We know it's a huge time commitment, but we think it's the best way to really get better. We've found that you get disproportional results when you switch from a "nights and weekends" mentality to a "this is the sole thing I'm focusing on" mentality.

The people who were in the last two batches were a mix of contract programmers, people who worked part time, and students.

EDIT: We have a couple thoughts here on how to make Hacker School work financially/logistically: http://www.hackerschool.com/attending