By and large. Major League Hacking (the link above) is sort of like the national group &quot;in charge&quot; of hackathons and one of the requirements to be recognized by them is to be a purely under-grad event (though sometimes highschool students are admitted). That said, there are plenty hackathons that aren&#x27;t sanctioned by MLH and therefore are more open.<p>It&#x27;s also possible that my view of hackathons is skewed by the fact that I&#x27;m a university student at a school with a very active hackathon culture.