Dumb question Tuesday: How are so many people both starting early and not flip flopping for the Sierra?

I'm having trouble reconciling these pieces of information from the 2025 survey with eachother:

1. 55% of hikers had never thru hiked before

2. The average start date of people that were happy with that date was April 14

3. 93% of hikers did not flip flop

So my question is, what are all these people doing in the Sierra?? If half of all hikers were inexperienced with thru hiking, and almost none of them flip flopped, then how are those people managing to safely and competently cross the snowy Sierra? Are most people just hiking slow, so that they aren't actually entering the Sierra until mid-June or later, despite starting in mid-April? Or are people just leaving KM and sending it?

(I of course realize that there could be people inexperienced with thru hiking, yet very experienced with alpine snow travel, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume that that isn't the explanation for the PCT context)

Unfortunately the survey did not ask for the average entry date of the Sierra, which is surprising to me.

I ask because I'm plotting a rough-draft PCT itinerary for 2027, with a late start of May 10. I want to start late specifically to have more favorable conditions in the Sierra, so that I can maintain as much mileage as possible (I hiked the JMT last year and had an unreasonably leisurely experience!). And yet, even starting as late as May 10, I'm still projecting arriving at KM during the first week of June.

So what explains that? Are people just hanging out south of the range for as long as they can? Or again, are people just sending it and hoping for the best? I imagine that the experience level of PCT hikers entering the early spring Sierra is way lower than those entering the early spring Sierra for almost any other reason. That's just the way it is?