(Lo Bénichou asked me through Quora to answer this.)

I haven't spoken with any former students about their experience with Hack Reactor so I can't tell you whether it's a good program or not for people who don't know any programming and I don't want to comment on something I don't have first hand-knowledge of. I have, however, spoken with Azat Mardanov (an instructor there) via email a couple times and follow him on twitter and have a very high opinion of him. What I can say, ultimate, is you'll always do better in a program if you prepare for it ahead of time, whether Hack Reactor ahead of time. You mention you're interested in Hack Reactor's November or January cohort--start studying now! If you decide to go with HR you'll be in a much better place.

I imagine I was asked to answer this because of the comment on GA's admissions/application process. I had a (small) hand in putting together the admissions process so I can speak first hand about how competitive or not it is. We get a ton of people interested in the program for just around 25 spots per class (without giving hard numbers, if the admissions process wasn't selective, we'd have to start a new program in SF at least weekly). Over the past couple weeks I've interviewed a couple dozen people who have gotten to the third and final round for our next class in NY. About half of those people (who made it to the final round) didn't get offers to take the program.

I do agree with Shawn that our program is great for a certain set of people (though I think I may have a different definition of that set!). We made very sure that we don't let in just anyone in and we also don't restrict it to just people who are already amateur programmers, so I'll touch on briefly the set of students that we look for.

During the meetings we had where we discussed what we look for in a student, a few of us were very insistent that having a strong coding knowledge could be a positive for an applicant but it shouldn't be a negative. I personally pushed very hard for there to not be a coding challenge, though I've recently changed my mind once I saw that the coding challenge was less to test knowledge and more to test resolve. Even so, it's still less of a challenge and more of an assignment for that reason.

We wanted people who were journalists, designers, marketers, bankers, actresses, etc. who wanted to do really interesting things with the skills they were going to develop in the program. Let's face it--between full time jobs, family obligations, and what-have-you, it can be tough to do a ton of self study. We didn't want to limit WDI just to people who had the luxury of that free time for the self study before, because you miss out on some really interesting and talented people that way. Plus we have enough faith in our instructors to know that they can turn non-developers into entry-level developers.

A lot of programs are dependent on the referral bonuses they get from companies. This means they have to let in people who are already well on their way to being programmers and just need that extra boost. We don't have that concern, so we're able to focus instead on finding people who will create things in the long run. Which is great because it means you stay a part of the global GA community after you leave the program. (And even without the constraint of limiting our applicants to amateur programmers, people who have wanted to find jobs after the program have. Last I heard it was 100% placement of job seekers got jobs after WDI.)

Ultimately what we look for are people with the drive and spark who we also feel will work hard to become a developer. Because the program is hard and challenging. It was the most challenging (and rewarding) nine weeks I've been through and with the move to 12 weeks it hasn't appeared to get any easier. I like to work late at the office and I still rarely leave before our students do.

So while I don't have first hand knowledge of your personal application process, there's my insight into why we crafted the GA application process the way we did. I'm not at all trying to sway you to or from any one program, but independt of the program you choose, I'd recommend not judging it on its application process, its website or anything else but two things: look at the hiring rate of its students (if you're looking to get a dev job after graduation) and speak to former students. They will give you a better insight into what it is actually like to be in the program than any bootcamp founder or employee possibly could.