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YC Fellowship rejection letter

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: YC Fellowship rejection letter

#11

Post by jrbaldwin »

almeidamarcell wrote: post #9
jrbaldwin wrote: post #2

Thank you for applying for the Y Combinator Fellowship. We’re sorry to say that your startup was not selected for an interview. We think your startup would be more appropriate for YC’s Winter 2016 batch, and we encourage you to apply. The startups we have invited to YC Fellowship interviews are primarily founders in the idea or prototype stage, and most are first-time founders who haven’t previously raised funding. W…

We received the same. Do you think they are being honest with this one? Maybe we have a chance for the Winter batch.

We hope so, we'll reapply for Winter. Good luck to you!

Re: YC Fellowship rejection letter

#12

Post by michaelZejoop »

natmaster wrote: post #6

Guys, a really important thing I noticed here, and please tell me if this is consistent with what you did: Applying late is bad for YC, especially in this fellowship case. I got this rejection letter, and there was no evidence my application was even looked at. I didn't apply literally at the last minute, but I submitted the last day. I had applied for summer YC batch before, and there I got people thoroughly explori…

Regarding the video, on top of submitting on last day, I realized after about a week, with zero views, that I had mistakenly marked my video 'private' instead of 'unlisted'. In somewhat of a panic I [1] fixed the mistake and [2] contacted YCFellowship hoping it would help. I got a response, to the effect that they don't necessarily look at all videos and that should be taken as neither a good or bad sign.

After that, stats showed that there were 6 views, at least 4 of which could likely be attributed to the review team. The other 2 where from Finland and Israel.

My letter was the basic rejection; it was not either the 'top 300' or the 'more suited for a full session' type.

Re: YC Fellowship rejection letter

#14

Post by almeidamarcell »

jrbaldwin wrote: post #11
almeidamarcell wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We received the same. Do you think they are being honest with this one? Maybe we have a chance for the Winter batch.

We hope so, we'll reapply for Winter. Good luck to you!

You too, mate!

See ya.

Re: YC Fellowship rejection letter

#16

Post by irinaba »

Thats cool! so, the normal rejection letter means that we didn't make it into top 300 and that we are not potential YC’s Winter 2016 batch. It's really such a pity that there is no real feedback that could help to improve pitch/business model ...!

Re: YC Fellowship rejection letter

#17

Post by DanBC »

irinaba wrote: post #16

Thats cool! so, the normal rejection letter means that we didn't make it into top 300 and that we are not potential YC’s Winter 2016 batch. It's really such a pity that there is no real feedback that could help to improve pitch/business model ...!

Have you done a ShowHN / AskHN? I'm not sure how good the feedback is, but it seems rigorous in the showHN threads.

Re: YC Fellowship rejection letter

#18

Post by snake117 »

natmaster wrote: post #6

Guys, a really important thing I noticed here, and please tell me if this is consistent with what you did: Applying late is bad for YC, especially in this fellowship case. I got this rejection letter, and there was no evidence my application was even looked at. I didn't apply literally at the last minute, but I submitted the last day. I had applied for summer YC batch before, and there I got people thoroughly explori…

I believe this too. I wasn't expecting for there to be so many applicants, given that the application was open for only one week; I certainly learned my lesson. I read on another article that they only accepted 20 teams out of the 6500 pool. I can only imagine that they came across these teams early on and didn't pay a lot of attention to the rest of the pool, especially one's like mine where, now that I look back on it, my application was not ready for submission. When I read what I wrote, I used way to many "weasel words", as PG would say, and didn't state clearly anything in my application.

So to anyone reading this, if you apply to YC, make sure you do these two things: 1) Have a clear, well-written application that states your idea and your background clearly. 2) Start your application early and submit it early. This is one of those things that can only help you.

Re: YC Fellowship rejection letter

#19

Post by kom107 »

acirinelli wrote: post #13

Made it to the top 300 (5%), so I'm satisfied with that. I think I'll improve my application and apply to the winter batch.

How do you know? I don't mean to be rude but I'm just curious as someone who applied and was rejected.

My team and I are planning on continuing on. Good luck to everyone else who is in the same boat!

Re: YC Fellowship rejection letter

#20

Post by irinaba »

DanBC wrote: post #17
irinaba wrote: post #16

Thats cool! so, the normal rejection letter means that we didn't make it into top 300 and that we are not potential YC’s Winter 2016 batch. It's really such a pity that there is no real feedback that could help to improve pitch/business model ...!

Have you done a ShowHN / AskHN? I'm not sure how good the feedback is, but it seems rigorous in the showHN threads.

Thanks Dan! Thats a good idea. I will do that!
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