I'm disappointed in YC for funding this; I think it's destructive to the hacker economy/ecosystem. Excerpting a comment from a thread last year re: Marc Andressen's complaints about startup burn rates that applies:
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I find it very hard not to get angry at these posts...
...One of the biggest problems facing my company right now is dealing with all of the venture-funded idiots coming after my customers, market and employees without so much as a hint of a viable business model. They outspend us on marketing 1000-to-1 and they offer to serve our clients essentially for free, apparently just to be able to win a logo for the "traction" slide in their deck in the hope that they will have enough proof points to get them their next hit of venture money.
I know that nearly all of them are going to vaporize eventually, but in the meantime they completely poison the well for all of us who are trying to do what Andressen, Wilson and the rest pretend they want startups to be doing - creating sustainable businesses in sustainable markets.
Ageism is easier to pull off when you pretend it's something else.
I suspect they'd be fine with someone 18-24 who isn't a student being in the program - after all, they almost certainly expect you to drop out and focus on your startup fulltime if it gets traction.
If you're not comfortable with lying on the application, just enroll in online classes somewhere - voila, you're now a student! (Of course you still need to be an otherwise impressive candidate.)
On a related note, I'm toying with a new investment thesis: "old" entrepreneurs (above, say, 35) strike me as an interesting arbitrage opportunity. They seem wildly undervalued by silicon valley. Anyone want to start a syndicate with me to explore this idea?
Or managed a software development project of any significance.