[natmaster]

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 exploring my demo, watching my app videos, and even looking at my linkedin profile. This time I got 0 hits across all mediums. Not even the video.

Please share if you had similar or difference experience as I think we will all benefit from this knowledge.

[willholloway]

I submitted my application at literally the last minute, and made some big changes at the very end, that resulted in two typos, one being the youtoube video link.

I was majorly bummed when I saw the video link was broken, and that I couldn't make any more edits.

I found a way to get an edit through anyhow, via the embed.ly cached image Submittable uses. By changing the main image on my product demo URL. I emailed the fellowship address and Sam Altman, and was put in touch with the CEO of Submittable, who thanked me for bringing it to his attention.

I was pretty proud of myself for finding a way to route around the damage, and 'hack' the YC application. I looked at it as my own Kobayashi Maru. There was no way to win with stupid typos, but by getting the edit through anyway I was changing the rules of the game, and competing on different terrain where I would stand out.

That's the way I looked at it, and now I'm even more motivated to succeed because I think YC lost out by not choosing me, and I want to prove that :)

I didn't get into YC but I had a lot of fun applying.

[snake117]

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.

[mattkrisiloff]

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.

[snake117]

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.

[michaelZejoop]

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.

[sydneyliu]

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!

[tima101]

I got 2-3 clicks on video, average duration: 1 sec =) And 2 clicks on demo, average duration: 0 sec. I guess decision was made based on application. Submitted early, on the 2d day.

[jacques_chester]

With 6,000 applications, the majority are just going to be skimmed. They're not superhumans.