EA - Proposed improvements to EAG(x) admissions process by Elika

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Proposed improvements to EAG(x) admissions process, published by Elika on January 30, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.This post is part of an ongoing series: Events in EA: Learnings and Critiques.Elika worked (as a contractor) for the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) to run EAGxBerkeley. This post is written in a personal capacity, and are not the views of or endorsed by CEA.ApplicationsDo a better job of auto filling application forms with information from previous applications.Applicants with less community experience who might be a good fit for the conference don’t necessarily know community communication norms. The following suggestions aim to provide more context and transparency around the process of application processing, without providing information that would allow applicants to goodhart.Make important questions mandatory to reduce the rate of incomplete applications.Adding context to questions (e.g. for some questions, if the answer is not at all related to EA it's hard to know if the person misunderstood the question, or just has had very limited interaction with EA)Asking applicants to provide specific, concrete answers to questions rather than vague generalities (e.g. “I’d like to learn more about EA” is very vague, it would be more helpful to know what specifically they’d like to learn, and what they already know)Tell applicants not to assume the organiser knows who you are (I think it's generally bad for culture and status).AdmissionsMake admissions policies clear (ex. this conference is for people in X region), both in public communications and throughout the application process.Don’t accept applicants after the deadline has passed. If you do want to accept last-minute applicants, have a consistent and fair criteria for accepting late applicationsExperiment with adding different questions to the application, such as:Check yes if you’re okay giving up your spot for a first time attendee if the conference is at capacity. We may still accept you if we think you could help other attendees.Checking yes if you’re applying but are uncertain you will register and attend (excluding last minute emergencies) to better forecast how many accepted applicants will actually apply.Check yes to “I can attend with