App Academy

The education you'll receive at App Academy is good. Assuming you can keep the 100 hour/week pace up and retain any information. I was able to secure a job a little faster than my cohort mates mostly based on my previous job experience outside of Software Development.

The problems start before and after you begin your study. You're going to be told about a 90+% graduation and job placement rate. However I haven't spoken to anyone who didn't have the same experience as me of losing about 30% of their classmates during the cohort. Your going to be told about starting salaries of $100+k/year. That's absolutely crazy. I know of one of my classmates who started around that figure and this person was already a very advanced coder. Your going to be told about a 30% of your 1st year salary as tuition. This is also false. You'll need to sign an Alumni Engagement form and still have to pay back possibly up to $25k in closer to 9 months. I'm not sure how anyone who takes a job at the more likely figure of >= $70K/year is supposed to make these kind of payments. You're going to be told about graduating in 4 months. This is only if you finish your projects that you're most likely not ready for. Be prepared to have to attend a "Study Hall" until your projects are finished to the school's satisfaction and/or you get a job. 

And you better graduate. If you don't, be prepared for an invoice of $250/day of study. Couple all of this with the high turnover of staff and you may be better off looking at another school or educating yourself. The feedback I've gotten from recruiters is they tend to shy away from bootcamp graduates. 

App Academy is a great bootcamp. I started App Academy at the beginning of 2021 as a student. Before this, I also passed the Hack Reactor interview. I chose a/A because the friendliness and responsiveness of the staff. After the start of the program, I have never regretted about my decision. The course design motivates the students to learn as much as they can during the 16 week period. The TAs and career coaches are very responsible and truly wish you to succeed in software engineering. 

 I started App Academy in January 2021, after I had decided to quit my sales job in the medical manufacturing industry to get into tech.  It was a challenging course, and you definitely have to be ready to put your life on hold and dedicate 16 weeks to immerse yourself in the material and keep up with the workload they expect of you (at least 70-80 hours a week).  I think it was a great time to get into this bootcamp since with COVID I wasn't tempted to leave the house much anyway.

You will make many great friends in the cohort along the way that will help you have a good initial base network that you will carry with you into your career, and the career coaches and an abundance of additional resources will be there for you in the job search(which I am in right now).

Keep in mind the onus will mostly be on you throughout the program to pass the assessments, get your projects done, and get the new career you are dreaming of.  The instructors and coaches will help you, but you will also need to help yourself to be in the top applicants in a competitive market.

I would say the main con is there is a lot of information thrown at you and a lot of times it can be disorganized, so you need to ask lots of questions and figure out what is important either for your short term understanding of the technologies or what companies are expecting you to know in the real world.

Overall highly recommend App Academy, if you are looking to make a life change and get into the tech industry! 

 My experience at App Academy went above and beyond my expectations for a coding bootcamp. When COVID hit, I was torn between going back to college or joining an online bootcamp. After researching many bootcamps, App Academy stood out to me because it was one of the few places that offered a shared income agreement. The quality of the curriculum was excellent, and the instructors are very qualified. I felt that all the staff and my classmates were invested in my success, and this kept me motivated through the 24 weeks online program. Each week, we covered a new topic through lectures as well as built projects to reinforce our skills through pair programming. If it any point, I had questions or needed a concept further explained, the TAs immediately offered assistance. Overall, I really recommend App Academy to anybody who wants to enter the tech industry. 

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

These guys will tell so many lies that you may accidentally convince yourself that they are an upstanding institution with a moral compass. If you've uncovered this review, consider its points, as it will be drowned out by shill marketing.

you are forced to compliment a staff member every day in a daily form you MUST fill out, this is a requirement to graduate. 
 
The entire course is based around misinformation, and withholding relevant information from their hostages(students, woops). You will get lied to so much but you'll have no choice but to ignore it, as you've already dedicated so much time to a class. 

Their salesmen claim 95% graduation rate in an effort to get you to sign on the dotted line, but in a couple weeks the class size will drop by from 90 students to 50. Maybe 30% of your starting class will graduate within the 24 week period. This was verified in classes prior to mine.

They'll force a more intrusive ISA down your throat after you've fully committed to the course, and should you have the audacity to refuse to sign away your first born son; they'll accuse you of wrongdoing.

 Their instruction staff has such heavy turnover they don't even know right from wrong, expect to get reliable information from them, think again. These guys are drunk on greed, and they can no longer see straight

Hello all future software engineer and developers,
If you're looking for a Bootcamp that offers problem solving, structure, and excitement; You're reading the right review!
The last 6 months at App Academy have been amazing. I went from knowing nothing about coding (complete beginner) to an accomplished full stack graduate. I have made a dozen friends and of those dozen, 3- 4 will be permanent friends that I will continue to support throughout my career. The staff at App Academy is top tier, they're personable, smart, and accurate. The camp really helped me overcome my struggles with problem solving. I feel much more comfortable and can easily pair with anyone to complete a task. I recommend eating well, studying daily, and taking time to rest. I wouldn't give up my experiences at App Academy for the world. 

Once I decided to take the leap into a bootcamp, after many recommendations by current software engineers, and also, not having the funds to go back to school for another Bachelor's and having twin toddlers to take care of, I found App Academy my very first day of searching. With every step of the enrollment process, every person that I interacted with was genuinely excited for me and offering words of encouragement. Fast-forward to the last few weeks of my program, in the midst of designing and building a solo capstone project, that encouragement and support never faltered. I was fortunate enough to have an amazing cohort of peers that helped each other learn through pair programming and extra study sessions, incredibly talented staff of TA's, Module Instructors, and outstanding APTM and PTM. This was by far the most challenging thing I've every completed, but it was the most rewarding.

If you are looking for a career change or to get into coding in general, I would highly recommend App Academy. App Academy lives up to its name. It is a highly selective bootcamp, that is also very intensive. But once you complete it, the reward is amazing. My journey at App Academy was 16 weeks long. I took the In-Person Full Stack Web Development course, you can also take the online 24 weeks long course I believe. My in-person course was remote, due to COVID. To be honest, I was not expecting to learn a lot online, as I learn better in person, or so I thought. But during the course, I really appreciated it being online as it saved me from having to move to NY and the commute time it would have taken to get back and forth every day. Since the course is very intense, the saved time was a blessing. The TA's and my cohort-mates were really amazing, helpful, and fun to work with. Since it's a rigorous program, all of your cohort-mates are going through the same thing, and are truly willing to help you out even if you are not in class. After the 16 or 24 weeks end, depending on what you choose, they help you land a high-paying job. That way you have a good job, and App Academy also gets paid if you took the deferred payment plan, which I did. 

Overall, it was an amazing experience. If you have no prior coding experience like myself, I would recommend App Academy. It is a great way to get into coding and land a good job. Hope this helps.

This program is great! It has a modern curriculum that teaches everything from programming basics to full stack web development. If you have programming experience, the start of the program is an opportunity to freshen up some basic skills and get some reps in before things pick up. If you don't, the start of the program could be overwhelming, but with the deferral system, you should have an opportunity to nail down any concepts that you are struggling with. 

I would recommend going on a site like Codecademy and completing some basic Javascript and potentially Python courses before spending $$$ on this program. If you are confident in those lessons and your ability to continue growing in the field, I would definitely attend this bootcamp.

My experience at App Academy has been nothing but excellent. Learning a new skill is not easy, it never is. Especially when you are learning it at breakneck speeds that is the intense 6-month program at App Academy.  But the process was that much easier because of the people at App Academy, both the instructors and the fellow students. This program is not for the faint of heart. It will be hard. You will cry. You will want to quit. But know that aA will always be there to have your back. 

I was a little apprehensive about joining an online program, but as COVID lingered on, I didn't want to delay my education anymore and wait for an in-person cohort. After lots of research and applying to ~10 programs, I decided on App Academy because it seemed like the best fit for me. 

I worried that I would be working alone with lectures and projects to work on for 24 weeks, but I was completely wrong. The staff is absolutely the best part about App Academy. Everyone is so knowledgeable and supportive that I never felt like I was falling behind- I was always able to get the help that I needed. Additionally, my cohort was filled with extremely smart and motivated students that created an inclusive community online. Within the first week, I knew I had made the right choice. 

The content of the program is very aligned with the job market today and everything is structured to give you the foundational knowledge you need to become a software engineer. As App Academy will tell you, they are not creating React or Python developers, they are creating software engineers that can learn any new language or framework. On top of all that, they end the program with an amazing "career quest" that gives you more job search support than you could ever ask for. Highly, highly recommend! 

 This review is for the Fully Online course.  Depending on how quickly you learn and your background, the pace of the 6-month course is totally manageable, and at times felt a little too slow or padded out.  If you don't do your homework readings for the night, you'll inevitably frustrate the class or your pair for the next day.  There are always a dozen people in the class who didn't do the readings or homework, and will take up class time essentially asking the instructor repetitive questions.  This was tough, because it took time away from other students who were asking valuable follow-ups or clarifications.  Additionally, your experience day-to-day varies wildly depending on your pair programming partner.  As the course moves along, folks who get negative feedback or who are not keeping up with the material get deferred, so this becomes less of a problem moving forward.  But at the beginning this can be frustrating if you are working with someone who is not a team player, or who is not performing their due diligence as a student.
The real merit to this program is that it is structured so you have accountability to show up every day and achieve some level of mastery of each week's material. Additionally, the accountability you have during the job search is valuable as well.
If you're thinking of joining this bootcamp, it'll be a great fit for you if you don't know where to start, or get overwhelmed trying to self-learn.  If you are a fast learner, and enjoy complex thinking and problem solving, you might benefit more from App Academy's 16-week course. The full online might still be a good fit for you if you want a little breather room to gain more depth of knowledge on each week's material. 

 App Academy came at a point that I decided to change my life and try to pursue something that I really cared about but didn't necessarily have the means to do so.  a/A provided me the support and tools I needed to achieve that which I didn't think I could.  I went through the 24 week online course and I have to say that it is an intense process that challenges you week in and week out. Some say it's the hardest thing that they have ever done and I can't say that I disagree. I can say that the grueling nature of it has a purpose and you emerge all the better for it. It is not for everyone, some find the steep learning curve too hard but if you are committed and you put in the necessary time, it is very doable and worthwhile. The overall highlight is definitely the staff, who mostly support you throughout the whole course and continue the support into your job search. The curriculum material can be a little erratic in its teaching format and does occasionally need some updating, but you do learn the most current and up to date coding styles. 

    I originally thought I could teach myself the material and skills on my own, but I could never have done it as comprehensively or as quickly. App Academy is a lot of work (the 90 hours a week is accurate for some heavier weeks), but it totally pays off. You not only learn how to create the larger portfolio projects that you complete at the end of the course, but if you really devote yourself to the curriculum, you will learn how to troubleshoot, debug, and most importantly be able to pick up new languages/frameworks easily. This will put you in a great position when it comes to applying for jobs. Throughout most of the course the TA's were easily accessible and were vital for providing the best information to help pass the assessments. My cohort was also a great support group and we were constantly rooting for one another during the process. 
    One thing I disliked was that the HTML/CSS curriculum is mostly self-study. If you don't have a solid understanding, it can make the beginning of your projects a bit overwhelming. Also, help from the TA's starts to get phased out when your projects begin, which can be stressful. The staff and resources during the job search curriculum are fantastic if and only if you proactively take advantage of them and communicate your needs. If you don't, you may feel a bit on your own. 
     Since graduating (< 3 months ago!), I've been impressed with my cohort-mates as several of them have already received job offers or are in final interviews. I'd say if you are willing to study very hard and take advantage of all that a/A has to offer, it is entirely possible to become a full-fledged software engineer in a short time.