Probst and executive producer Matt Van Wagenen; about 30 people a cycle get one. Big Brother does several rounds over Zoom between March and late May — you’ll be assigned to one finals date and you don’t pick it. The Race does rounds too: Kilmer-Purcell and Ridge counted three, each requiring a flight to LA; Keel was asked for several more audition videos before anyone travelled.

The psych test, the medical, the check

Every finalist takes a psychological evaluation. Probst describes Survivor’s as a written personality test followed by a long conversation — a very deep dive into who you are — and says it’s about learning how you behave, not finding something wrong. Eliza Orlins adds the caveat: it isn’t a confidential therapy session. A Big Brother finalist’s account from 2011 lists a timed IQ test plus a three-part personality exam on day one, with the group cut in half afterwards.

There’s a physical, by doctors the producers choose. And the background check runs — civil, criminal, financial, driving. Kass’s rule: it rarely disqualifies anyone on its own. An undisclosed item does.

The hotel

Survivor flies about 24 finalists to Los Angeles in January or February, economy, hotel provided. Big Brother flies its top finalists in for 24 hours at the end of May. The Race gathers about 20 teams in one room, with Phil Keoghan and the show’s creators present.

The rule is the same at all three: you don’t speak to the other finalists. Brent Ridge, who won the Race: you may leave your room only at set times, and you’re always escorted. A Big Brother finalist described nine days at an airport hotel with an appointment grid — producers, medical, two psych sessions, a written test — keys collected nightly, and producers claiming to have planted spies to see who’d chat. Probst’s warning: try to play detective and figure out who somebody is, and you’re off the show. Eye contact is allowed. That’s it.

Probst on the finals: if a player is going to panic, this is the stage where it happens. The interviews are with him, the executives and the casting team, in rounds.

The call

Survivor’s comes around March, often on a video call so they can film the reaction. You may tell one person — a partner or parent; occasionally a boss. Then about a month to arrange time off, a passport if you need one, and for the Race, vaccinations. Alyssa Borden trained like it was a job for a million dollars: two workouts a day around nursing shifts, paper maps, dance classes, learning to drive a manual.

Then there’s the other call. Survivor flies one male and one female alternate to Fiji with the eighteen. MC Chukwujekwu got hers as: you’re not on the cast, but you’re an alternate — she said yes within five minutes — and then, at Ponderosa, you’re officially in season 49, we start in 12 hours. Two cast members had just been removed for talking. Rachel LaMont went unused as an alternate for season 46 and won season 47. Big Brother 28’s alternate got the call the day before the premiere.

Sequester

Big Brother’s is twelve to fourteen days alone in a hotel room: devices handed over, a DVD player with movies checked out three at a time, meals at the door. Not, Taylor Hale insists, past seasons to watch. Zae Frederich watched sixteen hours of films a day and looked forward to the next food delivery. Rachel Reilly remembers someone quitting because they couldn’t handle it. And the cast list goes public while you’re in there, before you’ve set foot in the house.

Survivor’s pre-game at Ponderosa is shorter; the cast eat together and don’t speak. On season 49, one player wouldn’t even look at anyone, and her future tribemates decided she must be the alternate. She wasn’t.

The contract

You sign nothing to apply. If you’re cast, you sign a lot, including — as reported — a confidentiality clause with liquidated damages in the millions for revealing who was eliminated or who won. People have been disinvited from live finales over an Instagram photo. Take the secrecy seriously from the first call onward: a Big Brother finalist was cut when her boyfriend sent flowers to the hotel.

Then, mostly, it’s over

Most applicants never get past the silence. The ones who do describe a process that is long, strange, oddly kind, and designed at every stage to find out whether the person on the tape is the person in the room. If you are, you’ve done everything you can. The rest of it, as Probst says about the game itself, has virtually no rules once it starts.