It's a large percentage, but probably less than half (at least in our batch). Also most weren't fresh grads. It seemed like the median age was 25 or so. Most

It's a large percentage, but probably less than half (at least in our batch). Also most weren't fresh grads. It seemed like the median age was 25 or so. Most had had jobs post-college. So, basically a mid-20s candidate from a non-prominent school is closer to the median than a fresh Ivy League grad. I was 29 and my co-founder 34 when we went through; we both went to good, but non-elite universities and I didn't ever feel out of place. Note that Paul and Robert were 31 and 30 [1][2] respectively when they founded Viaweb and Paul has written on how elite universities are a bad predictor of success [3], so it's unlikely that what's being seen is causation rather than correlation. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham_(computer_programmer) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham_(computer_programme... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Tappan_Morris http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Tappan_Morris [3] http://www.paulgraham.com/colleges.html http://www.paulgraham.com/colleges.html