This time of year, there are surely many folks out there upset they didn’t get into EA Global (EAG). As the year continues, there will be plenty more people who get rejected, and feel hurt. I am one of them.
I'm writing this post to briefly share my experience, and give space for others to vent and commiserate about not being able to attend EAG.
As a quick aside, I understand that not everyone can get into EAG due to the high standards the admittance committee has. (at least with the way it’s currently structured.) I also understand that with funding constraints many people had to be rejected, almost definitely more than in previous years. I’m sure that it’s not easy being on the EAG team and making these decisions.
That being said, as many of us know, being rejected from EAG can be miserable. Last year, after reading and learning about Effective Altruism for many years, I upended my entire life to work towards having a larger impact. I started an EA group in my local city. I quit my lucrative job and joined an early stage, mission driven AI startup, working for free for months until we secured funding. All this in the hopes I would have more impact and be able to give more to the EA community, and the world.
Unfortunately despite all of this effort, I was rejected from EAG. Surprisingly I got in last year, despite being much less involved and having less potential impact from my own perspective. It stings, and I’m frustrated. I don’t blame the people making the decision as I’m sure they had good reasons not to accept my application. But it still hurts. It feels like I devoted hundreds of hours of my life and tied my identity to a group, only to be told I wasn’t good enough.
As I said, I want to invite others feeling the same way to comment. I don’t want to encourage destructive or vindictive dog piling on CEA or the EAG team, but I do think it’s important to share what a rejection from EAG means to people.
I'd also like to encourage people who did get invited to EAG, or look down on this type of post as complaining, to try and have charity towards folks like me. A bit of empathy can go a long way.
I empathize with you, and I think it might be good to have this place to vent.
But I also think, as Lizka wrote, that being rejected from EAG isn't about failing some high standards. Rather it's about the conference being useful for you, and you being useful for other attendees (in the eyes of the admissions team).
I was also admitted to (and attended) one EAG and then rejected from the next one. Afterwards I did attend an EAGx and some other international EA programs. I don't feel that that one rejection meant anything about my worth. I haven't applied this year, but if I do end up applying and I get rejected, it'd still not mean anything about me personally.
I'm not writing this to erase your experience, but rather to offer others who apply another lens to look at it through.
Also I'm not affiliated with CEA, this is just my interpretation of how they work. But even if I were wrong and they did try to admit people by how "worthy" they were, CEA is just one small group of people, and they determine neither your real worth nor your impact on the world.
100%. Thinking "rationally" about whether you should or shouldn't be hurt by something doesn't make you less hurt by it.