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YC Fellowship rejection letter

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: YC Fellowship rejection letter

#21

Post by sydneyliu »

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 YC read applications as they came in for the fellowship (just as they say they do for most batches). This means that they likely spent a bit more time on the earliest applications since I imagine the flood came in on the last day. That being said, 6.5k applications to read split between likely not THAT many people, even though founders did help, is a lot of applications. The applications likely got more read time than the average resume does for a job application and the readers likely had to read more than most recruiters do so props to them!

Re: YC Fellowship rejection letter

#22

Post by mattkrisiloff »

snake117 wrote: post #18
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…

We did read every single submission. That doesn't mean we watched every demo / intro video (even for some invited to interviews), but we read everything.

I hope you'll still consider applying again in the future.

Re: YC Fellowship rejection letter

#23

Post by rachellaw »

kom107 wrote: post #19
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!

Sam A. said that they received around +6500~ applications, so being in the top 300 would make you in the 5%

https://twitter.com/sama/status/626523690533027840

Re: YC Fellowship rejection letter

#24

Post by snake117 »

mattkrisiloff wrote: post #22
snake117 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

We did read every single submission. That doesn't mean we watched every demo / intro video (even for some invited to interviews), but we read everything. I hope you'll still consider applying again in the future.

Sorry about the assumption. That's actually pretty amazing that you guys managed to read through every application. Even though I was rejected the application was still worth doing because it forced me to think thoroughly about my product. I will still apply in the future.

Re: YC Fellowship rejection letter

#25

Post by kom107 »

rachellaw wrote: post #23
kom107 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Sam A. said that they received around +6500~ applications, so being in the top 300 would make you in the 5% https://twitter.com/sama/status/626523690533027840

Awesome. Thanks!!

Re: YC Fellowship rejection letter

#26

Post by kvatthro »

looking at some applications that got into YC (not fellowship though), it seems biggest 'mistakes' are 1 - wasting even one word not sharing more, enthusiasm hurts you in this case; 2 - technical founders, 3 - team of COfounders. I believe you can pass with one of those 3 'rules', but just the one. Nevertheless, I'll love to help them learn from their mistakes.

Re: YC Fellowship rejection letter

#27

Post by jtouri »

That's something! And I truly believe they don't just say these things, they know that people can turn their startups around, so hopefully it will be a more attractive application the next time you apply.
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