That's not necessarily the case. That's assuming that the admissions process is perfect, which I do not think anyone at YC or any university would even propose.
I wasn't assuming that. I was saying that it means that they don't think that you're one of the top 50 or so startups that applied.
All of the information you need is contained in that above statement. All of this advice is basically just saying, "interpret that above statement literally, and don't make any false inferences from it".
Not necessarily. I could imagine that YC may fill slots. They have two enterprise security companies and the third best may rank really high, but they don't want to spread themselves thin in this space. Likewise they may pick an augmented reality company that ranks at 100, but they are interested in diversifying to this address.
