How afraid should I be of rejection if I'm a physics student with a transcript of record that is not too impressive? I don't have remotely enough funds to pay for the course beyond transport and stay. But I am interested on an intellectual level in the content of the course.
Edit: I took a chance and applied. So far I wish more application processes were like this.
Not very, I don't think.
I had my initial interview (though not the one for aid) and I didn't get the impression that they'd ask for a transcript. In fact, it hadn't even occurred to me.
For anyone who's interested:
CFAR is trying out an experimental, lower-cost, 1.5-day introductory workshop Oct 25-26 in the bay area. It is meant to provide an easier point of entry into our rationality training. If you've been thinking about coming to a CFAR workshop but have had trouble setting aside 4 days and $3900, you might consider trying this out. (Or, if you have a friend or family member in that situaiton, you might suggest this to them.) It's a beta test, so no guarantees as to the outcome -- but I suspect it'll be both useful, and a lot of fun.
We are also finally making it to Europe. We'll be running two workshops in the UK this November, both of which have both space and financial aid still available.
We're also still running our standard workshops: Jan 16-19 in Berkeley, and April 23-26 in Boston, MA. (We're experimenting, also, with using alumni "TA's" to increase the amount of 1-on-1 informal instruction while simultaneously increasing workshop size, in an effort to scale our impact.)
Finally, we're actually running a bunch of events lately for alumni of our 4-day workshops (a weekly rationality dojo; a bimonthly colloquium; a yearly alumni reunion; and various for-alumni workshops); which is perhaps less exciting if you aren't yet an alumnus, but which I'm very excited about because it suggests that we'll have a larger community of people doing serious practice, and thereby pushing the boundaries of the art of rationality.
If anyone wishes to discuss any of these events, or CFAR's strategy as a whole, I'd be glad to talk; you can book me here.
Cheers!