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Interesting.
Iowa PhD candidate uses Twitter to figure out where high school football players will commit - The Washington Post
Iowa PhD candidate uses Twitter to figure out where high school football players will commit - The Washington Post
There is an entire industry built up around deciphering where 16- and 17-year-olds will play college football. Websites boast "crystal ball" predictions of where top high school recruits will suit up. Companies charge for premium subscriptions with claims that they can decode the caprice and whimsy of children.
And then there's Kristina Bigbsy, a PhD candidate at the University of Iowa who is probably better than all of them.
She developed a mathematical model that predicts with 70 percent accuracy where a high school football player will go to college. And she uses nothing but their basic biographical information and Twitter account.
In other words, she can read the minds of some of sports' most sought-after prospects by reading their tweets and looking up some basic biographical information. Her paper on those findings was published this month in the INFORMS journal "Decision Analysis."