I agree it’s a problem that 1) promising people and 2) established professionals in EA are not attending EAG because there aren’t enough places.
The solution is not to make EAG open access. This is antithetical to keeping EA weird.
The solution is to plan bigger EAGs, and keep the selectiveness criteria the same (or even up the selectiveness). And being ok with not filling the planned quota—empty seats are much better than disgrunted people left out.
But then of course there is the question of what’s keeping EAG organizers from making them twice the size. They will have a better insight here!
Is the goal of EA to maximize impact, or some other collection of things? If EA losing some of its distinct culture helps it execute on its stated core mission, isn’t that ok?
But then of course there is the question of what’s keeping EAG organizers from making them twice the size. They will have a better insight here!
I suspect/my understanding is, it’s just a slow feedback loop. You have to book a venue before you know how many people will apply, and if that venue has a capacity (i.e. there literally wouldn’t be enough space, or health and safety issues) you can’t accept more than that.
With that said, I would be very surprised if EAG-SF (Which IIRC had around 1700 accepted, with 200 no shows) rejected more than 30% of US based applicants. And those rejections would likely no be capacity related, by more due to not hitting the bar of acceptance. So the limiting factor could be demand
[EDIT: Eli from CEA has clarified that places are not currently a limitation for accepting people into EAG]
I agree it’s a problem that 1) promising people and 2) established professionals in EA are not attending EAG because there aren’t enough places.
The solution is not to make EAG open access. This is antithetical to keeping EA weird.
The solution is to plan bigger EAGs, and keep the selectiveness criteria the same (or even up the selectiveness). And being ok with not filling the planned quota—empty seats are much better than disgrunted people left out.
But then of course there is the question of what’s keeping EAG organizers from making them twice the size. They will have a better insight here!
Is the goal of EA to maximize impact, or some other collection of things? If EA losing some of its distinct culture helps it execute on its stated core mission, isn’t that ok?
I suspect/my understanding is, it’s just a slow feedback loop. You have to book a venue before you know how many people will apply, and if that venue has a capacity (i.e. there literally wouldn’t be enough space, or health and safety issues) you can’t accept more than that.
With that said, I would be very surprised if EAG-SF (Which IIRC had around 1700 accepted, with 200 no shows) rejected more than 30% of US based applicants. And those rejections would likely no be capacity related, by more due to not hitting the bar of acceptance. So the limiting factor could be demand