Tell HN: Startup School acceptances have been emailed | Hacker News Reader

Tell HN: Startup School acceptances have been emailed

59 pointsfrisco68 comments

Go check your email!

I bet understanding the acceptance process here would be fascinating.

YC is, by all accounts, is an organization tirelessly focused on making decisions based on the merit and potential of the founders. They have clear opinions of what is a good indicator of merit, but have shown a willingness to test their opinions and refine.

If anyone involved would be willing to shed light, I'd love to know how you've refined the process of identifying good Startup School participants over the years.

I got in and I am not not even a active contributer to HN (read everyday, just don't comment or post). Pretty excited to hear PG, Ron Conway, Reid Hoffman, and Mark Zuckerberg. Should be a good time.

I'm in! I even had a dream last night that I wasn't accepted. I feel rather ridiculous.

A lot of people who graduate college claim that they have a dream wherein they fail college, years after they graduate.

Maybe this is something similar to that.

I'm also about to submit my YC app, so I think I'm especially worried about failing anything to do with YC. :P

A few hours ago, I was getting ready to post a question on HN that would have been phrased something like this: "Ask HN: I got rejected from Startup School. How can I improve myself to get accepted next year?"

Fortunately, I didn't have to ask this question because, to my surprise, I got accepted. I guess pg+co. saw the hacker spirit in my application.

I'm humbled and incredibly excited to attend this event, meet all of the other hackers there, and learn from people much smarter than me. I can't wait!

Congrats! I wish you much success on your endeavors.

Not in. Oh well. Sounds like an overwhelming response and bigger venue again next year. Looking forward to watching some of it on justin.tv though.

Have a productive day everyone who made it in. :)

Likewise denied. A bit of justin.tv and hackin' away on a current project will occur in its place.

Made it! Man, it's only been a couple months living in the US and I love it. Now, how to get from USC to Stanford with no car or driver's license.

Anyone from or near to USC going?

I think there are pretty cheap flights from LAX->SFO. You could also look into Amtrak (which I think only goes to Oakland, which is ~2 hours away from Stanford by BART and Caltrain), but often Amtrak's just about as expensive as flying. If you're really looking for cheap, there's buses like Greyhound, but they're slow and you'll encounter some sketchy people. But I think they've gotten better, and some buses even have WiFi.

Amtrak goes to San Jose, but the timing from LA is inconvenient...

Update: booked my flights and transportation to/from LAX. See you guys there. Look out for me!

Afterparties?

I believe Airbnb is going to host a big one in SF.

Good question. I'm flying in from LA. I would definitely stick around for a party or two afterwards if I knew about 'em in advance.

I'll be flying from LA too. Maybe we should cab-pool or something?

If we are on the same flight, happy to share a cab. Once you figure out your flight schedule, email me.

Yo, I'm coming from LA too (and am renting a car). Email me and we can all figure this out.

I was planning on being in the area that week, and this would've been the icing and cherry on top. Unfortunately, didn't get in. I figured my #gov20 work would count for something, but it seems it doesn't (which is fine, perhaps I'm just not that interesting of a hacker!) - any pointers for how to frame the pitch so it seems more appealing to the YC crew?

Are there any meetups/after parties/etc in the area that one could attend? Half of the value of being in that auditorium would be meeting other hackers/entrepreneurs, I would hope not to lose out on that completely while i'm in the valley.

I got in.

I figured if I got in everyone got in, but seeing this post, I guess not.

Now, I have to schedule a flight (from Oklahoma), find a place to stay and schedule PTO at work.

Also, I guess I can't do this and Rails Rumble... if anyone wants a spot in Rails Rumble who was unable to get in, they can have mine if I can give it out. Or, is it possible to do this and Rails Rumble? Perhaps that is pushing it.

P.S. Wow, hipmunk.com is awesome!

Congrats! And I'm glad to hear hipmunk is working out so well for you. Don't ever hesitate to send feedback our way! contact@hipmunk.com

rejected...le sigh

what is the criteria to get in anyways?

Reject here as well.

I think the "What's the coolest thing you've made?" question held the most weight.

Edit: I say this because I felt my response lacked anything significant. I have to say, it is a good motivation to get you working on side projects.

Might want to read that again. http://www.paulgraham.com/judgement.html

Actually reading it for the first time, thanks for the post.

Edit: So we are all random selections and rejections?

I would guess so. I was surprised by the rejections that were posted on this thread as well. I use to think that they only rejected biz devs, as it's more of a way for hackers to get up to speed on what is involved in a startup.

But it seems like when your demand outstrips your capacity, you need to make cuts. And since most people fall in the middle as an average, chances are, you'll end up making a large number of small mistakes when you're picking teams.

I've been to the last two startup schools, and for what it's worth, you can see the talks on justin.TV. You do miss out on the atmosphere, but most of the socializing happens after the day's events, not necessarily as much time to do so during the intermission.

So check out the talks online, and then see what after parties there are.

Yeah, I'm a mobile + UX designer and my cofounder is an iOS developer and software engineer. I was surprised we didn't make the cut since we both specialize and can execute for both web and iPhone and have known each other since high school. Oh wells, next time.

Hmmm I agree with you but I have a feeling that "Where you went to school and major" was the deciding factor on whether or not they got to that part.

I say that because I am not a Comp Sci major and I do not go to a legit school.

I (who was luckily invited) think they look for more than school. I doubled in two non-CS majors from a non-MIT grade college. I learned to code on my own for kicks at first and then out of necessity.

I highly doubt this had much if anything to do with it.

I think it has much more to do with how you presented yourself and what you put on your application. I graduated from Oklahoma State University and do not have a résumé that I would brag about, especially compared to many here.

I'm wiling to bet that it doesn't matter. I got in and I don't go to an amazing school

I was accepted and I dropped out of the University of Maryland. Must be other stuff.

[cough, CS grads at MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, etc., cough]

I wonder what the age distribution is between applicants and those accepted. Rejected as well. But I'm "old" in YC-years so I didn't expect to get an invite.

I'm 43 and got accepted. It would be interesting to know some stats on all this stuff.

I got accepted and I'm in high school so the range must be pretty big. I'm still debating over whether I should go cause I'm on the east coast.

This would make for an excellent college entrance essay :)

I am 33 and I got accepted. I am not sure if YC considered age for acceptance. Well, in that case, I would be considered as "old" too.

Flying in from Toronto. The person I was planning to go with didn't get accepted, so any founders who want to grab a drink Friday in SF, my emails in my profile.

Rejected! Guess that means I can do rails rumble now.

Thats exactly what I was thinking.

and we'll be glad to have you :)

I'm guessing the best area to stay is San Fransisco, is that right? Or is Palo Alto better? I haven't been to the Bay Area in years, so I'm really not sure which area of either place would be best, any suggestions.

From San Fransisco, what's the best way to get to Palo Alto, is there good public transportation, or should I rent a car? If anybody else is going to be around, and is interested in exploring, drop me a line, we can probably figure something out.

There is a public train service (Caltrain) that runs from San Francisco downtown (4th and King) to the Stanford campus (Palo Alto station). Renting a car is advisable if you're going to spend any significant time in the Bay Area but if you mostly plan to go to SS and then hop around SF, public transportation should be fine.

If you're entirely here for SS, staying in Palo Alto is probably the wiser choice but there are more options in SF.

Try to stay in Palo Alto - the commute from the city is long enough (45-60m) to make it worth it.

Plus Palo Alto is awesome (but pricy).

Or you can stay in nearby cities like Menlo Park or Redwood City. I used to live in Menlo Park and I went to Palo Alto all the time. You may want to get a bike, though ;-)

I applied but did not receive an email. Does that mean I was not accepted or did something else happen?

Same here. I applied, but no email on way or the other. Is there a way to check acceptance status on the web?

Nevermind, turns out I did get accepted, but the email got eaten by my spam folder. This is the first time I've lost an important email to the spam folder - kinda scary, particularly when you realize there's 1500 threads of spam in there...

Check your spam folders; pg has said that everyone should get an email whether they were accepted or not.

I setup a saved Twitter search to make sure I didn't miss anything. That said, see you guys there!

wow,i saw the acceptance email today and am super excited! after watching similar videos on youtube over the years, i am looking forward to being there in person and meeting some of you folks there! thanks pg and ycombinator!

how many of you were personally interviewed or received follow up questions before acceptance or rejection?

Also, did anyone get accepted who didnt receive any follow up for the YC staff?

selected. now rushing for visas. can you assist?

How many people got in? How many applied?

Is anybody flying in from Boston?

Berkeley students, whose going?

I live in Berkeley and plan on driving to Startup School. I can take up to 4 other people in my car.

I refuse to accept that I suck Paul. Seriously. You're 1-5 people trying to judge on what you think is going to work. I personally think reddit gave you a bit of an ego trip. I think your vision of the future is clouded by visions of the past. The future is strange and you're going to miss it. Enjoy your 15 minutes.

Don't get worked up replying. This appears to be a troll. He didn't apply.

I applied and got rejected and was wondering if I was rejected on the quality of my application or on the quality of my product. I guess in the grand scheme of things rejection is rejection and it dosent matter but I was still wondering.

I wouldn't read much into it. We got so many more good applications than we had room for this time that we might as well have been flipping coins.

Use this "rejection" to empower you to build something amazing. I know if I was rejected I would use it as motivation to be great. No one can tell you what you are made of besides yourself.

You should ask for a refund.

PG, the YC team, and YC as a company is there to help those who they think they should help. It's their discretion. Decrying YC isn't going to help.

Refusing that you suck is awesome. PG would agree that they do judge on what they think is going to work. But thinking you have a better idea than anyone else about what the future holds, or whether YC is going to be a part of that future, is pointless.

i'm not sure what the startup school email said (i live on the east coast), but my rejection from yc was pretty civil...

We're sorry to say we couldn't accept your proposal for funding. Please don't take it personally. The quality of the applications continues to increase with each cycle, and since there's a limit on the number of interviews we can do, we had to turn away a lot of genuinely promising groups.

Another reason you shouldn't take this personally is that we know we make lots of mistakes. It's alarming how often the last group to make it over the threshold for interviews ends up being one that we fund. That means there are surely other good groups that fall just below the threshold and that we miss even interviewing.

We're trying to get better at this, but it's practically certain that groups we rejected will go on to create successful startups. If you do, we'd appreciate it if you'd send us an email telling us about it; we want to learn from our mistakes.

Very nice. It says a lot about YC that they put effort into making rejection letters not sound discouraging.

There's a difference between being rejected from something (which has a fairly low acceptance rate, strong applicant pool, and brief application) and sucking.

Now, if you're going to complain and get discouraged by one unimportant failure (hell, you can still see the talks on Justin.tv), then you do suck because everyone that doesn't suck has failed lots of times and gotten over it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com