There's not much more I can say that I haven't already said, as some of the conversations I've had were explicitly off the record. But I can say this, in a generic sense: All of the top accelerators will seek out people they want to attend and encourage them to apply. When this happens to you, as a founder, you're well aware that if you apply, you're very likely to get an interview and also very likely to get in. I can say on the record that this happened for me with Techstars Austin.

So the decision you're facing as you're applying, knowing what you know, having the conversations you've had, is not "Will I get in?", but "Do I really want to do this?" And that's when I found the frat-house aspect of YC to be discouraging.

(Edit: I suppose I should expand on that since people will invariably have questions. I'm a 32-year-old female. I'm in a different stage of my life than a 22-year-old who just got out of college. I didn't really want to deal with keggers full of falling-over-drunk guys, jokes about "chicks", guys hitting on me, etc. I'm just kind of over all that, and I'm weary of fighting battles I have no inclination to fight over casual sexism--I'd rather focus on growing my business, so I choose not to be around those types of people. Yes, you could say I'm painting YC with a wide and potentially unfair brush, but that was my impression.)

This year, I decided to do Techstars instead, and have no regrets about that.

Today, having gone through one accelerator with my company, I'm done with accelerators for this business and I'm moving on to doing a seed round. If I have another business that might be a good fit for YC, and they've made an effort to change (this article by pg is a good first step), I'd potentially consider it again.