The Hacker School Experience

I'm over 30 and I was accepted into one of these schools. I couldn't go for myriad reasons, but mainly money. Although these schools do say that they don't want money to be an issue, it truly is unfair for anyone to ask them for a free education, though deferment is perfectly valid if they deliver their promise of making you good. The initiative goes both ways.

The filter is very high. They get thousands of applicants for each cycle, so there has to be some convincing proof that you have what it takes. The implicit question from these schools is very simple: If you did NOT go to their school, would you have gained the requisite knowledge anyways through your own learning?

The reason they have to ask this question is multi-fold:

1- They are asking you to invest tons of time in very little time to learn and pick up all the skills they ask you to pick up.

2- They won't look good unless their students do good at the class

3- They won't look good if their students don't get jobs.

And since this is a two-way street, what have you done to convince them that you will deliver on your promise to make them look good?

Examples:

1- Did you take, and become certified on any of those MOOC courses?

2- Have you created anything of significance like a website? I'm not talking about plugging up a WordPress Site without even customizing the CSS, but something where you had to understand the technology you were using, like hand-coding PHP and MySQL. Do you have anything in github?

3- What programming languages do you use? Have you attempted to learn anything more special, like Scala or Lisp, or are you still mucking around with whatever you began learning with?

I know the above sounds excessive, but it really isn't if you consider the goals involved, which means you are to get a good-paying job, and you were pretty much on your way anyways. Yes, it will probably take a tad more convincing if you are older, have no experience, and don't have any recent tough filters to prove your abilities to them. If these schools are to be taken seriously by future employers, they have to prove that they were tough to get into, because otherwise, saying you educate people to become junior-level programmers in 3 months would actually be a joke, not sound like one. The bar is set very high for these schools or they will go out of business, so set the bar very high for yourself first, then apply. Don't blame them for your age or your gender, because it is not likely that is what is happening here.

Would you send a note to admissions@hackerschool.com with the email you used on that application so we can sort that out? We certainly don't mean to ignore any applications, and if you didn't hear back by the date stated on the app when you applied, I'm sorry about that and I would like to figure out what happened.

You asked a lot but since this goal means so much to me, I'll do my best to answer. I don't believe rejected students would learn just as much outside the school as in. If this were the case, there would be no value at all in attending one.

    1- Did you take, and become certified on any of those MOOC courses?

Yes, I did. Maybe I could have spent that time finding one more piece of contract work that would have let me raise the quality of my living conditions/diet, but I took the Berkeley SAAS course and I did very well.

    2- Have you created anything of significance like a website? 
    I'm not talking about plugging up a WordPress Site without even 
    customizing the CSS, but something where you had to understand 
    the technology you were using, like hand-coding PHP and MySQL. 
    Do you have anything in github?

Possibly. I'm not sure how you define "of significance", and obviously I don't already posses expert level skills of I wouldn't be so interested in training.

I've made several JS tools, three 80s style games in flash, and most my projects that have been keeping me going have been WP customizations (generally a child theme with some PHP and a lot of CSS work). Check my profile and I'm sure you'll find one. Some of the above is on github, but nobody is forking it or anything.

    3- What programming languages do you use? Have you attempted to learn
    anything more special, like Scala or Lisp, or are you still mucking 
    around with whatever you began learning with?

I've dabbled in tons, including lisp, but not scala. I worked through part of Land of Lisp, though I did end up getting stuck at a point.

    Yes, it will probably take a tad more convincing if you are older, 
    have no experience, and don't have any recent tough filters to prove 
    your abilities to them.

I find your general tone towards me a bit disheartening, to be perfectly honest. If the result of sharing any kind of personal set on HN is to be implicitly blamed by commenters, it's a lot harder to be open with people here. I'm not exactly sure why you would assume I have no experience or haven't done anything tough.

I've learned to speak and read Chinese well, built and run a business in Taiwan from 2006-2010 and got a job at a tech start-up in China 18 months ago with fewer skills than I have now! Yes, it has been a very, very hard time since moving back to the US this past 6 months, but I haven't exactly been a slacker.

    The bar is set very high for these schools or they will go out of business, 
    so set the bar very high for yourself first, then apply. Don't blame 
    them for your age or your gender, because it is not likely that is what
    is happening here.

First of all, I am not and have not blamed anyone. Every individual I've dealt with related these schools and most hiring managers and recruiters have been very polite and in many cases helpful. And you could be right-- maybe a woman with my skill set and background would have encountered every bit as much rejection from interviewers and schools that I have... and received the same sort of comments if she shared her failure on HN. The reason I don't like articles like this is that they make it difficult not to wonder.

Can you elaborate a bit on "setting the bar very high for myself" or offer something constructive? I'm a lot more interested in the "how to get in" than the "why you didn't" kinds of answers.

It was months ago, but I'm 90% sure it was the same email that's on my HN profile.