The acceptance rate has varied considerably by batch. It's generally pretty low, but I think the numbers are incredibly misleading. The reason is that most of the people we say no to don't really want Hacker School for what it is (e.g., they're looking for some sort of Rails bootcamp, or they want to prototype apps and products, not focus on becoming a better programmer) and/or because they don't seem to actually like programming very much.

I think we accept the majority of people who a) really enjoy programming, and b) have a clear idea of what Hacker School is and is not. If you meet those two criteria, your odds of getting in are quite good :)

Hope this helps!

My cofounder wrote a blog post earlier this year about this: https://www.hackerschool.com/blog/2-do-you-have-enough-exper...

In short, you need to have programmed enough to know that you actually enjoy it. We look for people who are smart, friendly, intellectually curious, enjoy programming, and want to get significantly better.

I think our youngest student was 17, and we've definitely had a few 18 and 19 year-olds. I don't think we've had anyone in high school yet :)