App Academy

App Academy demands your full attention and it definitely requires it to make it through.  As a history of being a terrible student, being pushed through these paces was definitely challenging.  Hopeful bootcampers should always keep in mind that all bootcamps are not prepared with the same teaching knowledge and focus as can be found in most accredited schools.  And thus there are many points where you may find it uncomfortable, difficult and divergent from what you may be used to.  Bootcamps are first and foremost businesses.  That being said, App Academy is highly regarded, rigorous and demands 10-12 hours a day.  It takes some level of emotional support or mental fortitude to go the mile in tact.

The amount of material App Academy requires students to learn within 3 months is tremendous. If students don't keep up every day and manage time well, it is difficult to keep up. To put it into perspective, I took two quarters of C in college and the material I learned was roughly equivalent to the 1 month prepwork that is required after you get in before you actually start the course.

Pros: 
- The material is well thought out and the curriculum is solid. 
- You are surrounded daily by peers just as driven as you. 
- Great staff and instructors. (Just as in any educational setting you'll find some spectacular instructors vs good instructors) 
- Able to learn materials needed to get a job within a succinct amount of time

Cons: 
-The curriculum pacing in the beginning is a bit slow and suddenly week it speeds up quickly after week 4 making it difficult to catch up at times 
- You are required every day from 9 - 6pm and with the homework is usually a 12 hour work day. This could be considered a pro if you don't have other commitments such as family, or spend two hours commuting daily as I did. 
- No longer a 12 week bootcamp but a mandatory 13 week course

Overall, App Academy is a solid program, and the instructors are committed in seeing you succeed. They have a solid business model which makes them even more motivated to help the students. Would definitely recommend App Academy to anyone who has the passion and resources.

I went to App Academy and I have a job as a frontend developer now. I had foreign language skills and no coding background before App Academy, and I only realized that coding bootcamps were a thing about 14 months ago. After graduating on February 10th, 2017 I accepted an offer today with a base salary of $90k in the Bay Area after sending out almost 300 applications over the past two months. It worked for me as advertised so I'm satisfied.

a/A was an amazing opportunity that I'm definitely happy and thankful I chose to take! a/A is a ton of work, and requires extreme dedication in order to be successful. However, I wasn't surprised at this because a/A is very clear that it is an intensive program. You will not succeed if you are not willing to make a/A your #1 priority. The more preparation you give yourself, the better. a/A provides some prep work, but if you push yourself to do more (e.g., study algorithms, javascript, oop, etc.) you'll be even more prepared. I never felt like I wouldn't be able to succeed here, as long as I was willing to put in the effort. I don't have a job yet, so I can't vouch for that aspect of it. However, the program itself was amazing and I feel very prepared. For the past couple months I have been learning at a really fast pace. I do not have a STEM background (majored in Psychology in college), so don't let it scare you off if you don't have a STEM background! From the very beginning I felt like a/A was SUPER organized. It's really impressive. They update the material with each cohort in order to stay current, and make sure that the material they are using is the best it can be. The whole program is highly organized, with homework given each night and specific projects to work on during the day (as well as lecture). I definitely felt like there were enough TAs to help us out while we're working. You spend the first several weeks of a/A pair programming on a daily basis. This was a great experience, and definitely helped me learn a lot from my peers. I definitely think a/A is a great place to be! However, we go through material extremely quickly. If you're the type of person who would want to go at a slower place a/A might not be the right place for you. There's nothing wrong with this, just differing learning styles! Most of the projects I started, I was not able to finish. This is how the program is built. It moves quickly, and you learn a ton. 

The curriculum is very fast and you get grouped with like-minded people who also want to learn and get a job. The TA's are very helpful and they are constantly available to answer your questions during the daily assignments.

There are some things to be wary about, though. If you fall behind, you will be playing catch up and be stressed for the rest of the curriculum. For that reason, I suggest people who are looking to attend to prepare by making going through free online classes on Ruby, Javascript, and some basic SQL. Know about object oriented programming. The prepwork they send you if you get in is a drastic change of pace from the coding challenges that you will be doing to get in.

I just finished the coding curriculum of App Academy. I've been in tech my entire adult career and always had an interest in learning to dev. The opportunity to join App Academy came last year and I jumped at the chance and haven't looked back. The program is rigorous, expect to put in the hours, but you will get out of it is reciprocal of the effort and time you put into the program. That being said, I greatly enjoyed my time there and would highly recommend it to anyone who is serious about changing their career to development. 

I recommend this to anyone who wholeheartedly wants to get a job as a software developer. Even though I can technically learn the material myself through YouTube and other free sources, It would have taken me several times longer. Be warned, only ~3% get into the course and people do get kicked for not being able to keep up with the curriculum.

App Academy is single-handedly the best decision I have ever made in my life. I've learned more these past few months than I have the last year of self teaching. The workload is draining as they essentially have you coding from 9AM to 6PM 5 days a week. But if you put in the work and make use of the staff they have there, you should be able to get by fine. Speaking of the staff, A1. The TA's are always there to answer any questions you may have and genuinely enjoy explaining concepts to you. Also, if you ever have a question after hours the TA's are easily accessible through Slack.

12 weeks may seem like a long time, but trust me when I say it goes by fast.

You are expected to learn quite a bit about Ruby on your own before you are accepted into App Academy. Once in, you WILL be spending a lot of time learning and coding. A typical class day starts at 9am and ends at 6pm, but students will stay until 10-11 to finish the day's project or start on the next day's material. Expect this schedule for the next 4 months or so of your life.

The curriculum is constantly evolving to cater to the needs of the current job market. At the time I'm writing this, React/Redux is one of the hottest frameworks in the market, so the tail end of the curriculum is devoted to React. However, should another language/framework take over, the instruction team will configure the curriculum accordingly.

You will spend most of your day pair-programming with another student on the day's projects, switching every 15 minutes between typing and navigating (giving instructions on what to code next). The teaching assistants are available for help if the two of you get stuck on something.

The instruction team generally consists of graduates from previous cohorts, who, having gone through the same material, are constantly finding the best way to explain and present the curriculum.

The job assistance team regularly brings alums and industry insiders to discuss their experience with the program, and helps connect current students with alums at their firms. They will also help you with your communications to negotiate and maximize your earning potential, since a higher salary for you means a higher payment to them.

Background: I came from a/A from graduate school in philosophy. I'm currently in the job portion of the curriculum. 

Pros: 
The structure of the curriculum is great. I had some familiarity with Rails before, but their presentation of Rails was far clearer and intuitive from what I had gone through online. 
Pair programming is challenging, I learned a lot from it. 
The job curriculum is very helpful so far. 
The TAs are all helpful and friendly. 
Most people who attend a/A are smart and have a variety of different coding strengths which I learned from.  
Pay less up front!
Recent cohorts continue to have good job placement rates. 

Cons:
Sometimes the schedule changes on short notice. 
On the whole, it's more expensive than other bootcamps which friends who now work as software engineers have attended (Dev Bootcamp).  

Overall, I'd recommend it.

I was part of the September 2016 Cohort.  I found the environment very encouraging with support from both your TA's and peers . I was very impressed with the quality of instruction as well as the sheer quantity of information we learned in such a short amount of time. For example, we learned recursion in one day. I would highly recommend a/A to anyone looking to learn, grow and switch to a new fulfilling career in software development!

I am a natural skeptic, so I made sure to do a ton of research before attending App Academy.  After going through the program, I can safely say that App Academy is exactly how they advertise.  I learned more in 2 months than I could have hoped to learn in a year or more by myself.  The course is exactly what I needed as someone who came to tech as a former attorney, and I feel prepared to work as a full-time web developer.  I am truly glad I had the opportunity to attend and would recommend it to anyone serious about switching careers into web development.

The curriculum portion of the course is very rigorous and you end up learning a lot. Every day you spend most of your time pair programming, which promotes a great learning environment! The material is very quick and breaks only the surface, but gives you enough knowledge to read professional level code and learn on your own by the end of the program. The TAs are extremely resourceful and can help you with literally anything! They ask for feedback daily so that they can keep improving from one cohort to the next, which is really great!

The job search portion of the boot camp is jam packed with projects as well as material. When you are creating your projects from scratch, you realize the gaps in your knowledge and have to figure out how to solve them mostly on your own. This can be challenging and a little scary, but pretty reflective of what life will be like after you are finished with the academy. One of the best things about a/A is that you'll have access to all of their material forever, which can be a great resource later in life.

App Academy is different from most bootcamps because of it's rigor, however what sets it apart the most would be the pricing model.

No other bootcamp does this. Quite frankly App Academy doesn't have to either. They're a top bootcamp. Even if they asked for all the money upfront like everyone else they would get thousands of applications still. 

App Academy is invested in students getting jobs quickly.

If you want a job quickly, do App Academy. Of course there is no guarentee, but at least you know they're invested in it as much as you are.

The course is rigorous and tough but just keep the complaints and tears to yourself and get through it and you'll be in a completely different position from where you started.

App Academy was an amazing experience. From learning the basics of Ruby through developing full stack web apps, the instructors are always extremely helpful and push you to be your best. I feel like my education at App Academy has set me up for success, not just right now, but also in the long run.

App Academy makes money when its graduates get good jobs, and the course reflects that. The quality of instruction isn't bad, exactly—I would rate it slightly below average. But if you are looking for one on one support, a vibrant community feel, or a thoughtful introduction to fundamentals, you will not get it there. What you will get is an extremely focused curriculum, a no-nonsense environment that motivates people who already have some natural ability, and a lot of very good advice about your job search. App Academy is changing so much and so fast that I hesitate to speak too much about its specific practices when I attended. We didn't get much immediate help with job placement. The partners they touted didn't materialize in NYC. But I got a very good job, essentially my dream job, by following their advice almost to the letter and working my ass off. The vast majority (though not all) of the people in my cohort also got good jobs. If you are smart and self motivated and you enjoy coding enough to do it on your own time before you go, App Academy will produce results.

I never thought I could learn so much in 3 months. The curriculum and staff is amazing! You learn really good coding style and best practices and will leave the program a strong enough programmer to learn whatever language or framework you want. It is a very stressful experience, not because of the constant work, but because they kick a fair number of students out of the programs for test scores. Also, I strongly recommend using erganomics as a preventative rather than a treatment, for carpel tunnel.