DjangoGirls - how we scored applications?

After we’ve sent acceptance/rejection e-mails, we received a number of questions about why an application was rejected.

We think it is a good idea to share with all of you what criteria we had when we scored applications. It will be a good future reference for other workshops organisers and potential attendees.

There were four people involved. Me, Ola and Andrew and Daniele, who were doing it on behalf of Django Software Foundation.

To ensure that the first score is not influenced by others, each person scored applications without knowing other three people scores. After making a first scored, one could see other marks.

Order of application was also not determined - we scored in random order, so the probability that one person is scored higher/lower only because she was always on top/bottom of the list, was low.

We scored each application from 1 to 5.

Here is a list of things we took into account when scoring (suggested by Daniele):

• what is the realistic benefit to the applicant?

• what is the realistic benefit to others?

• does the applicant have clear, specific, concrete, realistic ideas about what to do with the knowledge?

• does the applicant have clear, specific, concrete, realistic ideas about how she will share it?

• do I feel the applicant really, really wants this opportunity, or is it just an interesting offer to her?

• what is a overall value-for-money, if the applicant is asking for funds?

• what is my overall feeling about the application?

As you can see, there were a lot of points we took into account when scoring. It was very, very hard to get in. If the application was not very detailed - the chance to be accepted was very low. But writing a lot was not a recipe for success. We looked for concrete ideas and commitments in applications!

We received a number of applications from people who would probably be bored during workshops. If you study Computer Science or are a web developer or programmer (but in a different technology), then it is possible this is the reason you were rejected. We don’t want to waste your time :).

There were also a number of application we had to reject because our Financial Aid fund was limited. We had around 5000 EUR to distribute over 40 people, so we had to reject people who asked for 1000 EUR or more.

Overall, it was a very, very hard choice. We received so many wonderful applications! We can only hope that it will be possible to organize next chapters of DjangoGirls in many different places in the world, so people who could not attend because of the cost of travel, will be able to join!

We want to thank Andrew Godwin and Daniele Procida for spending many, many hours scoring the applications! Thank you!