Hello everyone! Some days ago we released the first batch of invites for HackUPC, and surely most of you who got accepted have already bought the flights and are really excited to come. But you may be wondering, what’s happening behind the scenes after you send your application?
Once you’ve written your application
When you click Submit on your application, it’s put in the queue of applications under review. We don’t need all of the information to review it (for example, your T-shirt size won’t make a difference in accepting you or not), so we only see a summarised version:
We read every sentence you write carefully, because it’s the only chance we have to get to know you before the event. That’s why it’s important to put a bit of love in your application: we wouldn’t want to misjudge you!
We also check the links you’ve provided. Although it’s not mandatory to add your Github or Devpost profile, it helps us to see the hackathons you’ve been to, the projects you’ve created, and the way you write code. If your profiles are almost empty, don’t worry; you won’t be penalised just because you haven’t coded enough yet.
After checking everything, we assign two different grades to your application. The first one rates your technical skills, that is, how prepared you are from a technical point of view to participate in HackUPC. This includes, among others, the languages you know, the complexity of your previous projects or any internships you may have done. The second grade rates your personal skills. This includes both the impression you have left on the reviewer with your application, and other factors that make us think “this hacker would be a great member of the HackUPC community”.
Once the application is graded, all that’s left to do is click the Send vote button, and that’s it! Another application to evaluate is shown to us, and the process begins anew.
The whole team works in rating applications, as we receive a lot of them and they all need to be reviewed. Every one of us rates them in a slightly different way (we have guidelines, but it’s not an exact science), so, when calculating the average, the scores from each reviewer are normalised to avoid any bias. When we have received enough applications to send a batch of invites, the top N applications are chosen (N depends on the batch), and these hackers receive an invitation for HackUPC.
What’s next?
The application process doesn’t exactly finish here, though. Some people have to get a visa to travel to Spain, so we help them writing invitation letters if the process requires it, and travel reimbursement isn’t paid until after the event. However, most of the work is actually reviewing everything you write, and it’s something that we all take on in addition to our usual tasks.
Looks good. Could I use it?
Of course! This is part of MyHackUPC, which is built on HackAssistant, a tool to manage hacker applications developed (mostly) by our Webdev team. You can check the code here and read about its HackCU implementation here.
If you’re interested in seeing how other hackathons manage this process, we suggest that you read PennApps’s article. It’s been the inspiration to write this one!
