
Early Decision - katm
https://blog.ycombinator.com/early-decision/
======
will_brown
Interestingly enough I got a YC email yesterday asking me to apply for the
current batch.

I’d never received that type of email from YC in the past, and immediately
thought their application numbers must be dropping. After all YC historically
seemed to market and advertise the fact that statistically it’s more difficult
to get in than Harvard.

This announcement the very next day seems to support YC is looking for more
applications. Then again maybe the total application numbers and acceptance
rate are public info and I’m way off.

~~~
dalton
Yes, you are off. Our apps submitted metric is growing.

The reason we started sending out emails to remind people of the deadlines is
the sheer # of founders we talk to in person and over email that complain that
they missed the application deadline and they didnt know when the date would
be.

Questions about when the app deadline is, if you can submit late, when the
deadline is for the following batch, etc is the #1 most common type of
question in our support queue, and sending out reminders seemed like the best
solution.

------
frisco
"Early Decision" implies that if a student is accepted they are bound to
attend that school. It's offered by colleges primarily because it greatly
simplifies their yield planning. (Colleges admit many more than they actually
can accommodate since they know many won't matriculate.)

This program should really be called Early Action, which is non-binding!

~~~
lutorm
You actually go into a legally binding contract to attend the school? I've
never heard of such a thing. Do they sue you for breach if you don't show up?

~~~
joncalhoun
If you don't show with "good" reason (finances, health issue, etc) they
usually do nothing.

If you don't show with a "bad" reason then what they do varies, but I've never
heard of someone being sued. Instead it seems to be things like, "we will tell
your high school and it may be mentioned if you try to apply to another
university."

~~~
rurcliped
It's documented at [https://www.nacacnet.org/globalassets/documents/advocacy-
and...](https://www.nacacnet.org/globalassets/documents/advocacy-and-
ethics/statement-of-principles-of-good-practice/2017_spgp_cepp_final.pdf) as
"if a candidate has been admitted Early Decision, then the college may notify
the candidate’s high school and other colleges of the candidate’s application
status." This is linked from [https://www.nacacnet.org/advocacy--ethics/SPGP-
NACAC-Code-of...](https://www.nacacnet.org/advocacy--ethics/SPGP-NACAC-Code-
of-Ethics/) on the NACAC's website.

------
pkill17
Seems like a great idea. I would be interested to hear about the indicators
used to show that students sometimes didn't bother applying in these cases. It
seems intuitive that college students, having to plan in Fall of N for full-
time employment or even internships in Summer of N+1, would have been
adversely affected by the normal application schedule. Were there a large
number of potential founders that raised the alarm about this?

------
davemp
Odd. This seems to go against one of PG's essays.

> School

>

> That's what I'd advise college students to do, rather than trying to learn
> about "entrepreneurship." "Entrepreneurship" is something you learn best by
> doing it. The examples of the most successful founders make that clear. What
> you should be spending your time on in college is ratcheting yourself into
> the future. College is an incomparable opportunity to do that. What a waste
> to sacrifice an opportunity to solve the hard part of starting a startup —
> becoming the sort of person who can have organic startup ideas — by spending
> time learning about the easy part. Especially since you won't even really
> learn about it, any more than you'd learn about sex in a class. All you'll
> learn is the words for things.

[1]:
[http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html](http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html)

~~~
lacker
What part of this essay is in conflict? The essay is advising that you not
take entrepreneurship classes, but instead take classes in futuristic stuff
like genetics. It doesn't have anything to do with whether it should be
possible to apply to YC early.

~~~
davemp
You raise a good point.

I see it encouraging students to come up with ideas _for_ YC companies
inorganically. Obviously that is not the intent, but I see it as a very likely
side effect.

If the student organically has a great idea, then sure this has nothing to do
with it. For the ones that didn't and wasted time in college? I guess they
should have read some of PG's essays. ;)

------
klinskyc
When I read the title, I assumed it worked like college early decision, where
admission is binding. This is not the case, so this sounds like a great thing
for YC to be doing

~~~
cperciva
Things are different where I'm from (Canada) so please forgive me if this is a
dumb question, but... in what way is early college admission binding on
students? Even if a student accepts an offer, can't they just not turn up?

~~~
pkaye
Early admissions are not binding (compared to early action which is less
common.)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_admission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_admission)
Many colleges also have a waitlist for admissions to backfill from.

~~~
klinskyc
Early Decision !== Early Action. Early action is non-binding and is less
popular in top-tier colleges. Early action is generally binding -
[https://professionals.collegeboard.org/guidance/applications...](https://professionals.collegeboard.org/guidance/applications/early)

There's also restricted early action, which restricts what schools you can
apply to along side the REA school, but is non-binding

------
gist
The down side of this is that someone accepted then will focus on the startup
instead of finishing up their studies. You could argue that would happen
either way but I think 'having it in the can' means more chance of doing so.
And perhaps also not uncovering and turning down other opportunities or
overlooking them. (Similar to when you buy a house you are not going to any
other open houses..ditto for buying a car and many other things).

How are you supposed to focus on learning and school work if you already known
that you are getting in YC to do a startup? Which more often than not is going
to fail instead of focusing on your studies which you are paying big dollars
for (potentially at least).

Also to a smaller degree you are giving up info to YC which in theory would
also allow them to identify a trend to fund someone else ahead of you.
(Relevant if they turn you down).

------
codingdave
Early decision plans for colleges are not without their disadvantages, the
biggest being that it forces a decision before the student has the time to
know what all of their options and offers may be. This is frequently mitigated
by financial aid packages that compensate for the loss of choice, but even so,
such plans have the downside of not knowing what other packages might have
come to fruition.

YC seems to be walking that same path - seeking a commitment before the
student knows all the choices that may be available post-graduation. Is there
an intent to also give some incentive to compensate for that? Or is YC not
asking for a commitment, and instead just making it an invitation that can be
taken or not?

~~~
dcole2929
It doesn't appear to be binding so there really isn't any downside I can see.

~~~
stefanpie
Then isn't that more analogous to Early Action which is nonbinding yet still
being able to apply and hear your decision earlier.

------
sachin18590
Kudos to YC for taking this approach. A lot of founders want to quit status-
quo and pursue startup full time but are not able to due to a number of
reasons including college, immigration, teams being risk averse etc. With
this, they get the validation that they have a good investor backing them and
also get the time to test out their PM fit before getting into the batch,
giving them enough time to learn and iterate on their mistakes.

------
ronilan
Can you also get early rejection? Asking for a friend ;)

~~~
apandhi

      If you’re accepted, you will be early accepted into the Summer 2019 batch which begins in June. If you’re not accepted, you can apply again during the regular Summer 2019 application cycle which begins in March.
    

I assume that means you'll find out at the same time as everyone else - so
yes, "Early Rejection"

~~~
ronilan
They should add:

 _Early Rejection will make it even easier for students to abandon the idea of
building their startup after graduation._

Then It’ll be perfectly balanced, as all thing should be.

~~~
apandhi
Well then that would just be silly. A large number of YC companies don't get
in the first few times they apply with an idea. Getting rejected from YC
doesn't mean your startup isn't viable - it may just mean it's not ready for
investment (from them) yet.

------
EGreg
Interesting, YCombinator is now working hard to attract recent college grads
out of school!

------
pithic
I'm surprised to hear YC courting would-be founders who are more interested in
finishing college (grad school, even!). Affinity to the norms of academic
institutions (not unlike large corporations) and to converging on their pre-
formulated problems would seem incompatible with the traits of successful
startup founders.

It's even more surprising given research correlating founder age and industry
experience to the likelihood of big exits.
[https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/younger-
vs-...](https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/younger-vs-older-
tech-entrpreneurs)

This solidifies the view that YC is modeled as a "founder college" for the
young and cash-starved, weened as they are on ready-made social support
systems, institutional authority, and formal rewards.

