I empathize with you, and I think it might be good to have this place to vent.
But I also think, as Lizka wrote, that being rejected from EAG isn’t about failing some high standards. Rather it’s about the conference being useful for you, and you being useful for other attendees (in the eyes of the admissions team).
I was also admitted to (and attended) one EAG and then rejected from the next one. Afterwards I did attend an EAGx and some other international EA programs. I don’t feel that that one rejection meant anything about my worth. I haven’t applied this year, but if I do end up applying and I get rejected, it’d still not mean anything about me personally.
I’m not writing this to erase your experience, but rather to offer others who apply another lens to look at it through.
Also I’m not affiliated with CEA, this is just my interpretation of how they work. But even if I were wrong and they did try to admit people by how “worthy” they were, CEA is just one small group of people, and they determine neither your real worth nor your impact on the world.
I agree that nobody is trying to evaluate my worth as a person with this admission, perhaps I should’ve phrased things more carefully. For what it’s worth I do think I’d be highly impactful at the conference, but my skillset is outside the scope of what I’m trying to get at in this post.
No matter how many carefully crafted rebuttals and distinctions people make, the fact remains that I have spent years of my life working to improve my impact, and then have not gotten accepted into a conference that’s focused on people with high impact.
I do appreciate you and Lizka trying to soften the blow, but I want to emphasize that it’s a blow nonetheless. Even if I take what you both are saying as a given (that it’s a judgment on my usefulness and not me as a person) the rejection is still difficult to handle. It’s basically saying that my skillset, career, work I’ve done, etc, is not important or impactful enough to make a difference at EAG.
All that being said, it’s a whole different ballgame discussing this coldly and rationally, versus being in the seat and dealing with the emotions. I applaud you for being able to fully separate the rejection from your own worth, but that’s not realistic for me and I would guess for most people it isn’t realistic either.
I empathize with you, and I think it might be good to have this place to vent.
But I also think, as Lizka wrote, that being rejected from EAG isn’t about failing some high standards. Rather it’s about the conference being useful for you, and you being useful for other attendees (in the eyes of the admissions team).
I was also admitted to (and attended) one EAG and then rejected from the next one. Afterwards I did attend an EAGx and some other international EA programs. I don’t feel that that one rejection meant anything about my worth. I haven’t applied this year, but if I do end up applying and I get rejected, it’d still not mean anything about me personally.
I’m not writing this to erase your experience, but rather to offer others who apply another lens to look at it through.
Also I’m not affiliated with CEA, this is just my interpretation of how they work. But even if I were wrong and they did try to admit people by how “worthy” they were, CEA is just one small group of people, and they determine neither your real worth nor your impact on the world.
I agree that nobody is trying to evaluate my worth as a person with this admission, perhaps I should’ve phrased things more carefully. For what it’s worth I do think I’d be highly impactful at the conference, but my skillset is outside the scope of what I’m trying to get at in this post.
No matter how many carefully crafted rebuttals and distinctions people make, the fact remains that I have spent years of my life working to improve my impact, and then have not gotten accepted into a conference that’s focused on people with high impact.
I do appreciate you and Lizka trying to soften the blow, but I want to emphasize that it’s a blow nonetheless. Even if I take what you both are saying as a given (that it’s a judgment on my usefulness and not me as a person) the rejection is still difficult to handle. It’s basically saying that my skillset, career, work I’ve done, etc, is not important or impactful enough to make a difference at EAG.
All that being said, it’s a whole different ballgame discussing this coldly and rationally, versus being in the seat and dealing with the emotions. I applaud you for being able to fully separate the rejection from your own worth, but that’s not realistic for me and I would guess for most people it isn’t realistic either.
100%. Thinking “rationally” about whether you should or shouldn’t be hurt by something doesn’t make you less hurt by it.