A little while ago I posted this quick take:
I didn't have a good response to @DanielFilan, and I'm pretty inclined to defer to orgs like CEA to make decisions about how to use their own scarce resources.
At least for EA Global Boston 2024 (which ended yesterday), there was the option to pay a "cost covering" ticket fee (of what I'm told is $1000).[1]
All this is to say that I am now more confident (although still <80%) that marginal rejected applicants who are willing to pay their cost-covering fee would be good to admit.[2]
In part this stems from an only semi-legible background stance that, on the whole, less impressive-seeming people have more ~potential~ and more to offer than I think "elite EA" (which would those running EAG admissions) tend to think. And this, in turn, has a lot to do with the endogeneity/path dependence of I'd hastily summarize as "EA involvement."
That is, many (most?) people need a break-in point to move from something like "basically convinced that EA is good, interested in the ideas and consuming content, maybe donating 10%" to anything more ambitious.
For some, that comes in the form of going to an elite college with a vibrant EA group/community. Attending EAG is another—or at least could be. But if admission is dependent on doing the kind of things and/or having the kinds of connections that a person might only pursue after getting on such an on-ramp, you have a vicious cycle of endogenous rejection.
The impetus for writing this is seeing a person who was rejected with some characteristics that seem plausibly pretty representative of a typical marginal EAG rejectee:
* College educated but not via an elite university
* Donates 10%, mostly to global health
* Normal-looking middle or upper-middle class career
* Interested in EA ideas but not a huge amount to show for it
* Never attended EAG
Of course n=1, this isn't a tremendous amount of evidence, I don't have strictly more information than the admissions folks, the optim