Yeah, it certainly can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. One of the MIT students we hired eventually left us to create a startup when they were accepted into a Y C

Yeah, it certainly can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. One of the MIT students we hired eventually left us to create a startup when they were accepted into a Y Combinator class. When it came time to pitch for their series A at Andreessen Horowitz, their YC advisor told them to wear their college sweatshirts to the pitch (MIT and an ivy). Apparently, the business plan / product hardly even came up in the pitch - according to one of them, it was just a "bro-down about our schools." They got the money.