Azhir Mahmood  🚀 🤖 🧬 🧠 🪐

Replace academic reference letters with a forecasting platform—referees give their probability that the applicant will get a good degree, conditional on the applicant being admitted. Then, over time, we score referees (and their institutions). Not a new idea, but a good one.

Excellent points. I was mostly thinking of undergraduate admissions, where a “good degree” is less contentious. I still think that this system would be useful for PhD admissions, to replace “top X%” metrics, but not to replace engagement with candidates’ research interests.