What does YC being a "frat house" have to do with applying though? I can understand why that perception may discourage someone from participating in YC, but the acceptance rate is so low that it seems like premature optimization to think beyond the application.
There's not much more I can say that I haven't already said, as some of the conversations I've had were explicitly off the record. But I can say this, in a generic sense: All of the top accelerators will seek out people they want to attend and encourage them to apply. When this happens to you, as a founder, you're well aware that if you apply, you're very likely to get an interview and also very likely to get in. I can say on the record that this happened for me with Techstars Austin.
So the decision you're facing as you're applying, knowing what you know, having the conversations you've had, is not "Will I get in?", but "Do I really want to do this?" And that's when I found the frat-house aspect of YC to be discouraging.
(Edit: I suppose I should expand on that since people will invariably have questions. I'm a 32-year-old female. I'm in a different stage of my life than a 22-year-old who just got out of college. I didn't really want to deal with keggers full of falling-over-drunk guys, jokes about "chicks", guys hitting on me, etc. I'm just kind of over all that, and I'm weary of fighting battles I have no inclination to fight over casual sexism--I'd rather focus on growing my business, so I choose not to be around those types of people. Yes, you could say I'm painting YC with a wide and potentially unfair brush, but that was my impression.)
This year, I decided to do Techstars instead, and have no regrets about that.
Today, having gone through one accelerator with my company, I'm done with accelerators for this business and I'm moving on to doing a seed round. If I have another business that might be a good fit for YC, and they've made an effort to change (this article by pg is a good first step), I'd potentially consider it again.
This is weird. What should YC change? Tech Stars doesn't do blind apps or publish all the stats you request so that's not it.
"I didn't really want to deal with keggers full of falling-over-drunk guys, jokes about "chicks", guys hitting on me, etc." "I have no inclination to fight over casual sexism"
Very difficult to work with if you're concerned about imaginary things or looking to read into things that aren't there. This sounds much more about you than YC. Good luck.
@argumentum: Please feel free to contact me offline; you've met me through Airbnb, so you have my contact info.
I'm going to repeat what I said above: "There's not much more I can say that I haven't already said, as some of the conversations I've had were explicitly off the record." I'm not going to repeat things that aren't true or that I don't have data for. But I also can't break the trust of people who've spoken with me privately. I will say I did my homework on YC. I've reached the limit of what I can say publicly.
Why would you apply for something when you've determined that you're not going to accept even if you get in? Also, it seems irrational to spend time completing a form when you know there's a very small chance you'd be accepted and even if you were you would decline it? If the chances were very high, say 80%, you could say "Well, I have no intention now but I'll apply anyways just in case circumstances change and I do want to go" You can't even rationalize wasting time on a form when you know there's a small chance you even get the option of changing your mind.
(just to get more tangled the fact that she was accepted into a well known accelerator probably means she's not in the 'so low" category of acceptance)
Why would anyone make such a "determination" on hearsay that the clearly #1, gold-standard program is a "frat-house", promulgated at that by founders who were never part of that program?
The acceptance rate is now ~1%, so according to you nearly all those applying are irrational (the vast majority of even high quality applications will have a less than 80% chance).
The order just doesn't make any sense. Even the best students don't assume they are going to get into a particular dream school (MIT, Stanford etc), unless they are nuts. And those have about 5-10 times the accept rate of YC.
