Yes, pg commented about "smart" people from top colleges applying to YC in it's earlier days, and he was surprised at how underwhelming they were. Then he goes

Yes, pg commented about "smart" people from top colleges applying to YC in it's earlier days, and he was surprised at how underwhelming they were. Then he goes onto say that just because they appeared impressive to admissions officers when they were 17 doesn't predict future success. Some quotes: "Success is decided by the market: you only succeed if users like what you've built. And users don't care where you went to college." "Y Combinator has been an unprecedented opportunity for learning how to pick winners. One of the most surprising things we've learned is how little it matters where people went to college." "There's nothing like going to grad school at Harvard to cure you of any illusions you might have about the average Harvard undergrad. And yet Y Combinator showed us we were still overestimating people who'd been to elite colleges. We'd interview people from MIT or Harvard or Stanford and sometimes find ourselves thinking: they must be smarter than they seem. It took us a few iterations to learn to trust our senses." "We're talking about a decision made by admissions officers—basically, HR people—based on a cursory examination of a huge pile of depressingly similar applications submitted by seventeen year olds. And what do they have to go on? An easily gamed standardized test; a short essay telling you what the kid thinks you want to hear; an interview with a random alum; a high school record that's largely an index of obedience. Who would rely on such a test?" - from "News from the Front" http://www.paulgraham.com/colleges.html http://www.paulgraham.com/colleges.html EDIT: grammar