For what it's worth I still think the name is great. The meaning of words change. The identity of Hacker School is strong, and I could easily see it deciding what hacker and school <i>means</i> in the future, not unlike YC and the words hacker and incubator. Granted, it's an uphill battle, but the name recognition is strong, unlike Foo Bootcamp (I might be biased in this regard, but friends have remembered the name without being prompting just because it sounds cool).
<p><pre><code> presents strong evidence that this language is gendered.
We've since stopped saying that people must "love"
programming
</code></pre>
Could someone expand on this point and explain how the "love programming" phrasing is gendered?
<p><pre><code> We shouldn't have named our company "Hacker School."
Both parts of our name have caused us trouble: Hacker
because so many people take it to mean a person who
breaks into computers rather than a clever programmer.
</code></pre>
Why would that matter? Everyone who's interested in Hacker School is a hacker and understands the true meaning of the word.
<i>We're also updating our internal review system to obfuscate applicants' names to avoid any subconscious bias during our application review process. We'll soon be considering applicants named "Blue Dart" and "Purple Rover" rather than "Jane Doe" and "José Smith".</i><p>Careful. I am reminded of a classic hacker koan (perhaps, appropriately for a hacker school):<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_koan#Uncarved_block" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_koan#Uncarved_block</a><p>The situation would likely be better than before, but this may be trading one set of subconscious biases for yet another.
I'm glad I got to read this post since I recently didn't get into HS for this summer.<p>I don't think I'm worried that they may have made a mistake with my application because I'm worth the time, or other self affirming points (blah blah blah). Although, it would have been nice if they mentioned what exactly made them feel like I wasn't a good fit so I could work on that. I get that it's not always possible since they probably get a huge number of applications to go through.<p>It seems like they do a lot of introspection which I like to see - gives you a sense of what kind of people they are and makes me want to go there even more.<p>EDIT: Grammar
I disagree with one "but" in this post. Rebranding is not optional/too expensive. It's THAT important. Don't not do it, and never give up on a necessary TODO. Good luck! You guys are doing great.