About
About
App Academy offers immersive web development courses both online and in-person on campuses in San Francisco and New York City. App Academy’s curriculum is largely based on a hands-on approach. Students spend about 90% of their time pair programming and 10% in lectures, encouraging the sharing of knowledge while also making coding more social. App Academy places emphasis on career training to help students land jobs soon after graduation. App Academy's job-search curriculum focuses on algorithms, interview skills, and other technical interview-focused skillsets.
The in-person web development course is 16 weeks-long, and the full stack curriculum covers Ruby on Rails, Javascript, HTML/CSS, SQL, algorithms, data structures, and React/Redux. Students interested in this intense program should expect to put in 90-100 hours per week. The first 9 weeks of the course are focused on learning web development skills in multiple languages, and the final 3 weeks are a robust job-search curriculum. The online course runs for 24 weeks, and focuses on JavaScript and Python. Students of the online course learn fundamentals, such as JavaScript, Git, and object-oriented programming, and later build on these by learning languages, such as Express, React, HTML & CSS, and more. Like the in-person course, students of the online course create a portfolio that includes individual and group projects.
Interested applicants should expect to submit an application, complete two coding challenges, complete an interview and receive an admission decision a few days after the interview. Prospective applicants can also enroll in App Academy’s Bootcamp Prep programs to increase their chances of admission from 2% to more than 40%.
App Academy offers a deferred payment plan where students are only required to pay tuition if they secure a job upon graduation. App Academy offers two other pricing models for students as well — a completely upfront model and a hybrid model that is a combination of the deferred and upfront models.
Recent App Academy Reviews: Rating 4.68
Recent App Academy News
- App Academy Grad Jerrik Won $500 in Our Sweepstakes!
- February 2019 Coding Bootcamp Podcast
- April 2018 Coding Bootcamp News Podcast
Courses
Courses
App Academy Open
ApplyMySQL, MongoDB, HTML, JavaScript, Design, Rails, Express.js, React.js, Node.js, Front End, Ruby, SQL
OnlinePart TimeStart Date None scheduled Cost $0 Class size N/A Location Online With App Academy Open you’ll get free access to App Academy’s entire in-person full-stack curriculum, which has placed thousands of people in software development jobs. App Academy is ranked as the #1 coding bootcamp in the US and, since 2016, has placed more software developers at Google than UC Berkeley. On the Free plan you’ll get over 1,500 hours of material (readings, videos, projects), an interactive coding environment and community features like chat to keep you connected with thousands of prospective developers across the globe.Financing
Deposit N/A Getting in
Minimum Skill Level Beginner Placement Test No Interview No
Bootcamp Prep
ApplyStart Date None scheduled Cost $2,999 Class size N/A Location San Francisco, New York City Bootcamp Prep is a 4 week, part-time course, guaranteed to get you accepted at the most selective coding schools or your money back. The program will teach you up to an advanced level of JavaScript, and instructors provide you with 1-on-1 mock interviews, as well assist with your individual bootcamp applications.Financing
Deposit N/A Refund / Guarantee Your full Bootcamp Prep tuition will be subtracted from your initial deposit if accepted into App Academy's full time program under the deferred payment plan. Getting in
Minimum Skill Level N/A Placement Test No Interview No
Bootcamp Prep Online
ApplyStart Date Rolling Start Date Cost $1,795 Class size N/A Location Online Bootcamp Prep is a part-time, online course, guaranteed to get you accepted at the most selective coding schools or your money back. The program will teach you up to an advanced level of JavaScript, and instructors provide you with 1-on-1 mock interviews, as well as assist with your individual bootcamp applications.Financing
Deposit None Tuition Plans Standard: $995 Plus: $1795 Premium: $3795 Refund / Guarantee Money back guarantee if you aren't accepted into a top coding bootcamp Getting in
Minimum Skill Level No experience required Prep Work None required Placement Test No Interview No
In-Person Full Stack Web Development
ApplyMySQL, MongoDB, HTML, Git, JavaScript, jQuery, Design, Rails, User Experience Design, CSS, DevOps, React.js, Data Structures, Algorithms, Node.js, Front End, Ruby, SQL
In PersonFull Time40 Hours/week16 WeeksStart Date October 26, 2020 Cost $17,000 Class size 60 Location San Francisco, New York City Over sixteen weeks, you'll learn all the skills needed to begin a career as a web developer. Through hands-on projects, we train you to build web applications with Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, and React/Redux. Prior programming experience isn't required. However, you will need lots of tenacity and a passion for building cool stuff.Financing
Deposit Only applicable for the Deferred tuition option, a deposit of $3k will be required. Financing Lending partnership with Climb Credit available for the Upfront tuition option.Tuition Plans $17,000 Upfront Plan $23,000 Hybrid Plan ($9k upfront, $13k deferred) $28,000 Deferred Plan (Fully deferred with a $3k deposit) Refund / Guarantee Guaranteed placement under the Deferred tuition option. Getting in
Minimum Skill Level Basic computer literacy Prep Work Provided at each step by App Academy. Placement Test Yes Interview Yes More Start Dates
October 26, 2020 - New York CityDecember 21, 2020 - New York CityNovember 16, 2020 - San Francisco
Online Full Stack Web Development
ApplyMySQL, HTML, Git, JavaScript, jQuery, Design, Rails, User Experience Design, CSS, DevOps, React.js, Data Structures, Algorithms, Node.js, Front End, Ruby, SQL
OnlineFull Time40 Hours/week24 WeeksStart Date October 5, 2020 Cost $20,000 Class size 25 Location Online Over 24 weeks, you'll learn all the skills needed to begin a career as a web developer. Through hands-on projects, we train you to build web applications with JavaScript, Ruby on Rails, React/Redux, SQL, and HTML/CSS. Prior programming experience isn't required. However, you will need lots of tenacity and a passion for building cool stuff.Financing
Deposit $0 Financing Available through Climb CreditTuition Plans - ISA: $0 Upfront. 15% for 3 years with a maximum of $31,000, only after you're hired making over $50,000 - Upfront: $20,000 Refund / Guarantee Guaranteed job under ISA tuition option. Getting in
Minimum Skill Level Basic computer literacy Prep Work Provided at each step by App Academy. Placement Test Yes Interview Yes More Start Dates
October 5, 2020 - OnlineNovember 2, 2020 - OnlineNovember 30, 2020 - Online
Reviews
App Academy Reviews
Shared Review
- Intense but rewarding experience- 8/29/2019Michael Warner • Graduate • Course: Online Full Stack Web Development • Campus: Online • Verified via LinkedIn
App Academy is a fast-paced program for getting you practical experience with many different relevant technologies in a very short amount of time. Right off the bat once the immersive portion kicked into high gear, we got exposure to Git, data structures, and we were pair programming daily through the day’s projects. The curriculum is well structured for layering in new technologies, and before you know it you’re familiar with relational databases and doing a deep dive into the inner workings of Rails. Things move at a bewildering pace, and it’s very easy to get caught off guard by this early on if you’re not careful.
The looming thought of getting kicked out over failing two assessments can be extremely unsettling, but this risk/reward setup also puts the entirety of the cohort into a hyper focused mindset. And it creates a unique environment for learning if you can sublimate the anxiety of it. Even through the online setup, it was surprising just how much there was a sense of community. You spend hours every day with your classmates, and even through a computer screen I felt like I got to know a lot of them really well. I don’t know how they’re able to isolate so many brilliant people into these cohorts, but they clearly have very efficient and calculated screening mechanisms in place to ensure they’re taking quality people into the program.
The TA’s are fantastic. The student to teacher ratio is very favorable for student teacher interactions, and they were consistently pivotal in getting me on track with the material on pace to get through the assessments. It’s a lot of information so be 100% prepared to have no life while you’re working through the curriculum. I thought 100 hours a week would be an exaggeration but I was consistently logging 95-100 hours each week studying the material straight through the weekend.
You get to build your own full stack project using the core stack of the curriculum, as well as other projects with additional technologies that you learn past the React portion of the course. They’re in a re-vamping phase with their curriculum with less of a focus on Ruby as far as I understand, so this is something to bear in mind moving forward. I’m confident that however they re-structure the curriculum will be just as effective as the current setup they have in place and I’m sure it’s necessary given the industry’s trending away from Rails, but any large scale overhaul of a curriculum carries with it at least some amount of risk.
I felt like the React portion was great. Past that things were still mostly well structured with minor hiccups. There were portions I felt were too rushed. For example, we had about a weekend to learn the MERN stack before we were working in a team to build an application in it that following week. Pieces of this curriculum might need some revision. Maybe something as simple as having at least one additional project with the MERN stack before having students code in a team environment in it. However I really enjoyed the Docker portion of the curriculum, and it was fun building an additional project with GraphQL / Apollo. I’ve heard this part of the curriculum is at the moment isolated to the online setups. You get to build a project in Vanilla JavaScript at the end of the course as well.
App Academy’s deferred payment plan was a strong draw for me personally. I felt that this established them as an institution willing to take on a lot of risk investing in the people they take into the program, and shows that they’re confident their curriculum will get people placed in well-paying positions upon finishing. I’d honestly like to see more institutions of higher education adopt a similar financing approach. There are pros and cons to deciding on doing the online setup instead of an in-person setup, and I do believe an in-person setup would have been very fulfilling. Some people would say the in person setup is vital to the whole App Academy experience. But I do like that the online setup at least had a longer space of time for absorbing the material. You get a month prior to the official immersive portion of the cohort to get solid with software engineering fundamentals. And the TA’s were always readily available to answer any questions I might have, so at least on the learning side there was nothing lost in translation going this route. An in person bootcamp really wasn’t feasible for me personally, and I would expect it’s not for many others planning on applying.
All things considered the past 24 weeks have been a grueling yet highly rewarding experience. You get out of it what you put into it, and you have to put a lot into it if you want to get through the totality of the curriculum.
- Tough Experience, but well worth it.- 9/22/2020Daniel Creppel • Software Engineer • Graduate • Course: In-Person Full Stack Web Development • Campus: San Francisco • Verified via LinkedInpros:
- Great structured material
- Engaging learning experience
- Tests are easy
- App Academy is really invested in you to succeed
cons:
- Requires 70+ hour weeks
- Tests are tedious and do not reflect well on you understanding of the material
- Very little focus on Data Structures and Algorithms
- JavaScript portion of the curriculum is virtually nonexistent
- Understaffed
- Student - Online Full-Time- 9/21/2020Dong Hyuk Kim • Graduate • Course: Online Full Stack Web Development • Campus: Online • Verified via LinkedInAs a student, I felt that I only scratched the surface of each topic, then did my best (with my pair-programming partner) to apply the knowledge on daily projects. During the initial week-long full stack projects, I didn't have a clear idea on how to start. However, my Principle Instructor (Ian) and the TA's (Javier, Dean) were always there and extremely helpful in guiding me in the right direction and helping to debug. By the time the capstone project came around, I felt equipped to develop a full stack project -- to the extent that I taught myself a whole new framework in just a few days to use in my project.
a/A simplifies complex topics across the full stack into simple, but not always digestible pieces. You will spend only a few days on topics that are taught over a semester in college. At times, you are likely to be overwhelmed by the pace. On the flip-side, you are also likely to be too immersed to even think about it. It may feel like you are being rushed to cram new material each day, but you would be surprised to realize how much you are actually learning under the hood. In addition to the basic knowledge, you are learning how to learn new technologies quickly and effectively. This resourcefulness is probably the most valuable return on your investment of time, money and effort.
My thoughts upon completion of the program: I thought I was running a marathon, but it turns out I was being taught how to tie my shoes really well for five months. The marathon has only just started.
- Recent Grad- 9/21/2020deepak • Graduate • Course: Online Full Stack Web Development • Campus: Online • Verified via LinkedInpros:
they bet on you with income sharing
there are instructors to help (within reason)
good breath of material
career support
they force you to learn
great for people who want to learn and feel confident they can do it
cons:
It might feel expensive after you finish
at times you might feel overwhelmed if you don't have any tech background. but still doable. be ready to sacrifice something.
sometimes the curriculum feels rushed or disjointed
- Software Engineer- 9/19/2020Ayce • Software Engineer • Graduate • Course: In-Person Full Stack Web Development • Campus: San Francisco • Verified via LinkedInApp Academy was an over great experience for me. I enjoyed the curriculum and met amazing people in the process. Due to the pandemic, the in-person program became online. It's a serious program that requires focus and dedication. I've had classmates with no background in coding like myself as well as those who have engineering degrees from top schools across the nation. I self-studied for 6 months prior to starting the program. If you have little to no background in coding, this would be extremely helpful. They also have a pair programming rhetoric. I paired with someone nearly everyday for projects.
PROS - you can learn so much within 16 weeks with effort and dedication
CONS - Some curriculum is outdated. They are working on updating that material.
If you plan to join a/A, say goodbye to evenings and weekends. It is a lot of work but it's all worth it!
- Software Engineering Immersive- 9/16/2020Ahmed El Mahallawy • Graduate • Course: In-Person Full Stack Web Development • Campus: San Francisco • Verified via GitHubOverall I really enjoyed my experience at appAcademy. Albeit this is a review for the In-Person track, my cohort was done completely online due to COVID, which I believe provided a multitude of pros and cons. The curriculum was great and it is exactly what you expect: it is 100% a full-time commitment ranging between 9-11 hours a day roughly (prior to your projects; you'll put in even MORE time). The learning curve and experience was absolutely enjoyable for me; I loved going from a introductory level of knowledge in the technology taught to a proficient developer with 3 projects under my belt that I'm proud of.
Pros:- Online helped give flexibility to one's time (we had someone with an 11 hour difference in our cohort); yes it is tedious to have a time difference but you can 100% make it work. I did (I was 3 hours ahead).
- Teach you the basics and work their way through technology FUNDAMENTALLY. An example of this occurred in the React section of the curriculum; we didn't learn best-industry practice using hooks but rather containers. This made my understanding of containers/hooks significantly better. Learn to walk before you run.
- Instructors are well-versed in what you're learning. They are grads of the bootcamp themselves. They know what you go through, and understand the struggle with what they teach you. Use them, they're great.
- Project time was by far the most fun I had during the bootcamp, yet also the most stressful; you can use the tech you learnt over the weeks to build a brand new application from a blinking terminal. Having that a mandatory section of the bootcamp made me really experience my own learning which I feel grounded my foundational understanding of those topics.
Cons:- Like I mentioned earlier, it is 100% what you expect: a full-time immersive commitment to learning and breathing code. You don't have much time for anything else, especially during the project time. You get what you put in.
- We were always told that the bootcamp is "not a race" but rather a "marathon". I will tell you that is not accurate. It is a very fast paced marathon. You put in long hours and need to be committed to learn the material efficiently and quickly. If you don't put in the effort, you will not succeed.
- During project time, instructors were VERY "hands-off"; I felt like my group and I should've been able to find guidance after reaching a roadblock but we were turned towards crowdsourcing instead. Yes, asking peers is very valuable but when every minute counts during crunchtime, a simple 2 minute solution from an instructor is better than 3 hours of researching a work-around that could need to be changed down the road.
I hope this review gives you good insight into what you're getting yourself into. If ever you'd love to hear about more of my experience, I'd be more than happy to tell you about my experience. Good luck on your coding journey, you'll enjoy it at appAcademy!
- Solid curriculum- 9/9/2020Kevin Zhang • Student • Course: In-Person Full Stack Web Development • Campus: San Francisco • Verified via GitHubOver the course of three months, a lot of material gets squeezed into such a small time frame and it initially seemed like such a daunting journey to embark on. But with all the great support I got from the staff members and also the amount of work I had put in, I strongly believe that it's an experience worth my time and money. The material was both challenging and fun, especially with how much material is taught. And beyond the bootcamp, you get to meet a lot of amazing people!
Pros: Challenging and fun material, lots of opportunities to practice concepts, and you get plenty of help early on.
Cons: Sometimes the lecture feel too broad, and a lot of the CS concepts get glossed over (data structures & algorithms) and is more of a self-study type of deal
Tip: Manage your time if you plan to tackle this bootcamp! Getting enough sleep will go a long way and it helped me succeed and complete the course at full value
- Super intense but rewarding- 8/28/2020George • Investor • Graduate • Course: In-Person Full Stack Web Development • Campus: New York City • Verified via LinkedInI am very glad I attended App Academy. I had been dabbling in different web development technologies for years. For example, I knew how to build web-scrapers with Python and Selenium. But I never had any formalized knowledge of the best practices to build a full-stack application. By the end of the 16 week curriculum, I was able to clone the core functionality of Quizlet.com as my final project. It was one of 3 large projects that we did.
In all we covered broad CS topics like data structures, algorithms, authentication patterns, tree traversal, among many others. And we learned specific technologies like Ruby on Rails, SQL, HTML/CSS, Javascript, React/Redux, Node & the MERN stack. We practiced using git & github extensively. We learned Test Driven Development thru technologies like Rspec & Capybara. Most importantly, we learned to learn. For example, when it came to the MERN stack & MERN projects, the instructors stopped holding our hands and made us practice picking up a new technology ourselves.
My cohort was supposed to be an in-person cohort, but it turned out to be online only due to Covid. At first I was upset that I wouldn't be able to interact with my instructors and classmates on a daily basis, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise - with the amount of work we had to do every day, I couldn't imagine having to spend another hour or two each day commuting.
I would give a 5-star review, but I do think it can be improved in a few ways.
1) A large part of the curriculum focuses on Ruby and Ruby on Rails. I believe that this is part of the design, in a sense, because Ruby is an easy introduction into the world of programming. We had people that came from completely different backgrounds and had little prior programming experience. However, it's looking like Python & Django are becoming more popular now and I wish we had some exposure to these frameworks as well. It appears that future aA cohorts will, in-fact, be going this route instead of RoR.
2) While aA has a wealth of knowledge on App Academy Open - the main tool for content for our curriculum (it's where all of our projects, homework, and readings were housed), that portal is not very organized. If I wanted to go back and reference something we learned 4-5 weeks back - it was hard to find. I wish they made all the projects & topics we covered searchable.
To say that App Academy was intense is not an understatement. About 1/3 of our initial cohort didn't make it to the end. But it was very rewarding to have completed it.
- You get what you put in- 8/28/2020Austin Wong • Graduate • Course: In-Person Full Stack Web Development • Campus: New York City • Verified via LinkedInI went into App Academy without any prior coding experience. Coming out, I feel sufficiently prepared to answer tech answers intelligently, and absorb new technologies with some kin of framework. For those thinking about applying, remember that you get exactly what you put in. App Academy is not necessarily impossible to pass, but it is entirely up to you how successful you want to be coming out. You can "pass" the course with 60 hours a week, but in order to get the most out of it, 90+ is definitely preferable.
- Online Immersive Full Stack Bootcamp- 8/18/2020Kristen C. • Student • Course: Online Full Stack Web Development • Campus: Online • Verified via GitHubI have loved my experience at App Academy. The curriculum has been rigorous but thorough. Not only did we learn the fundamentals, but we learned how to think like a programmer. We learned how to solve problems and how to ask the right questions. The curriculum extended beyond just coding and languages, and included many lessons on white-boarding, pair programming, soft-skills and job search principles. The instructors are knowledgeable and approachable, and there is always help to be found if you look for it. I have enjoyed my time at a/A and cannot recommend this program enough to all those who are trying to find the right fit.
- Best Online Course Ever!- 8/11/2020Brad Simpson • Software Engineer • Graduate • Course: Online Full Stack Web Development • Campus: Online • Verified via LinkedInI started in February 2020 and just graduated the Online Full Stack Software Engineer course. I am currently in the very start of my job hunt and was completely prepared to do outstanding by the course. The material is great and the instructors are super knowledgable and just all around awesome. I have made lifelong friends with several of my classmates as well. If you want to change your life and become a software engineer, App Academy is the only choice in my book
- My App Academy Experience- 8/10/2020Geoffrey • Graduate • Course: Online Full Stack Web Development • Campus: Online • Verified via GitHubApp Academy was an intense bootcamp. I thought I was prepared for what was to come but I was not. The fast pace and back to back projects will definitely wear you out, however, all bootcamps do that. The instructors we're amazing! Honestly if it was not for them I would not have graduated. I went from knowing little to nothing about code to being able to replicate sites like netflix by myself within a week. You learn a lot and you learn fast. I would say the best thing about the school is that they teach you how to learn code vs how to simply code. In the work field you might be asked to code in a language that you havent done so before and if you dont know how to adapt quickly you will have a hard time. Thanks to App Academy I do not have that fear.
- Online Full Stack- 7/29/2020Jesse • Graduate • Course: Online Full Stack Web Development • Campus: Online • Verified via LinkedInI came into the curriculum with a basic foundation of coding, however I had no experience in software development and in
a mere 6 months I can say that I am much more confident in my ability to produce an application. App Academy not only teaches
you relevant curriculum but (and this is the most important aspect to me) they set you up with the ability to continue self-learning after graduation
Pros
- The support from the TA's and Instructors are nice to have, especially when you aren't grasping a concept.
- 4 projects, consisting of 2 group project and 2 solo projects gives you a lot of experience working with different ideas, people, and technologies.
- Presence of a career coach makes the job search process feel much more structured.
- The focus on mini-projects while your learning really re-enforces the concepts learned for the day
- Learn Python for the online full-stack cohorts instead of Ruby
Cons
- Since I was in a Cohort with a new curriculum some of the material seemed like it was rushed or just not presented in a clear and concise way.
