In the last couple of years, letters of recommendation broke as a quality signal.
- In the last couple of years, letters of recommendation broke as a quality signal.
- Before they were a signal of quality because they took a long time to write.
- That meant that professors only had time for a handful of them, so the students they agreed to do it for were at the top of their distribution.
- But now professors can do them 100x faster, so they can do many more.
- Some new signal will emerge as a quality signal.
- Quality signals come from scarcity.
- Meaning comes from tension.
- One way to bring back scarcity: have professors publish the names of their top recommendations.
- Perhaps in a stack rank.
- If it's publicly viewable in a single stack rank, there's scarcity.