applications from startups around the world. The Admissions Team is responsible for designing that process and reviewing the tens of thousands of applications we receive each year.</p>\n<p>How do we review that many applications? Mostly, it’s lots of people reading lots of applications! There’s no secret machine learning model that can find companies with great potential. Instead, we build lots of custom software to help our team work efficiently. Our app reading software allows us to quickly read applications, send messages to founders if we have any questions, and decide which teams we want to interview.</p>\n<h2>History of the Admissions Team</h2>\n<p>When YC first started, the admissions process was pretty manual. YC’s 4 founders printed out the applications, wrote comments in the margin, and passed them around the room. As the batches started to grow, Paul Graham wrote the first software to accept and process applications (it was originally part of the same code that powered <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://news.ycombinator.com/">Hacker News</a>!). By 2014, YC was receiving 3,000 applications per batch, PG retired, and we moved to our current application software. Then in 2016, the Admissions Team was created and began to hire more people to review applications, analyze data, and update the application. Today, a team of 5 runs the admissions process.</p>\n<h2>What’s unique about the Admissions Team?</h2>\n<p>The Admissions Team is powered by human judgement, but it couldn’t work at YC’s scale without software. Sometimes, our problems can be solved by software (like automatic parsing of a founder’s responses), but sometimes it’s a human problem (how should we evaluate teams that haven’t launched yet?). This interaction between humans and software is always changing. Each admissions cycle brings more applications than the previous one and our system is always being pushed to the limit in unexpected ways.</p>\n<h2>What are some projects we’ve recently worked on?</h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Rewriting our software to video interview teams (instead of flying<br />\nteams to California).</li>\n<li>Building new internal tools to allow us to do interviews more often<br />\n(like the <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/early-deadline-for-yc-winter-2022//">early interviews</a> we’ve been running this year).</li>\n<li>Reviewing applications we didn’t fund but that raised money from<br />\nother investors, to learn how to improve our application reading and<br />\ninterview process.</li>\n<li>Analyzing YC application data — for example, we looked at whether<br />\nrepeat applications hurt a team’s chances of being funded. (It turns<br />\nout they don’t! Teams that re-apply and have made progress since<br />\ntheir first app are much more likely to get into YC.)</li>\n<li>Working with the Outreach and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.startupschool.org//">Startup School</a> teams to get more teams<br />\napplying to YC.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>The thing I love about the Admissions Team is that we have a lot of autonomy to experiment and change our process. It’s also incredibly exciting to read all of these ideas which may someday change the world. If you’re interested in joining our team, we’re hiring <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/careers?ashby_jid=ef00c8d1-76e7-4cc3-82fe-7cc3e4679652\%22>Software Engineers</a> to improve our software and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/careers?ashby_jid=c8a4c1c8-9410-479f-86e7-cb2c1ca35e32\%22>Admissions Associates</a> to read applications.</p>\n<!--kg-card-end: html-->","comment_id":"1104891","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/BlogTwitter-Image-Template-2.png","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2021-08-19T02:00:13.000-07:00","updated_at":"2022-06-24T15:16:36.000-07:00","published_at":"2021-08-19T02:00:13.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"Twice a year, YC accepts applications from startups around the world. 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Previously he worked on backend systems and API design for Evernote and App.net.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/mark-thurman/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117d","name":"Admissions","slug":"admissions","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/admissions/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71177","name":"Jobs","slug":"jobs","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/jobs/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710a9","name":"Mark Thurman","slug":"mark-thurman","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/Mark-1.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Mark is a Product Engineer on the YC Admissions team. Previously he worked on backend systems and API design for Evernote and App.net.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/mark-thurman/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117d","name":"Admissions","slug":"admissions","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/admissions/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/inside-yc-the-admissions-team/","excerpt":"Twice a year, YC accepts applications from startups around the world. The Admissions Team is responsible for designing that process and reviewing the tens of thousands of applications we receive each year.","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},"mentions":[],"related_posts":[{"id":"639a61d82bfe2700013ae27a","uuid":"e8cfd194-7342-4537-9b3a-d7e59bd09c6e","title":"75 YC Companies Hiring Now!","slug":"yc-companies-hiring-now","html":"<p>With the recent layoffs in tech, it is tough to know which companies are hiring. If you’re actively looking for a job in tech, we want to help you.</p><p>To help you narrow down your search, here is a list of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://spectrum-child-e9d.notion.site/665979cb45304309ba20c8bccc34e93b?v=9c3893432ef94a4996e0233884c45c0f?utm_source=ycblog\%22>75 Y Combinator companies hiring now</strong></a><strong>! </strong>These companies have recently posted roles to <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://workatastartup.com/?utm_source=ycblog\%22>YC%e2%80%99s job board</a>, are motivated to hire, and want to hear from you. </p><p>To reduce friction even further, <strong>we’ve included the founder’s email address so you can reach out with a personalized message</strong>.</p><!--kg-card-begin: html--><center>\n<a class=\"ycdc-retro-btn ycdc-retro-btn-gold mt-[-10px] ml-[13px]\" href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://spectrum-child-e9d.notion.site/83bc30efee4a41249a61f7b454f589c4?v=0f11ce352f5046e38b0d33643d9896a4?utm_source=ycblog\%22 style=\"text-decoration: none;\" title=\"title for your link\" target=\"_blank\">75 YC Companies Hiring Now</a>\n</center><!--kg-card-end: html--><p>A few tips to strengthen your outreach: </p><ul><li><strong>Do your homework on the company before you reach out.</strong> Know which roles you could be a good fit for. Include a reason why you’re excited about their specific company. </li><li><strong>Founders are busy – don’t waste their time with a generic email.</strong> Instead, introduce yourself and your background, and highlight 2-3 things you’d be excited to work on at the company – and why. (Don’t expect a response if you just send the same copy/paste text to every company…)</li><li><strong>Don’t spam every company on the list. </strong>Figure out what role, stage of company, industry, etc. you’re interested in, and see which companies fit. (Typically, the earlier the batch, the later the company stage - e.g. w2014 = winter 2014 batch, which is much older than s2022 = summer 2022). </li><li><strong>Include your resume, LinkedIn, portfolio in the email.</strong> Founders get a ton of emails, so make you make each one count. We’ve written up our <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/advice-job-seekers-resumes-standing-out-workatastartup/?utm_source=50\%22>advice on writing a great resume and standing out here</a>. </li></ul><hr><p>When we talk about working at a YC company, we’re talking about various stages of companies – from seed startups to growth and scale companies like <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/zip/jobs?utm_source=ycblog\%22>Zip and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/instacart/jobs?utm_source=ycblog\%22>Instacart. </p><p>On YC’s <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://workatastartup.com/?utm_source=ycblog\%22>Work at a Startup</a>, we have <strong>3,000+ open roles</strong> that you can filter by company stage and experience level to find the best jobs for you. You could be the next general manager, software engineer or head of growth (which happen to be the latest roles filled on Work at a Startup):</p><!--kg-card-begin: html--><center>\n<a class=\"ycdc-retro-btn ycdc-retro-btn-gold mt-[-10px] ml-[13px]\" href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://workatastartup.com/?utm_source=ycblog\%22 style=\"text-decoration: none;\" title=\"title for your link\" target=\"_blank\">Join Work at a Startup</a>\n</center><!--kg-card-end: html--><p><em>P.S. Y Combinator is also <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.workatastartup.com/companies/y-combinator?utm_source=ycblog\%22>hiring Product Engineers</a>!</em></p>","comment_id":"639a61d82bfe2700013ae27a","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/12/75_yc_hiring_now.png","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2022-12-14T15:52:56.000-08:00","updated_at":"2023-01-23T10:46:24.000-08:00","published_at":"2022-12-15T09:50:00.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":"If you’re actively looking for a job in tech, we want to help you. To help you narrow down your search, here is a list of 75 Y Combinator companies hiring now.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"622171e69235bd0001dc9f6f","name":"Paige Omura","slug":"paige","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/03/Paige-headshot.jpeg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Paige is Operations & Programs Manager at YC, running programs to help YC companies hire top talent. She previously led operations at early-stage hard tech startups. ","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/paige/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71178","name":"#jobs","slug":"hash-jobs","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/404/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a711b5","name":"#468","slug":"hash-468","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/404/"},{"id":"639a65d22bfe2700013ae2b6","name":"#21720","slug":"hash-21720","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/404/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7119f","name":"#64","slug":"hash-64","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/404/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71171","name":"Work at a Startup","slug":"work-at-a-startup","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/work-at-a-startup/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71177","name":"Jobs","slug":"jobs","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/jobs/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"622171e69235bd0001dc9f6f","name":"Paige Omura","slug":"paige","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/03/Paige-headshot.jpeg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Paige is Operations & Programs Manager at YC, running programs to help YC companies hire top talent. She previously led operations at early-stage hard tech startups. ","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/paige/"},"primary_tag":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/yc-companies-hiring-now/","excerpt":"If you’re actively looking for a job in tech, we want to help you. To help you narrow down your search, here is a list of 75 Y Combinator companies hiring now.","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"63fced280ca0ec00016319fa","uuid":"f1d9175c-3d17-4d36-92bf-a65b2362acc3","title":"Announcing Y Combinator's Spring 2022 Tech Hiring Event","slug":"yc-spring-2022-tech-hiring-event","html":"<p>We're excited to host an <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/">in-person tech hiring event on Wednesday, March 8th</a> at 5:30 PM at Y Combinator's San Francisco office. This will be the first in-person hiring event we're hosting at YC in over two years, and we have 9 YC-backed startups who are looking to hire engineers and technical talent.</p><p>The event will feature brief founder & company overviews, time to network, and light food and drinks provided by YC. Spots are limited, so <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/">apply now</a> to get on the list.</p><p>The companies attending <em>(and what they're hiring for)</em> below:</p><ul><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/onesignal/">OneSignal (Growth):</strong> Engage customers through personalized omni-channel messaging <em>(Infrastructure and Product Engineers, Product Managers)</em></li><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/memora-health/">Memora Health</a> <strong>(Series A):</strong></strong> Helps healthcare organizations digitize and automate complex care workflows</li><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/seam/">Seam (Series A):</strong> API for IoT Devices <em>(Engineering & Sales)</em></li><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/slope/">Slope (Series A):</strong> Buy Now, Pay Later for B2B <em>(Backend & Full stack engineers; data; customer success)</em></li><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/fieldguide/">Fieldguide (Series A):</strong> Automation and collaboration software for audit and advisory firms<em> (ML Engineer, Product Manager)</em></li><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/agave/">Agave (Seed):</strong> Plaid for Construction <em>(Founding Engineer in PHP/Typescript/React)</em></li><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/mintlify/">Mintlify (Seed):</strong> Developer-first documentation that converts users <em>(Full Stack Engineer)</em></li><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/replo/">Replo (Seed):</strong> Visual development for React, starting with e-commerce <em>(Engineers & Designers)</em></li><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/oneshop/">OneShop (Seed):</strong> Operating system for reselling online <em>(Backend, Frontend and Growth Engineers)</em></li></ul><p>If you're an engineer interested in working at a fast-growing startup, this is an opportunity to meet founders and hiring managers in person to learn about their companies and products, understand their technology stacks and challenges, and get a sense of their culture and what it's like to work there.</p><p>This is a unique chance to engage with multiple companies at once, and to potentially find your next role at a leading tech startup. We hope you'll join us for what will be an informative and worthwhile evening.</p><!--kg-card-begin: html--><center>\n<a class=\"ycdc-retro-btn ycdc-retro-btn-gold mt-[-10px] ml-[13px]\" href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/" style=\"text-decoration: none;\" title=\"Apply to YC Event\" target=\"_blank\">Apply to Join</a>\n</center><!--kg-card-end: html-->","comment_id":"63fced280ca0ec00016319fa","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2023/02/BlogTwitter-Image-Template--5--1.png","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2023-02-27T09:49:28.000-08:00","updated_at":"2023-03-06T12:57:26.000-08:00","published_at":"2023-02-28T09:00:00.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710bf","name":"Ryan 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Twice a year, YC accepts applications from startups around the world. The Admissions Team is responsible for designing that process and reviewing the tens of thousands of applications we receive each year.
How do we review that many applications? Mostly, it’s lots of people reading lots of applications! There’s no secret machine learning model that can find companies with great potential. Instead, we build lots of custom software to help our team work efficiently. Our app reading software allows us to quickly read applications, send messages to founders if we have any questions, and decide which teams we want to interview.
History of the Admissions Team
When YC first started, the admissions process was pretty manual. YC’s 4 founders printed out the applications, wrote comments in the margin, and passed them around the room. As the batches started to grow, Paul Graham wrote the first software to accept and process applications (it was originally part of the same code that powered Hacker News!). By 2014, YC was receiving 3,000 applications per batch, PG retired, and we moved to our current application software. Then in 2016, the Admissions Team was created and began to hire more people to review applications, analyze data, and update the application. Today, a team of 5 runs the admissions process.
What’s unique about the Admissions Team?
The Admissions Team is powered by human judgement, but it couldn’t work at YC’s scale without software. Sometimes, our problems can be solved by software (like automatic parsing of a founder’s responses), but sometimes it’s a human problem (how should we evaluate teams that haven’t launched yet?). This interaction between humans and software is always changing. Each admissions cycle brings more applications than the previous one and our system is always being pushed to the limit in unexpected ways.
What are some projects we’ve recently worked on?
Rewriting our software to video interview teams (instead of flying
teams to California).
Building new internal tools to allow us to do interviews more often
(like the early interviews we’ve been running this year).
Reviewing applications we didn’t fund but that raised money from
other investors, to learn how to improve our application reading and
interview process.
Analyzing YC application data — for example, we looked at whether
repeat applications hurt a team’s chances of being funded. (It turns
out they don’t! Teams that re-apply and have made progress since
their first app are much more likely to get into YC.)
Working with the Outreach and Startup School teams to get more teams
applying to YC.
The thing I love about the Admissions Team is that we have a lot of autonomy to experiment and change our process. It’s also incredibly exciting to read all of these ideas which may someday change the world. If you’re interested in joining our team, we’re hiring Software Engineers to improve our software and Admissions Associates to read applications.
