> Imagine asking a prospective medical resident "did you treat any diseases in high school?" or "how much surgery do you do in your spare time?"

I think software engineering is more like writing than medicine. Most writers, wrote in high school. Many writers write in their spare time. They have blogs, zines and long posts on facebook.

I agree that not everyone has a opportunity to code in high school, nor should jobs exclude people who leaned later in life, however I think as the field matures more people will have more opportunities to code earlier in life.