Like Jeff I am also a young faculty member at Brown (http://cs.brown.edu/~kraskat/) and I couldn't agree more with him. The Ph.D. application process has a lot of flaws. We (the Big Data Management Group at Brown) are also always looking for very talented people and similar to Jeff we started to hand out small challenges to candidates interested in doing data-centric systems research (see also http://cs.brown.edu/~kraskat/phd14.html). In addition, last year we started a research internship program (http://database.cs.brown.edu/big-data-internship) - it is quite competitive to get in, but still easier than to be admitted to the PhD program, and the best way for both sides to determine if there is a good fit with the group and the PhD program. Finally, I would like to mention, that we actually do consider MOOC courses and github portfolios as part of the candidate evaluation.