I was a novice, but not a total beginner. I knew what variables, loops and functions were, but didn't know about the chrome debugger or have a good grasp on client-server programming. I had been trying and failing to get a junior front-end role for several months after transitioning from a career in foreign language education. Hack Reactor was literally life changing for me.

My friend Howard, a high school drop-out from London, came into class with virtually no programming background at all. Here's his github https://github.com/cheeseen. He contracts for Google labs now. Like the school in the post HR now has a pre-course curriculum (with online help) to get people up to the point where they can make a simple chat app before the first day of class, so students get a bit further than my class did.

It really saddens me to see such negative default assumptions, but if you're that skeptical, you can look through every single graduate of the program up through class 3, their LinkedIn profiles and their github profiles here: http://www.hackreactor.com/engineers/. You really can't find that level of transparency from any other school I know of.