App Academy

I attended Bootcamp Prep course and never regretted spending such money for anything that much worthless before. The content is poorly structured and extremely expensive for what it's really worth.

They claim that "Acceptance to at least one of the top bootcamps guaranteed." and guess what neither of those bootcamps are hard to get into accept for the Hack Reactor, (and for Hack Reactor, they have their AMAZING prep course for free, so it doesn't make any sense to pay that much if you're aiming to get into HR), they even have General Assembly on the list of the bootcamps they guarantee acceptance, but seriously, General Assembly even doesn't have an actual technical interview! 

I wish they hadn't feel the necessity of making such a claim, because it's pretty obvious that not getting into at least one of the bootcamps they listed is impossible. It means you'd never get your money back.

Apart from that, in terms of content and curriculum, nothing special, nothing that can justify the cost of the course.

I came from a pre-medical background and went into AppAcademy with 0 coding experience until a few months before my start date. Attended from July til Oct of 2016 and received an offer from Paypal in Dec 2016. Staff is great, they're knowledgeable and very caring all the way from the curriculum into the job search period. I liked the curriculum albeit it isn't perfect, could use a slight change in pace and emphasis in certain sections. However it is very up-to-date and relevant; I feel well-prepared for when I start at PayPal. No real cons as my impression is that App Academy is the best bootcamp in the Bay Area, even better than Hack Reactor, due to the curriculum (more up-to-date and better structured in terms of emphasis and pacing).

I came into App Academy knowing I wanted to be in coding but not how to get into the profession. I expected to be able to breeze through the coding portion of the curriculum and get the most benefit during the job search curriculum. However, the work was a lot more challenging than expected and definitely extremely comprehensive. We learned so much during the 3 months, I was extremely surprised at what I could accomplish by the end. 

It definitely was a lot of hard work. Students spend upwards of 80 to 100 hours a week to keep up. This is not an exaggeration. People do get expelled from the program if they cannot keep up. However, the exams are extremely fair and as long as you keep up, you will do fine. 

I ended up getting multiple offers within a month after graduating and nearly doubled my salary from my last job. I am not working in the field I love.

Recent AppAcademy graduate (August NYC cohort) and I can honestly say that I am incredibly happy that I made the decision to join. After completing my MS in Applied Physics and working as a Process Engineer (no software engineering background), I felt as though I needed to make a career change. After applying to jobs for about 5 months, I began looking into some alternatives and eventually found the coding bootcamp option. I was very hesitant at first because it is a huge time and $ investment and it almost felt as though I was giving up on my current credentials and qualifications. 

But once I started, those feelings of hesitation quickly disappeared and now that I have completed the program and received multiple offers from great companies within weeks of graduating, I can safely say that I am more excited than ever to start my new career as a software engineer. Not only do I have a passion to continue learning and excelling in this field, but I am confident in what I will bring to my next job. 

All in all, I highly recommend this program to anyone who wants to accelerate their path to becoming a software engineer and is willing to put in the effort (some in my class were able to get away with 60hr/weeks, but I probably came closer to 80hr/weeks). All of the resources to succeed are in place and the deferred tuition model demonstrates the belief that AppAcademy places in it's curriculum, instructors, and most importantly, students. 

I assume you're reading these reviews because you're on the fence about joining App Academy. tl;dr, just do it!! I'll leave more details below about my personal experience:

-Completed the program in late July 2016
-Job hunted for ~1.5 months (I underestimated how difficult this would be, not only from an X's and O's execution perspective, but also from a psychological perspective going from employed to not-employed, etc.)
-Received multiple offers
-I've both spoken with grads from other bootcamps conversationally, as well interviewed them formally. In both cases, it's amazing how much App Academy teaches you compared to other bootcamps. It comes as no surprise their graduates command the highest salaries fresh out of school.
-Quality control is serious business at App Academy. Dismissal of students based on performance and/or attendance is a real thing. That being said, keep in mind that dismissing students for performance is against App Academy's financial interest (they'll refund your $$ and not charge you). As such, know that assessments are not there to "trick you," and leverage the resources they offer accordingly.  Deal with it, and learn to love it. It's the only way they can maintain the brand mentioned in the previous bullet point.

The amount you'll learn at App Academy truly is incredible, and your classmates will be your network in tech as the job offers start rolling in. In most cases, you always have the option of going back to your previous career if you don't like what you see, and you'll receive a free education along the way. In that way, App Academy was one of the lowest-risk, highest-reward investments I've ever made in myself. Just.... do it!

I love to connect and learn about the individuals making similar career changes. Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn (Mark Mullan @ Clover Network) and we can grab a coffee.

App Academy is truly a great bootcamp. First off the bat, they are very selective so you can be sure that you are learning with people equally as motivated as you are.
The curriculum is great, and it gives you plenty of opportunities to build individual projects to beef up your skill and resume. 
I have to say that the job search support was a bit lacking for me because there are so few people on their job search team, but we had a lot of lectures and alums coming to share information that was all very useful during my job search process. 
All the staff there are really nice and genuinely want you to do well - it's not just about getting you a job so you can start paying them back!
I miss the rigorous schedule and the fun-filled coding days already!

Before: 

When I was first considering joining a coding boot camp I was fairly skeptical.  3 months to change careers and make the kind of money a/A advertised seemed too good to be true. Especially since going in I had no college degree and no related professional experience.   I did a lot of research and applied to many of the major boot camps offering 'similar' curriculums.  I was accepted to a few including Dev Bootcamp and Flatiron School.  

All of the boot camps say that their curriculum is geared towards people with "no experience", so anyone can do it.  That's a bit misleading as they all will expect you to demonstrate some logical competency and a basic understanding of how to problem solve programmatically in the interview.  I spent about 6 months practicing on sites like codeschool.com and codewars.com before I began applying.  In the end, I selected a/A for two reasons:  their tuition structure (pay after you get a job), and because I found their application process to be the most difficult.  I applied 3 times before I was accepted to a/A, vs. my first try at the other schools.

During:

My brother is a Marine and had a great time ribbing me about going to a 'boot camp' for obvious reasons.  But I have to say, although there are not pushups, calling it a boot camp isn't far off.  It is very, very hard, and the hours are long.  Again, I never graduated college, so my basis for comparison might be skewed, but even people in my cohort with degrees ranging from BAs to PhDs acknowledged that it was a difficult program.  The style of teaching at a/A is to show you a thing once, then give you instructions and a day to replicate it with a partner, with the TAs on hand to assist.  They will not give you direct answers (for the most part) but rather guide you through the all-important process of debugging and figuring out problems on your own.  It's challenging, and at times very frustrating, but ultimately the system teaches you how to be a self-reliant developer.

After:

In 5 months I went from being a bartender with no college degree to a well-paid full-stack (actual job title, not just a buzz word) web developer at a company that I'm very excited about.  Most graduates (so far, from my class) landed an initial salary between 90 and 100k.  Another concern I had going in was that a/A teaches Ruby on Rails, which some developers will tell you isn't the most relevant language these days.  That's BS.  Developers love to be opinionated about the tech that they work with, and you will be too eventually.  I love Rails, but I can say objectively that it's more about learning how a server is structured than the specific syntax you are using.  The knowledge that I got from a/A felt tech agnostic by the time I reached the job hunt; launguage is a nonissue.  Anyways, there are definitely a lot of Rails specific developer positions out there if that's the route you decide to go.  The job hunt is a bit intense, but there are designated a/A staff members to help you along the way.  If you follow their road map, keep studying after graduation, and utilize your peer support network, you will find a job in under 3 months. 

Tl;dr

It's hard to get in, very hard to keep up, and reasonably difficult to find a job afterward.  But if you are expecting any part of it to be easy it's not for you.  The program works, sorry for the platitude but it's the best decision I've ever made.

As a recent App Academy graduate, I'm very happy with my decision to enroll. The course is definitely intense, however, it is as difficult as it needs to be to ensure that you graduate the program with the skills and knowledge necessary to get a job in the tech industry. All of the instructors are great at what they do, and the curriculum is really well thought out. Each week's material builds on itself to incrementally teach you everything you need to know. I would recommend App Academy to anyone who is looking to transition into the tech industry, and is ready to put in the work to do so.

I just finished the curriculum at App Academy and have learned more in the last two months than the last year of self studying. The program is high-intensity, they really mean it when they say 80 hours / week, but along with the program you get a fantastic support system that really cares about you instead of what paycheck you'd be bringing them. 

I really feel prepared to go out into the workforce and have something concrete to show for my efforts. You really can't go wrong with App Academy if you put in the effort and are serious about your work. Can't recommend it enough if you are considering a transition.

THE GOODS:
I joined a/A because I wanted to make a switch to a dev career, coming from 3 years in Marketing, but with some programming experience. Still, there are some pretty brilliant students in my cohort with varied backgrounds, sometimes with 0 coding experience, and they're doing very well. Which, in summary, means: no matter your background, a/A will give you the tools to be successful, but it will be up to you and how well you adapt to the intense curriculum.

This is not the regular college pace. It's much more intensive than that. If you fail 2 of the weekly assessments, you're out. Some of the people from my cohort who got kicked out weren't putting enough effort into it and were still in the college inertia, which isn't enough. Again: you get what you put into it.

You will get support from TAs on the floor every day. A lot of the times, they will not directly answer your questions but guide you to the answer by showing you the pieces, making you think it through. I really liked this approach as it made me realize that I had the answer most of the times, but was looking at it through the wrong perspective.

When I joined, I expected to learn the basis that would allowed me to learn a lot more of the things I wanted, but it ended up exceeding my expectations. They not only teach you how to develop a full-stack webapp and the technologies behind one, but they go through a lot of CS concepts too, which was beyond what I expected.

The tech curriculum is proprietary, very well written and structured. It explains a lot of things in details, which means you can expect countless hours of lectures and readings.

You will walk out with a lot of small projects that you'll develop throughout the curriculum, plus three bigger ones for your résumé. Most importantly: you'll finish wanting to do more, so you'll most likely develop some projects on your own afterwards.

Their system for tracking progress is really impressive and well designed, which makes you feel more confident in the structure they offer.

THE BADS:
The job search curriculum is less structured than the tech one. The content is there, but it's not centralized, so you often have to remember where to go if you want to check presos, homework material or schedule. 

There are few job search coaches for the full cohort, so it gets a bit hard to get some good feedback from them.

All in all, 11 weeks into the program, I feel confident about getting where I want, so I can't recommend it enough.

I was learning the MEAN stack before and felt like I needed the extra push to become job-ready. App Academy stood out for two reasons.

1) It is the top bootcamp and you get to work with smart people. Pair programming is common across many high quality bootcamp. Some people doubt the value of it. But when you work with programmers who are better than you, you will become a better programmer. At a/A, some students have CS background and some are just bright students who can digest concepts quickly. I was able to discuss different ways of solving problems and learned a lot from my peers. You will miss your days of pair programming when you are in project phase.

2) It focuses on job preparation. While other bootcamps focus on projects exclusively during the second half of the program, a/A makes you learn algorithms and prepare for interviews. IMO, you can always fix your projects on weekends or after the program. But having career support is the key to getting a job. Also, sharing interview tips with other students who are going through the same process gives you a unique advantage.

The number of TA was not enough for my cohort. It didn't cause any problem until the project phase. But they realized the problem and hired more TA for the next cohort. Thumbs up for really responding to our feedback and trying to make the program better.