How I made peace with not knowing exactly how strong my case was until it was actually decided

A genuine, lasting source of anxiety throughout this process: no amount of self-assessment, outside review, or tool-based analysis could give me true certainty about the outcome before an actual decision came back — everything short of that final decision was a well-informed estimate, not a guarantee. What eventually helped me make peace with that uncertainty: separating "have I done everything reasonably within my control to build the strongest case I can" from "do I know for certain what the outcome will be." I could genuinely answer yes to the first question through real, careful effort. The second question was never going to have a knowable answer in advance, no matter how much I wanted it to. If you're carrying that same uncertainty right now: it's not a sign you're missing something everyone else has figured out — genuine uncertainty about an outcome that depends on someone else's judgment is just an honest, unavoidable feature of this kind of process, not something you can research or plan your way out of entirely.