I enjoyed the program overall. It was stressful though dealing with the tests and the daily checkin times. After completing the code intensive part of the curriculum I felt like I had a good understand of the materials, but I would need more time to cement the knowledge within me.  The teachers were very helpful and a good support system to have when things got stressful. It was a worth while program.

App Academy was a very structured program that I learned a lot from. It keeps you motivated to work hard through having assessments every Monday and practice assessments prior to the main ones. This helps to constantly let you know what you need to do to stay on track. If you're looking to become proficient in ruby on rails and react App Academy is a great way to go! The program also gives you the tools that you will need to pick up new skills as well and continue learning on your own even after the program is completed. 

App Academy is an incredible coding bootcamp. I came into the bootcamp with many expectations of what it might be like but I never could have imagined what I have experienced so far.

To start, the learning environment is positive, supportive, and encouraging. App Academy constantly reinforces a culture of collaboration, pair programming, and sharing knowledge. The best example (and my favorite aspect of the program as a whole) are the TAs and instructional staff. These are mainly past graduates who have decided to help new students find their way through the intense 9 week curriculum. Because they have been through the program themselves they know what the students are going through, and do an amazing job of providing support when needed - be it technical help on a tough coding problem, or providing some much needed reassurance when the grind becomes real - they really do care and will spend hours (literally) with you until you understand a concept comfortably.

Speaking of the grind, App Academy will test you. But that’s what a bootcamp is meant to do. Sleepless nights, hours of homework reading and problems (after 9 hours of coding), and weekly assessments will push you to your mental and physical limits. You will experience moments where the last thing you want to do is write another line of code, or spend another hour trying to debug your program. The most important thing is to keep on trying, and ask for help when you need it. The support system is there for you to take advantage of, and everyone is happy to help.

But it’s not all bad. In fact, there is so much more that is good about this bootcamp. For as much stress and frustration you will go through, you will experience twice the amount of achievement, learning, and moments of triumph. You will learn to build so many cool things and come away with the confidence to continue learning on your own afterward. You will build new and deep friendships with classmates going through the same struggle and grind. The alumni community at App Academy is healthy, growing, and super friendly.

If you are thinking about App Academy, I highly recommend it. This bootcamp is has not only been an opportunity for me to step into the tech industry as a software developer, it has been a challenging experience that I can look back on with gratitude and pride.

Enrolling in AppAcademy was a chance for me to switch careers and I do not regret it. At the end of the day, it really is what you make of it. I did a lot of research on web-development and delved around in multiple free curriculums such as freeCodeCamp and TheOdinProject prior but it was hard to keep myself accountable. Due to the massive amounts of tutorials and references available through open source, I found it hard to make serious progress as I would jump from language to language, not sure of what I should learn with the limited time that I had. AppAcademy provided me structure and forced me to be disciplined and I was able to make massive progress in 3 months, much more than I ever did when I was self-studying and not fully immersing myself.

I would say that most of the knowledge is picked up through pair programming. Having to work with another partner daily during the curriculum really sharpened my understanding of not only the material but my ability to articulate it to other people. You'll also learn a lot when you help your cohort mates debug and vice versa. The curriculum is very fast-paced and it is amazing how fast you feel that you can fall behind in only a day. The React/Redux portion was probably the most challenging week in the curriculum as new material is just piled onto you.

Our cohort is currently in the job search curriculum so I cannot comment at the moment regarding the job search. Needless to say, I am looking forward to opening up this new chapter in my career.

To answer some questions that I had when I was making the decision to enroll:
- The language you learn doesn't matter. Once you are familiar with how web-development works, you realize that there are similar patterns/conventions that are fundamental to each language. Different programming languages can all achieve the same means.
- Make sure you enroll ahead of the months notice that they tell you to. You do have pre-curriculum prep that you have to do before the cohort that requires at least two weeks of time. I personally went through the prep work twice before my cohort started as well as learning as much JavaScript as I could. This goes a long way between determining how stressed you feel during the lecture part of the curriculum when you're learning new materials everyday.
-  I did a good amount of problems on CodeWars and CodeFights and LeetCode during my preparation for the application. While it helped me learn how to problem solve, web development is actually a totally different beast! Don't get discouraged if you struggle at these tricky word problems because it doesn't mean that you can't build killer apps.

BTW: Hawaiian shirts on Fridays. Learn it. Live it. Love it.

If you want to be ready for the job market, be skilled with ruby and javascript, meet the best and the brightest to coming into the market and have the mindset to be able to work as long and hard as it takes, this is the place for you. Use it as a learning experience on your path of becoming a software developer. 

It will not come easy but it's all about time and perseverence and eventually you will become a software developer and see the rewards of your effort. 

I can't imagine having better TAs for the curriculum. Some of the brightest people have come through these halls. I encourage everyone to take a chance and make that step towards a better career. 

The learning culture at App Academy is pretty much as far as it gets from university. They value a very collaborative culture through pair programming every day, and value understanding the material over just completing it. There were only a couple days where we managed to get through all of the days projects, but it's expected.

The curriculum as a whole is fantastic and reinforces your understanding through a variety of methods: readings, videos, homework, lectures, group discussions, and most importantly actually putting into practice your new skills throughout each day.

After completing the main coding curriculum as well as a few major projects, I've become confident in my ability to code and build full-stack and frontend apps in Rails, React/Redux, JavaScript, etc. It's also inspired me to want to pick up new stacks and tools. I've definitely learned more over these past 3 months than any other 3 month (or even 1 year) period of time.

I can't speak to those without technical backgrounds. But even though I had some previous programming experience, it didn't really matter since everything was new to me after the second week. You will definitely be spending at least 80-90 hours a week, but it won't feel like it if you love to code and learn about new technologies.

Attending App Academy has been one of the best decisions I've made in my career. You could argue that you could teach yourself or maybe even try to go back to traditional school, but I believe nothing is as cost or time-efficient as attending the best bootcamp in the industry. There is plenty of free knowledge and alternatives out there to learn the skills of a software engineer, but for most people starting out it is incredibly difficult to know what to focus on. App Academy will offer you a well thought out roadmap that has been proven to work for thousands of students. You're guaranteed to learn the most in-demand technologies and skills in the industry thanks to its rapid-iteration teaching approach, which provides frequent experimentation and rapid re-investment of findings back into the class. One of my favorite thing about the program is that is practical in nature, so be prepared to experience a non-traditional yet more efficient approach to education in which you'll learn by doing and collaborating with others. By the end of the program, you'll have an amazing portfolio of projects that will impress any hiring manager. And even after you are done as a student, you'll still benefit from the amazing career support App Academy  provides and you'll have access to the incredible network of App Academy alumni. Be aware that attending this immersive program will be challenging, but I promise it'll be a fun and rewarding experience.

Going through App Academy's program has truly been a remarkable experience. No matter what your background is and if you're serious about starting a new career in Software Development, be prepared to be challenged 7 days a week during the main portion of the curriculum. At the end, it was all worth it! 

The instructional staff are very professional and are diligent about student success. They will teach you everything you need to know in short amount of time. Because of the amount of information you'll learn, it will actually FEEL like you've been in the program much longer than 3 months.

App Academy is just as difficult as they claim. You really will need to spend upward of 85 hours a week on your studies if you want to be successful, but if you have the time and the discipline then don't be scared away. I've had very, very little free-time over the past months, but in exchange I've gained an extremely valuable skill in less time than I could have imagined before beginning the program.

The instructors are top-notch. Everything in general is conducted extremely professionally, from the location and the building/amenities (I attended the NY branch), to the assessments and the projects. Before joining the program I was under the impression that I could have learned all of the same skills on my own, using free resources online. Looking back now, this miiiiight be possible, but it honestly would have taken me more than 10 times as long to do alone. Having the instructors on call, and the other students as pair-programmers was indispensable for me. Again, the program is totally worth it for those who are serious about becoming full-stack developers. I just recently accepted an offer as a frontend developer thanks to App Academy. But remember, there is no hand-holding. If you think you can give it anything less than 90% of your time and attention, you will likely fail out.

App academy requires you to study for a minimum of 90 hours per week excluding commute. That said, you learn a ton of stuff in 3 months. Coming from a non-technical background, it was astounding how much I could pick up in such a short time. The TAs are very helpful and go above and beyond to help you. The assessments can be stressful, as there is a threat of getting kicked out. But it motivated me to take the assessments seriously and study hard. 
We also do 3 projects (1 full stack, 1 pure javascript project and 1 game), that helps seal gaps in our learning. I have just started the job search curriculum, and will update my review once I find a job.

Throughout my entire life, I have gone through accelerated courses whether it be the military or my undergrad. App Academy was no joke and it definitely gave me the whooping I deserved to make me humble to the vast amount of knowledge I was about to face and understand that I'll be a lifelong student in the world of tech. The reason why I decided on App Academy were their tuition model and reputation for being one of the best.

Needless to stay, they delivered. The curriculum consistently got more difficult and ranged from technical to soft skills. Both of which I receive valuable training in but I believe the soft skills are where I improved the most. I have always been the type of person to work alone. It was fine up until the halfway mark in which I realized I couldn't be in the world of tech working alone as there will never be enough time to learn and keep up with the lastest trends in technologies.

tl;dr
App Academy taught me:
    1. Technical skills to get through the door
    2. Soft skills to land the job
    3. How to learn and do my own research
    4. To strive to become a mentor

I graduated my bachelors in CS but I felt that what was taught to me is not enough for the industry right now. App Academy taught me what I hadn't learnt in 4 years in 12 weeks. It was really really intense, no kidding. The pacing is ultra high speed. But at the start of the eighth week began doing our full stack project. The end result is what was the most satisfying. I was proud of what I made and my friends and family were amazed on how practical the teaching was, enough to make a full stack app. The course is super rewarding. I am currently on the 10th week and our job search curriculum is about to begin and am super excited to start working soon!

I went into App Academy hoping I would get a job as a software developer. I was skeptical I would actually be able to get a job. It took a ton of work in the job search but I landed a role as a Frontend Developer. In meetings at work it is quite apparent that App Academy's curriculum is solid because I often know more than some of my co-workers, especially about new technolgoies like React/Redux. It makes me feel pretty good.

If you have a liberal arts background like me I definitely recommend preparing for the course. Learn some programming language fundamentals beforehand. The curriculum is really stressful but very worth it.

The job search is the hardest part, you need to put in a lot of your own work but the resources are there. You just have to sometimes reach out to people that work at a/A and continue to show up and study and apply for jobs in the office. I found showing up even after it was no longer required very beneficial. It took me 6+ months after graduating to find a job. That is not everyone's situation as I am a bit of a slacker, but be prepared financially or just hit the ground running once the curriculum is over and find a job faster like a lot of my cohort mates.

Here's the breakdown:

- You'll be working a lot. When they say 80-120 hours a week, they mean it. But it's really not as bad as you think. You get used to it *very* quickly and learn to love it.

- You learn what you need. Don't worry about the other academies that focus more on JavaScript. Trust me, you'll get more than enough of that, and you'll be using mostly JavaScript in all 3 of your projects.

- There's constant support. Your fellow cohort-mates are going to become your best friends during this, and the TAs and staff are always around to help.

- You have a robust portfolio by the end of this. You clone a website, make your own app in JavaScript, and make a larger-scale project on a team. It's a mix of everything and you do really feel like a software developer by the end of this.

Good luck!

App Academy is definitely a great opportunity to learn a great deal of material in a short amount of time. There's a reason it has a great reputation among bootcamps - the instructors are knowledgeable and helpful, the curriculum is definitely relevant to what is necessary for actual tech positions, and they have alumni placed in dozens of companys and start-ups. All of that being said, here are some questions I would ask yourself before applying:

1. Do you handle pressure well? The courseload itself is very intense (9-6 M-F with homework every night and near-weekly assessments) and the tests are very much point-blank "can you pound this out in 30-40 minutes or not". None of this is ever unexpected or unreasonable, but be prepared for a good deal of stress and make sure you have ways to cope with it and stay healthy.

2. How long can you go without having a job? While the course itself only takes 3 months, it is unlikely that you will find a job immediately after graduating. Many students take up to 3 months after AA to find a job, and some take as long as 6. You sign an agreement saying you won't take on any full-time employment during that time, so make sure you are financially stable enough to commit completely to finding an engineering position.

3. Do you actually like coding? If you already know that you're just looking for a quick path to a high-paying job, you'll probably get burnt out very quickly. Obviously you don't have to live and breathe code all the time, but make sure you're doing it at least in part because you find it genuinely interesting.

As long as you've thought through these possible difficulties, App Academy is ultimately a rewarding experience that will leave you impressed with the incredible progress you can make in such little time. It's a lot of work, but in the end it definitely pays off.

App academy is a rigorous and rewarding experience. You will feel lost and behind a lot but when things start clicking for you it is so rewarding. I learned so much and having finished my fullstack i am feeling very good. You will get as much as you put into the experience. 

I applied to App Academy in December 2016 and attended the May 2017 cohort. I graduated in August 2017, worked at App Academy for a few months, and accepted a job offer in January 2018. Similar to you, I read lots of reviews beforehand and stressed about many details before deciding on taking the risk, moving to San Francisco, and spending 80-100 hours a week at this place.

I read these reviews and my basic impression was that it would be really, really hard. Like a year of college crammed into 3 months. While this is kind of true, I underestimated how much the family and community aspect of App Academy would help. There are weeks where you have to essentially code from morning until night with not much time for anything else. After you learn everything you need to build apps, you learn how to get a job. That entails applying to dozens of postings every week, and it could take months. Throughout this entire process, I felt like a freak, but had 70 friends right alongside doing it with me. They helped me when I was stuck, and more importantly, brought me up when I was down. I don't know if I could've ever pushed myself that hard to get a job on my own, but with my cohort, the process was streamlined and almost (dare I say it) fun.

App Academy teaches a really diverse range of topics so the constant work you're doing is never boring. It's hardly even repetitive, and in fact, you will likely not fully understand most topics until you get to practice them again after the curriculum is over. In the end, App Academy didn't just teach me how to use React and Ruby on Rails. They taught me how to program, how to binge-learn any framework or language, how to speak to others in the field, and how to value myself, find a job, and negotiate as a Software Engineer. It was an absolute life changer in the best way. After going through it, I'm convinced anyone can do it, not just those technically inclined, and have been pushing the idea on all of my old friends who are stuck in a post-college rut with debts to pay.

Summed up, if you're the type of person that looks at anything and wonders "How does that work?", then coding is for you. If the idea of coding makes you think "Where do I even start?", then App Academy is for you.

ok here's the TL;DR. App academy is one of the hardest things you're likely to do in your life, but if you get in, you can do it. I'm writing this review because I want a hoodie, but I want the hoodie because it says App Academy on it, and I'm proud of that so, you know, that's something.

Specifically, understand that there isn't really time to play catch up. If you stay home sick with a fever, you still have to do the work. If you fall behind, you have to leave whatever you drop and keep moving, there's no time to look back. For me personally? There wasn't even time to do everything I had to do. My journey through app academy is a trail of unfinished assignments and near dismissals. But yo, I STILL loved my time there. 

If you want to get into coding and don't know where to stop, app academy will give you the start and take you much much further. I believe my review is now detailed enough to not violate any coursereport rules but still brief enough that I can get back to sending out resumes, secure in the knowledge that come monday, I will have my sweet sweet hoodie. 

Choosing App Academy was one of the best decisions of my career. After being a post graduate with a degree in film, I was not sure with what to do to progress my career in the direction I want to go - job security and financial stability. That is when I decided to join App Academy. This program is one of, if not the best, coding bootcamps. With that being said, the course is rigorous and extremely fast paced. But, if you are dedicated and have  the drive to pursue becoming a software developer, then you will definitely be able to do it. This is coming from a person with zero software developing experience prior to this program. I did not finish because I was the smartest, I was able to stay in the program because I had enough work ethic and will. You can do it!

Within 2 months I went from zero programming experience to being able to create an entire website from scratch. I think it's incredible what App Academy has taught me in such a short time span.

Of course, given such a short window, it's impossible for them to teach you everything there is to know. The real value of the program is they teach you how to think and to learn programatically. 

App Academy promises only one thing, to be able to make anyone into an entry level software developer. It will not be the end of your learning experience but it provides a hell of a start. 

I love the program, but it is not for everyone. These last 8 weeks have been the hardest of my life. You can't afford to fall behind because there is a very real possibility of failing out.

If you've read all of that and you still think App Academy is for you, then I could not recommend it more. It has been an excellent experience and I'm genuinely excited to change the course of y life.

App Academy is everything they say it is.  It is demanding, rigorous, rewarding, all-consuming, high-stress, hysterical, difficult, very fast, and transformative.  I’m in the last couple weeks of the program, and it’s just now sinking in how wild a ride this has been.

Like most things worth doing, it takes all day. I worked on code from 9a until midnight most nights during the program.  This level of commitment is really non-optional for most people-- maybe really fast folks can turn in around 10:00.  There is no coasting.  You will be confronted with high-pressure, timed assessments at 9am on Mondays.  You will pair almost every day for months, which means you will be communicating constantly about things you don’t understand yet. You will switch languages every two weeks, and App Academy will often introduce new material before old has had a chance to sink in. A majority of the class has literally had dreams about code. I had one just last night about launching an ICO to finish a non-existent interactive blue screen of death app.  They know how to get you fully committed here, and they do it very well.

Many reviews fixate on the assessment structure.  The people who failed the high-pressure, closed-book, timed assessments generally had severe test anxiety or attempted to party a lot or tend too much to other responsibilities during the cohort.  It was much more rare for them to not be smart enough, the admissions process is selective enough to filter out those who lack the raw talent to succeed.  It is up to you to do enough self-care, including healthy food, sleep, and exercise, to keep from psyching yourself out of the program, and it’s largely a matter of personal style about whether engaging with deliberately induced stress motivates you to try harder vs makes you unproductive.  

The curriculum is always changing as tech evolves, and the staff works very hard to try and keep everything as current as possible.  Most students leave more knowledgeable in Javascript and related frameworks than the Ruby you start in, and they’re teaching the latest versions of React, ES6 syntax, etc.  Having a path rough hewn ahead of the class through the endless dark jungles of code knowledge has been extremely helpful in helping me stay focussed and to avoid wasting time-- they really do know how to point you directly towards engagement with concepts that will get you producing good work, learning more fundamental concepts, and collaborating well with others.  I really do believe that learning this material would have taken me at least another year, probably with several unproductive detours on the way.

While being demanding and highly structured, App Academy also asks for a lot of independence and initiative.  Much of the curriculum is written in a relatively terse style that demands the reader both be able to read closely through dense instructions and to be comfortable doing more and more independent research as the curriculum goes on, just like a real dev.  The teachers are available to get you unstuck, but you’re encouraged to learn more about solving your own problems every day, and when coding in pairs, you will do tons of mutual troubleshooting, basically proving to each other that you can both teach and learn-- it is very normal to just engage with whoever’s closest to you about whatever bug you’re in the middle of, and people uniformly treat that as an opportunity to practice teaching and cement knowledge than as an interruption.  The job search requires you to have a lot of discipline and follow-through, with strict requirements for volume of applications and development of portfolio materials without a ton of hand-holding.  Ultimately, it becomes very clear that you are ultimately responsible for your own education, relationships with others, and destiny, which is both empowering and scary.  

It’s overwhelming and lovely.  There is just so much to know.  By the end of it, you will have several days like mine today, where I white-boarded for interview prep for two hours and wrote this and also built a full Redux cycle for a new feature in a full-stack app I’m finishing up which involved creating a postgreSQL table through a Rails generator, with AJAX calls to the API sent by React actions routed to the DB through Thunk middleware feeding the Rails MVC which ultimately produce JSON parsed through jBuilder in to a Redux store which is rendered by React Components with Vulpix routing and styled with Sass written in a modified BEM pattern with Javascript click handlers and animations facilitated by a library called Anime-- all so I could render a nice gradient fade-in effect for state changes in a 20x20 pixel bookmark button rendered for logged in users on a site I built from scratch in nine days.  Only one of those languages and frameworks mentioned above is actually a Pokemon-- the rest of them are actual pieces of tech taught in the course that I wrote today in an independent project, and I can’t believe I’ve come this far from being barely able to write basic Ruby programs three short months ago.

App Academy isn’t for everybody.  But if it’s for you, it is one of the best things you can do for yourself.  :)

Overall Experience

I personally thought App Academy was incredibly fun precisely because of how challenging it was and it really was challenging. You are surrounded with incredibly bright people, with very interesting backgrounds, and you will push each other to get better everyday. 

Curriculum

The curriculum is easily the strongest part of App Academy. It is truly incredible how much knowledge you will walk away with if you are able to pace yourself and be consistent in doing all of the readings and preparing for the lectures everyday. They offer a lot, but they also require a lot out of you and it is difficult to keep up unless you are able to motivate yourself everyday.

Luckily they provide intrinsic motivation due to pair programming and assessments. Knowing that you have to work with a different person everyday helps you make sure to try to get a good understanding of the subject matter so that you don't slow your partner down. Most importantly knowing that you could be kicked out by failing too many assessments will also motivate you to keep up. This was a main motivator for me attending, because I knew it would always keep me on my toes.

At the end of the main curriculum you will be able to build a fullstack web application that is dynamic, complex, and impressive. That ten day project will be one of the most tiring experiences of your life, but you will be quite proud when you are done. Be sure to celebrate with your cohort mates when it's over.

Diversity

I added this category because I think it's important to note that App Academy is below average when it comes to racial/gender diversity. My cohort was about 5% women and 10-15% non white/asian. This did not affect my experience at all, as someone from an under-represented group, but I cannot speak for everyone and thought it should be noted for others considering App Academy.

Instructors

The instructors are usually App Academy grads. There is a question button during pair programming, which calls over a TA to assist you when you and your partner are stuck. They are all very cool, helpful, and the lectures are incredibly informative. The lectures will usually go over the reading and assignments for the night before and introduce some new material for the day ahead, so make sure you come prepared. 

Job Assistance

The Job Search Curriculum in the last three weeks can feel a bit anticlimactic. You've just spent 9 weeks going 100mph and then all of the sudden things slow down quite a bit. It can be a good thing because everyone is a bit burnt out from the fullstack project, but I wish there was a way to keep a similar pace going. Here you will work on your portfolio, build a nice online presence, learn how to approach networking, applying, negotiating etc. 

Don't come in thinking App Academy is going to provide you with all kinds of contacts and connections. I don't think they have any more ability to get you a job than any other bootcamp. However, they have a great reputation with companies in NYC and SF and a huge alumni network in those respective cities. I attended App Academy in NYC and I can tell you there are companies that only hire App Academy grads because the curriculum is more in depth and the projects are more impressive. 

Outcome

Personally, I applied to 305 jobs, had 6 phone screens, 3 on-sites, 2 offers, and landed an awesome job at a startup in NYC 3 months after graduating and I couldn't be happier. 

The job search is an absolute grind, but don't get discouraged. Just stick with it, apply everywhere, and don't say no to yourself! You never know who will get a job, even if everyone applies to the same one. There is a lot of luck involved and each person is unique even though you all graduated from the same course.

Be financially responsible, make sure you have enough of a safety net so that you can focus, and it'll all come together in the end.

App Academy was definitely the hardest 3 months of my life. At times it was a bit brutal, with 10% of our cohort getting kicked out before the end of the program. The program is certainly not for everyone, but if you are a fast learner AND can dedicate pretty much your entire life to the program, you can get a job as a Software Engineer after this program. You certainly are expected to work as much as you everyday. Everyone is incredibly smart and motivated; I went to a top school in the United States, but found my peers here to be heads and tails above my university peers.

That being said, they do deliberately pace the course so that you can keep up -- pushing you to the brink and then giving you a few days for the material to sink in. I was also able to take a small handful of days off, but some are unable to do so. 

I had absolutely NO computer science background before attending, and ended up getting a job within the first month following the program, so this program DEFINITELY fulfills its promises.