If you have any inklings whatsoever about wanting to apply to Hacker School, just reach out[0]. Dave and company are way cool and actually respond to requests in a timely manner. There was a 4 day, 5 at max, turn around time between when I emailed them and when I was on skype with Dave.

[0]http://www.hackruiter.com/registrations/new

I'll second this. Both Dave and Nick were really easy to talk to, and it's clear they're looking for kindred 'hacker' spirits.

Also, the isolation is spot on. It can be pretty depressing to be trying to, say, do SICP on internet advice, while people around you ask why you don't just take a Java/C++ class. I applied in large part to meet others truly interested in programming, and though I can't make it this time around, HS is tops on my list of things to do in 2012.

Thanks for the kind words Zack!

A quick correction: Hacker School application page is actually http://www.hackerschool.com/apply. If you just want to talk or are looking for a job, Zack's link is the way to go.

Is there something similar to this in the Bay Area?

… or Europe?

There are some similar concepts, but without the programming part. Kaos Pilot, Knowmads, etc...

When is the summer session? That would be a great time for me as it would be less likely to conflict with other gigs.

We don't have an exact start date, but it will run from mid-June to mid-August, +/- a week or two.

So when do you know/can people apply? It'd be useful for me to know ASAP, because asa non-american, it takes some time to get there.

I'm going through and responding to the latest set of applications now. I expect to get back to everyone by early afternoon, and Dave and I will set up meetings with everyone who seems promising ASAP.

Do you work from some sort of syllabus? Or is it more free form? Also, what sort of age-range are your students?

We do not have a syllabus. Hacker School is project-based, and what people build and study is driven by what they're interested in and want to learn more about. For people who don't yet know what that is, we provide guidance and feedback.

We filter on intellectual curiosity and love of programming, so people don't typically have trouble finding interesting things to work on, especially since they're surrounded by other curious people working on interesting and hard problems.

I believe the youngest student was 19 and the oldest somewhere around 40. For the upcoming batch, most students are in their 20s or 30s (I don't know for sure, because we don't ask).

nice work nick and dave. looking forward to participating in batch[2].

I know the feeling of being isolated as a programmer. I have so many great and successful people that I would love to have as part of my startup however most of them don't have the skills that we need at this stage.

How experienced a programmer do you have to be in order to apply? I'm a CompSci student and coded some CRUD apps for my startup (Clojure and Python), but I'm not a open source contributor, nor am I active as a contributor on Github or SO.

We're flexible on experience. We care more about intellectual curiosity and a love of programming. If you love programming and your primary interest is becoming a better programmer (rather than, say, starting a company), you should definitely apply :)

What if you can't dedicate the time. Is there any other way to get involved?

Unfortunately no, not right now. It's possible we'll release online resources at some point, but I honestly don't know if/when that will happen. Sorry I don't have a more helpful answer for you at the moment.

Your honest and quick response is greatly appreciated.