I don’t think this assessment is true (see quote below), since Scott’s entire post was about opening up EAG to anyone (it seems odd that he would be hyper critical about how much time she spent on an application if this is what he believes).
I’d be surprised if Scott Alexander would have included Constance’s comment in his post if he’d realised that she’d not spent any time on the applications that were rejected (obviously because she didn’t realise she was meant to!)
To clarify, my point has nothing to do with being critical of another person. I just think the take that ‘even someone who is so aligned with EA had their application rejected, so clearly there’s something broken in the admissions process’ probably assumes that person was aware that it even was a real application that they were filling out, not just a formality.
I don’t think this assessment is true (see quote below), since Scott’s entire post was about opening up EAG to anyone (it seems odd that he would be hyper critical about how much time she spent on an application if this is what he believes).
To clarify, my point has nothing to do with being critical of another person. I just think the take that ‘even someone who is so aligned with EA had their application rejected, so clearly there’s something broken in the admissions process’ probably assumes that person was aware that it even was a real application that they were filling out, not just a formality.