It’s worth noting that the main online “startup school” course doesn’t have this limitation, neither does the core YC program. I’m guessing this specific event

It’s worth noting that the main online “startup school” course doesn’t have this limitation, neither does the core YC program. I’m guessing this specific event is just very targeted at a particular market - Boston area student startup founders. Talks that are very targeted towards student founders, trying to make connections between similar age/location entrepreneurs, trying to build ties to YC within a close knit group so that they’re all more likely to apply to YC later, etc. With that being said, I have zero association with YC, I could be wrong about any/all of that. But to me it just looks like a single event that’s trying to be really specific and focused with their market. It’s very common for meetups to have a very specific target market. It IS more uncommon to outright ban ppl outside the target market, but YC is so popular that if they didn’t, they’d probably get a tonne of non-student, non-Boston-area ppl attending a meetup whose content is focused on Boston area students.