As the sector's gatekeepers, charter school authorizers are responsible for ensuring that schools in their purview set students up for success. To that end, they provide various forms of scrutiny and technical assistance, decide whether existing schools' charters should be renewed, and--perhaps most important--set the bar for the approval of new schools. Yet, while prior research has examined how the content of charter applications predicts the academic performance of newly created schools, there is almost no research on the actions taken by the charter authorizing body during the approval process. Such information might help authorizers improve those processes with the goal of strengthening their school portfolios. Accordingly, this study examines the extent to which the ratings of application reviewers and their votes on authorization predict the success--or, at least, the initial success--of schools that are authorized. The authors used data on application ratings and votes from the North Carolina Charter School Advisory Board (CSAB), as well as seven years of student-level administrative data. Findings suggest that authorizers can distinguish between stronger and weaker applicants, board members' professional judgment is at least as important as whatever appears in a school's written application, and raising the bar for approval would not significantly improve charters' chances of success.