I would probably like participating in something like this, but it's not really an option being on-site. Seems like it's geared towards students on summer leave, and not those who may already have a job or other obligations.
The majority of our students are in their 20s and 30s (with a few more in their late teens or 40s or 50s), and aren't current undergrads (e.g., less than 10% of our summer 2012 batch were current undergrads). Most people who do Hacker School take a sabbatical or quit their jobs to do it.
I was a hardware engineer for four years when I applied for hacker school. I was working for one of the major microcontroller manufacturers. I quit my job as soon as I was accepted. I was looking for a way to get into the software world, and am very grateful that I found hacker school. I learned more in those three months than I could have ever imagined. I'm now working with an amazing team in NY on some very challenging machine learning applications. Looking back, it was one of the best decisions of my life.
+1. Another ex-professional dev (for +6 years) who left to do Hacker School here.
A lot of the students seem to have at least a few years of experience under their belt but it totally runs the gamut; you'll meet everything from people a few months into the hacking pursuit to people with decades of experience. And yes, it's a staggeringly amazing program. :)
