The alternatives to a juried pool are (a) first come, first serve and (b) random selection, which would you have preferred in this case?
("Admitting everyone" is simply not possible, there's neither the space nor the support staff)
("Admitting everyone" is simply not possible, there's neither the space nor the support staff)
HackMIT came up with a nice hybrid solution this year [1]. Most spots were filled by lottery, but a few were reserved for the first people to solve a puzzle. This left a place for merit --- but, like, actual merit, which is not well-assessed by a 19-year-old college student scanning resumes for "placements at major hackathons."
[1] https://medium.com/hackmit-2014/joining-the-fancycat-club-ha...
It's unclear from the article how or if they prioritized local people, but from this: "In the end, we accepted 708 students ... Combining these numbers with students from the University of Pennsylvania, we anticipate 1200 hackers will be joining us this fall."
it sounds as if there was a major effort to get local kids involved.
(and it's unspecified of the 70% rejection rate, how many of those were UPenn students, how many were in the greater Philadelphia area, how many within easy driving distance (say, DC to NYC), and how many were further away)