If they accept everyone who meets a certain bar, I wonder why that can’t be translated into rigid rules. I agree that this would feel better than having to try to “perform” promisingness on the application and feeling like you are not good enough if rejected. It might be frustrating to not get to go because you don’t yet have some concrete accolade. But this seems better than not getting to go because of some subjective-ish, shady process.
In my experience the bar isn’t about the impressiveness of the applicants’s achievements etc (the number of accolades I have is definitely below zero).
In the application each time I laid out what career directions I’m looking at and the reasoning behind them, and had clear, impact-focused and time-sensitive decisions or projects that I thought going to the conference could help with. And in fact the time I got put on the wait list was when I didn’t have as much of the latter. So I assume they factor these things in more than a record of achievement at least in some cases.
(I did lead a student EA group at one point, but that’s not a signal for anything competence-related like an internship is, like usually no one else is putting their hand up).
I don’t think the application criteria are implicitly or explicitly based on prior achievements. Not sure how to link to comments on the forum, but somewhere in these comments CEA people suggest it’s more about ‘does this person really know what EA is’, and ‘how Will attending this conference help increase this persons impact’. In another comment I also mention how my experience applying for EAGs aligns with this.
E.g. maybe if it’s uncertain based on a written application whether the person has a good/nuanced understanding of EA, having done an EA internship etc is the only way they can infer this—rather than being about the achievement of getting the internship.
If they accept everyone who meets a certain bar, I wonder why that can’t be translated into rigid rules. I agree that this would feel better than having to try to “perform” promisingness on the application and feeling like you are not good enough if rejected. It might be frustrating to not get to go because you don’t yet have some concrete accolade. But this seems better than not getting to go because of some subjective-ish, shady process.
In my experience the bar isn’t about the impressiveness of the applicants’s achievements etc (the number of accolades I have is definitely below zero).
In the application each time I laid out what career directions I’m looking at and the reasoning behind them, and had clear, impact-focused and time-sensitive decisions or projects that I thought going to the conference could help with. And in fact the time I got put on the wait list was when I didn’t have as much of the latter. So I assume they factor these things in more than a record of achievement at least in some cases.
(I did lead a student EA group at one point, but that’s not a signal for anything competence-related like an internship is, like usually no one else is putting their hand up).
I don’t think the application criteria are implicitly or explicitly based on prior achievements. Not sure how to link to comments on the forum, but somewhere in these comments CEA people suggest it’s more about ‘does this person really know what EA is’, and ‘how Will attending this conference help increase this persons impact’. In another comment I also mention how my experience applying for EAGs aligns with this.
E.g. maybe if it’s uncertain based on a written application whether the person has a good/nuanced understanding of EA, having done an EA internship etc is the only way they can infer this—rather than being about the achievement of getting the internship.