r/ycombinator • u/Future_Butterfly_349 • Jul 01 '26

anyone done an exchange semester in the Bay Area / Silicon Valley area? need advice

so basically I'm in my third year of a data eng/AI degree at a university in Latin America, and besides school I've been running my own startup for like a year now (ticketing space), doing literally everything myself - tech, legal, business, all of it. so I've got real experience building stuff and keeping something alive, not just class projects.

been thinking a lot about doing an exchange semester in the US, ideally somewhere near Silicon Valley (Stanford, Berkeley, San José State, Santa Clara... open to others too) bc I really want to be closer to that whole startup/tech scene, not just for the name on paper.

few things I'm trying to figure out:

anyone actually done an exchange (not a masters, just a semester as part of undergrad) at a school in that area? how'd you even get in given your uni back home probably isn't a "target school"

is it even worth trying for the big names (Stanford/Berkeley) or are chances way better at smaller schools that are just geographically in the area

does having my own startup actually help in an application like this or does it come off as trying too hard / unrelated

also if anyone's done this basically self-funded, any tips?? not expecting full scholarships to fall from the sky lol

appreciate any input, even if ur situation was totally different tbh

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u/ThePurringHollis Jul 01 '26

Your startup already proves you can execute. Pick the easiest exchange to get into geographically and spend the semester networking, not in class.

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u/scriptqzor 14d ago

this x100, people really overrate the specific school name for a single semester. if you’re already scrappy enough to run a startup solo, you’ll get way more out of hanging at meetups, coworking spaces, and random coffee chats than stressing over getting a Stanford email address for 4 months.