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.

Why do we need to meet YC partners to start a startup?