Sabio

Less than a year ago I had zero programming experience, and now I've been employed full time as a software developer for 7 months. I was hired 3 weeks before the program even ended. Sabio throws you into the full development experience right from the beginning. I quickly gained the skills that make me a highly desirable asset to companies looking for tech talent, and I was given all the core knowledge and resources to be able to learn and grow independently. It's unbelievable where I am with my skill level and confidence in coding in such a short amount of time, and this is just the beginning. This career is exciting, fun, and best of all, it's challenging and engaging every day. A complete life changer all thanks to Sabio.

The bootcamp program drops you into the trenches of learning how to code as a full-stack developer. From application life cycle to third party api's the course allows you become a confident entry-level developer. Not only in theory but in actual pratice. The process, the srcum methodologies, moving from front-end on one task to back-end on the next.  The instructor is great providing the tools for you to succeed, in addition the right amount of handholding for you to be able to start picking up habits that transfer into the workplace. 

I did the 20-week weekend Sabio course; it was grueling, but it paid off for sure.  I knew nothing about coding before joining Sabio, and now I'm enjoying a great full-time job as a web developer, making $10,000 more/year than I was at my last non-tech job -- plus better benefits.  I still get calls from recruiters every day offering me jobs, and those recruiters who know Sabio state unequivocally that its graduates are hands-down better prepared and demonstrably more knowledgeable than graduates of any of the other bootcamps in town.  Our class competed in and won $2500 in a hackathon four months into the program (two months before we graduated), and I've since won first place at another hackathon since graduating.  The instruction at Sabio is amazing, and the support outside of class remains incredible.  Especially if you are female, you will not be able to find a more supportive learning environment, guaranteed.  Forget the other bootcamps in town that teach you next-to-nothing and cost just as much if not more; what you want is Sabio.

My experience with Sabio thus far has been stellar. The co-founders are really personable, and seem genuinely concerned about all of their graduates -- even after they leave the program. They are building a community around the program, which is great for networking and mentorship. The amount of pre-work assigned was manageable, and the instructor made himself available to go over questions in the pre-work too. Once the course started there has been a lot of support -- not just from the instructor, but also for the space, where we can stay into the wee hours of the night to work together. Especially as a woman and a Latina, I find Sabio's mission to diversify tech to be really comforting and a great way to enter the tech scene. And perhaps the biggest plus: the class is only 8 people, so there's a lot of one-on-one attention for each student — I can't imagine trying to do this work and also trying to compete for an instructor's time. I love how this program is geared toward getting Fellows professional gigs as soon as possible, too. I would enthusiastically recommend this program to anyone who is interested in working in tech.

A truly full stack web development program.  Very intense.   Good amount of prework although I could have used prework for the C# parts intead of just front end(HTML, CSS, JS, JQuery).

The program structure was clearly outlined at the beginning which I liked.   The instructor was exceptionally good and fielding questions and guiding you to the answer without giving it away.   We had great comradery among fellows which helped bearing the significant amount of pressure from the intense pace.

I missed a little bit of general theory of the programming concepts we were applying.

Attended Sabio.LA for the weekend training and absolutely loved it! Had just the best time with my fellow students and loved the instructor! Gregorio is a brilliant and talented programmer with 15 years of experience and the class is a very hands-on and catered to your individual learning.  We also built a start up's website from the ground up which was super cool cuz it will live on!  I highly recommend the program to anyone looking to get into programming.  I am now a Junior Developer at a company in Los Angeles and loving it.

Liliana and Gregorio took advantage of me in my time of need. I needed time off to attend to an emergency which they granted. Gregorio then had me choose what date I would return. When the time came for me to return though he ignored my emails and slack messages, and Liliana said I was no longer a student and she started ignoring me too! I have the emails as proof still but can't get any of my money back because of how far I had gotten in the program. They robbed this opportunity from me so I posted all over my tiktok, YouTube, and Instagram about this experience.

Like other bad reviews have said. Sabio is a cash grab. What's worse is they vets doing shady stuff to vets. And they have bought moderator in the veterans group on reddit. 

The scam is to stack up on vets and others in cohorts. Get the percentage of money from the VA before booting them. 

Red flags for me were:

- Me and others got reprimanded an 1hr in. By the cofounder. For following the instructors directions.

- They say you can go in with no knowledge but 2 days in you have to be done with their java script, etc etc courses. And it's a running theme. Btw I passed it, I actually was early.

- Their instructor flipped out when someone asked if they could record lectures. A total time with the instructor is about 2 hrs a day. And that's because he's giving lectures to multiple cohorts. Oh and can't ask questions during the lecture. He will shut you down and tell you to put it in the Q. It's really bad asking a person who wasn't in the lecture about something in the lecture. And that's if the Q is open.

- They have a software program that takes over your linkedin. And you can't get it back. They have access to it forever. And they have modified profiles a long with instruct to not put the school in. A lot of these reviews are probably rigged since it says "LinkedIn verified".

- The Q system is horrible. Further more along with the lengthy wait (If you're lucky or not) sometimes the person helping you has no clue. And they will literally try to authoritatively talk it into non existence.

- This schools pretends corporate. Me and others have corporate experience and it's so bad.  Especially since they RARELY have their ducks in a row. No one here actually has corporate experience. They tried to keep you busy so you can't observe things. Like you're being hustled. This place is unprofessional on a high level. But they swear they're elite.

- We had to pay $20 a day to be on campus. 2 days a week or something like that is mandatory. They don't have anything setup. There's some desks and ports. There's no monitors or cables. You have to haul your own setup. We also had to pay for other things, like parallels. Keep in mind VET TEC is paying 15k.

- The 3 certs that are highly sought after... Aren't sought after. They're not legit certs. You don't need certs in software

- The content is dated and un organized. The video format is bad as well and you will kill so much time dealing with it. They also have other sources that aren't good and you don't get correspondence.

- They forbid from learning code anywhere else. I'm going to be real when I say the following. I LEARNED MORE IN A DAY ON A META developer course on coursera than I did at the weeks I was at this bootcamp. I'm not joking and that's probably the real reason why they don't want you to take other courses.

- There was other programs collecting data. Thankfully I used a VM.

I took a step back from the fake chaos, reviewed my contract, talked to a software developer mentor and got out.

Added things:

- They LIE A LOT. And have been caught multiple times. They have profiles on reddit claiming to be students because the cofounder got caught trolling comments. They'll claim their students got positions but they'll hide info on the student (because they've been busted lying). They'll also delete their school from linkedin profiles and insert a position from a small company that they have deals with small companies (Basically students are paying to do  work work for other companies as "apprenticeships" and the company has a deal with sabio). Which is crazy cause companies are giving falsified references. 

Their staff is probably reading this and figuring out a way to cover this up. I'm actually not joking about this part.

They've done articles falsely claiming things. Like one they claimed a person scored an SWE position at AWS. And upon further research the person actually got an apprenticeship... Which people WITHOUT bootcamp experience have gotten. They also made a falsified claim about rankings on here.

They don't get called out on linkedin because they control all the student profiles.

This school is purely a money grab. They don’t care if you graduate at all. They would rather get the 7500 upfront then kick you out after a month. On sign some other sucker up. They claim the be vet friendly. But they are not even close. 70 percent of the students are Vets. They say you do not need coding experience. Total lie. They have a free online web development course. They say you don’t need before you sign. Up. I recommend taking it twice before you sign up. But then they switch it up on you fast and hard after that they want you to do stuff you haven’t even learned and they tell you that you are a developer you should be able to figure it out. Weak Q setup to ask questions. But you’ll be waiting an hour or more to get a question answered. Then they expect you to be caught up. Like I said 12-16 hr days. Stress high. Personally I wouldn’t hire anyone of this school. They won’t have a firm grasp on anything. If if you want to take a few years off your life and live stress out for several months this is the place. 

Sabio has bad business practices. They get a bunch of people to join the program and then kick people out for anything they can. They take advantage of. the tax payer funded vet tec and gi bill. They take advantage of the benefits. They get as many people to sign up in the beginning and get paid by VET TEC. Around 140 people signed up and of those about 40 or less are still there on VET TEC. Initially they got paid 25% for these students. They find any other reason to kick you out and ask if you want to pay cash or use your gi bill. Sean Moran is the one doing this and Gregorio Rojas is the business owner telling him to do this. If you are a veteran who was affected by this contact me. Another student that was on campus said that the only people there are only on GI BILL. They also don't pro rate the gi bill they take all the 17 weeks if you used VET TEC. A lot of people quit their jobs to attend and move to CA and then kick you out.On top of that the videos which are called a "curriculum" are so bad. They are filled with errors and not even edited out. The videos are made with the least amount of effort. He calls out people for not knowing some of the material but Gregorio doesn't teach what we are supposed to learn. Alot of things reference Mozilla and W3 Schools. I will also be contacting those companies because he is taking money and using their resources as his curriculum. No where does is state that those are resources. They are their own separate module as a curriculum.This is tax payer money that is being purposely misused and on top of that these are veterans that are quitting their job and moving to try and change careers. In the end they get kicked out. I think there is public interest in this.

Overall View:
Overall you're expected to work individually on videos that are uploaded to their website. There is no "in-person" location, it's just an office and zero faculty. You're expected to watch videos and write code from ~8/9am - 8/9pm. The day-to-day usually involves an absurd amount of meetings about various things (interviews of past attendees, finished products from graduating cohorts, lessons, etc). You get a 1 hour lunch break and (expectedly) a 1 hour dinner break. There is also an expectation that you code a minimum of 2 hours a day and a minimum of ~25hours per week. The instructors can check up on you at any time during the day to ensure that you're at your computer and will give you a notice of "academic probation" if you don't show.

The Tests:
You will not be given an exact schedule of when you test. You could be told (from my experience), 4 days prior or even 2 days prior that you'll have a test. There are no defined expectations of what is passing or failing, it's entirely decided by the instructors. Our cohort asked for additional information and clarification on what we should be studying for and where we should be as far as progress goes. They also do not describe what is failing the course and what is passing the course. You could fail 3 tests and be fine, or you could fail 1 and be kicked out. They don't tell you because it's easier on them to not say.

The Queue:
They expect you to check in once a day and ask a question. The owner of the business is very lenient on his instructors when it comes to being strict on the students. There are absolutely amazing staff that help you through (what feels like) the most difficult problems. There are also staff which can be extremely judgmental and demanding, they will not accept input from students and will carry on. While required to show up to the queue at least once a day, they can close the queue without notice. You will not be given a schedule of when it's open and closed, you will not be given an exact time the queue closes for the day, and you will not be told the wait time. There were some students that had to wait 1-2 hours, and that's extremely frustrating when you have several questions throughout the day. There are times I've waited 5 minutes. 

Standup:
Usually a simple "What did you do?", "What will you do today?", "Is there anything blocking you?". Some instructors don't care, some care a tremendous amount. The purpose is to prepare you for standups that occur outside of the training environment. The reality is that

The Videos:
This one is much harder to critique. Gregorio had a wonderful vision for what he wanted his students to achieve. As a whole, the videos simplify a complicated topic and make you look wonderful when you exit Sabio. Unfortunately, there are some missing pieces as far as concepts go. If you're someone who needs to understand the "why" behind things, you often time will not get it. The retort you get for bringing this up is "Just go to the queue, that's what it's for." It'd be helpful, as this is an accelerated program, to not have to wait up to 1 hour for my question to be answered.

My Message To Sabio:
I'd advise a way to give anonymous input to help give your students a voice. It is extremely frustrating and difficult to try to help improve the program from a student's point of view if you're not being heard. We want the program to work too, we've signed up for it and many of us have paid money for it.

The queue can be improved, it'd be nice to see something added where we can see how many students are ahead of us and how many faculty are answering queues at that time.

I had no idea which staff member was for what. It'd be nice to know who I talk to for which types of concerns and why. A simple PDF with names and the ways the staff may be involved with the students would be helpful.

A schedule. As someone who likes to prepare and have a good outlook on the program, I had no idea where we were going and why. It'd be nice to see a simple (very generalized) schedule. It doesn't have to be exact week-by-week, it could just be an ideal outlook of the 17 week program.

Some of the videos need to be reshot because there are things that instructors say are incorrect or that instructors need to clarify. Having links to the finished code (heck, make it so I can't copy and paste it, just a screenshot would be nice) so I could compare it with my own would be wonderful. 

There are concepts that needed further reading, a simple link that describes them more would be excellent. It seems as though the front half of the 17 week program did that, but the later half didn't as much.

The owner admitted he has dyslexia, can someone spell check him in his website?

Sabio is a coding bootcamp that, unfortunately, falls short of delivering a valuable learning experience. Despite initial impressions of concern for the student's future, it becomes clear that the main priority for Sabio is their own financial gain. This is exemplified by their tactics in having students work for free building websites for companies, their handling in veteran's tec benefits, massive cohorts (the more the merrier), and eagerness to switch vets to the GI Bill for guaranteed payment, as its more beneficial to them than the 25% increment that Vet Tec gives.

Sabio's approach to education is heavily focused on strict requirements and accountability, with a daily question submission as a mandatory part of the curriculum. Failure to meet this requirement results in academic probation, and a score lower than 70% on the next technical assessment can result in dismissal from the program. This results in cohorts being reduced to only having about 10 graduating students per cohort. However, the lack of transparency in the grading process raises concerns about the fairness of the evaluations. You will never be shown your grade, you may request it but its rather inconvenient to do so as it seems Sabio heavily relies on daily questions more than anything. This rather annoying rule will determine your stay at Sabio regardless of how well you perform on the material. 

In regards to Vet Tec students, The implementation of the daily question requirement for Vet Tec students has raised concerns. Despite being framed as a requirement from Vet Tec, the official handbook clearly states "VET TEC students must follow all Training Provider policies and rules pertinent to their program of study. This includes all employment searching policies and rules required after the VET TEC student graduates." However, it has been noted that Sabio, the training provider, has taken advantage of this requirement and uses it as a means to shift blame to Vet Tec. It is important to note that the daily question rule itself is a policy established by Sabio, the training provider, and not Vet Tec. Thus, the students should not hold Vet Tec responsible for this requirement, which some may find excessively burdensome. The responsibility for this policy rests solely with Sabio. This issue highlights the need for clear communication and transparency in the creation and implementation of policies affecting students. 

Lets talks about Sabio's assessment practices,  Sabio, caused major disappointment among the student community. Before an assessment Sabio "recommended" certain sections for students to study in order to perform well on a particular assessment. However, the assessment proved to be much more demanding than what was "recommended." This caused frustration among students who had relied on Sabio's guidance.Instead of acknowledging this discrepancy, the Cofounder of Sabio, Gregorio, used the excuse that bootcamp is inherently difficult and assessments are no different. He blamed the students for not realizing that assessments are made to be challenging. This approach lacks professionalism and fails to address the root of the issue - a lack of trust and proper guidance from the training provider.Students have a right to expect clear and accurate information from their training provider, and Sabio's recent actions have fallen short of these expectations. The events in question have raised serious concerns about the level of support and guidance offered to students, and highlight the need for increased transparency and accountability from Sabio." Despite any valid excuses you may have, Sabio shows a disregard for the student's well-being and will make students feel terrible about any missteps. The use of vet tec strict requirements and “bootcamps are supposed to be hard” as a defense for their strict policies does not excuse the lack of support or empathy for the student's experience.Overall, Sabio's approach to education seems unnecessarily strict and entirely based on exploiting loopholes rather than providing a supportive learning environment. 

I would not recommend Sabio as a viable option but If you're looking for a real-world tech experience, then definitely go with Sabio! They'll give you a taste of what it's like to be laid off from the tech workforce. Because let's face it, why wait for the future when you can experience it now?

Best of Luck

Yes Anonymous. 

At the end of my rope, I was desperate to turn my life around for the better and Sabio took advantage of that. Long story short, an issue came up between myself and Gregorio. I handled myself respectfully and genuinely wanted to resolve the issue. However, he acted very unprofessionally, made an assumption, and would not hear me out when I tried to kindly correct his assumption. So I got in touch with Liliana for further assistance. Maybe Gregorio was just having a bad day or something and I was hopeful that his wife, Liliana, would be able to assist with clarifying the miscommunication between me and Gregorio. Instead, she told me to file a complaint with BPPE and that I could continue with Sabio after the issue was all resolved. No problem, I get that there's a protocol to follow sometimes and I was willing to put in the work. Like I said, I was at the end of my rope. However, it got worse when I called Liliana to keep her updated on what was going on and was in need of paperwork from Sabio to defer the loan I took out - she responded to me, "you're not a student of ours anymore." There was no notice, no email or call, nothing to inform me I was being dropped from Sabio and no explanation for why I was dropped. Needless to say, this shocked me especially since Liliana and Gregorio make it seem like they care about you and will work with you as long as you were willing to put in the work too. But they don't. They are in it for the business, not the students as individuals. So now I literally have nothing, was hospitalized for suicidal ideation, and guarantee that I will do whatever I can to either get back into continuing the Sabio program or get my money back. I've already talked with a lawyer and it'll be a long process but I fully intend to take this as far as I need to in order to bring justice to this problem. Ultimately though, if things don't work out with either me getting my money back or being brought back as a student to continue Sabio, whatever happens to me will be on their hands for taking advantage of me when I was desperate to improve my life by getting into coding. I've single-handedly brought down two different businesses that violated the law and I hope to make that three if things don't work out.

If you are using VETTEC you should steer away from Sabio! They haven't posted their graduation rates since 2019 for a reason, one of the latest cohorts started with over 100 students and is already down to ~30 students. the training is 66hrs a week and will leave you no time for anything but this course, and once you get to a certain point in the program, they give you a test in React which you are more than likely to fail. If you are using other programs such as your GI bill or you are paying out of pocket, there is a good chance they will let you continue, however, if you use VETTEC and fail, they will push you back and make you use your GI bill or pay out of pocket.

pros:
The course is very fast-paced and will teach you a lot in very little time. 

Some of the instructors are nice and really helpful (Alley, Barnett, Zach, Daniel...).

cons:
The course changes after the first month and leaves you to code on your own with one lecture (1 hr) a week and videos that you should be following are inconsistent and some have not been updated since 2016. 

People with no coding experience should not attempt this course, as it is too fast pace for learning anything properly and everyone just tells you "keep pushing", whether you understand it or not, is of no concern, as after a week they move on to a different topic React-> SQL, they also do not have makeup tests as the course is so fast-paced.

If using VETTEC they drop you back the first chance they can, so they can get more money from you, if you decide to pay out of pocket its suppose to be 75% (which is apparently around $5,000), if you use your GI bill they double it based off of the hours. So if you have 3 months left in the program they will take 6 months of your GI bill, if you have 4 months = 8 months of your GI Bill.

Some of the instructors (Nick, Danny...) are really rude, making the student feel stupid when they are asking a question.

It's true what others have said in their reviews about Sabio, they directly tell you to lie on your LinkedIn and resume, and instruct you to not tell potential employers that you went to Sabio. Big red flag. Overall the instructors are mediocre, but that doesn't even matter much because most of the course material is in the form of pre-recorded videos of Gregorio attempting to teach code. The contract is also problematic, according to my lawyer - I can't go into detail on this yet though until the case is completed. Currently, my lawyer is building a case against them so they can improve because they aren't open to discussing this type of feedback/criticism.

I dropped out the day before graduation by choice. I couldn't stand that school anymore. This could be fully learned online from free resources. Ironically, I used to supplement, if not replace the curriculum. Towards the end of the bootcamp, your tasked with poor instructions to complete an mvp for a Sabio client as a final project and present it to the client on the last day. That last month of bootcamp they forget about you and prioritize the next cohort. And for job search, the strategy is to spam companies with resumes. Regardless of meeting any hiring requirements.  You will not come out of this bootcamp as a demanding talent. You are taught the minimum to understand full-stack technology. Then you'll have to somehow differentiate yourself from the hundreds, if not, thousands of graduates before you. I met other students before embarking on this bootcamp and they told me not to go. I should have listened. Lastly, I don't like Gregorio. It's either he likes you or he don't. He doesn't care for you except that you pass and make his numbers look good. Hence why I dropped out, the day before graduation. I passed every test. Most lectures were video. Then you would have to go to the "Q" to try and justify your reasons for not understanding just for them to humiliate you and send you back to the video again. Please avoid at all cost. Just learn online like Udemy. Some of the courses there are better structured than Sabio. 

Sabio is a well oiled machine. Everything is perfectly crafted to make it seem like an amazing bootcamp and they celebrate their graduates and give them job opportunities to obligate the graduate to them. Let me start with my experience.

I utilized my VETTEC benefits. Out of the initial 33 VETTEC students we started with, only 9 VETTEC students graduated. The class started around 80 and ended around 30 ppl in total. Over all, my experience was okay. If I could redo it, I would still stay in the program because I ended up with a nice developer job about 3 months after I graduated. Here are the pros and cons from my experience.

Pros: 
- Teaches you how to get a job
- LinkedIn and Resume training generally works
- Interview Prep questions are spot on
- Real job on resume with references

Cons:
- Quick to put vets on academic probation
- Most instructors have no job experience and go straight from bootcamp grads to instructor and certain instructors are very condescending
- Q time is unreasonably long
- Unfair standards for vettec

I made it through with only a few academic probations which were, in my opinion, only given because I was VETTEC. Our whole class had a technical difficulty that affected our coding times but only the VETTEC students were put on academic probation. Attendance policy was much more strict for vets. That being said, it worked for me and I am grateful for it. I did see people get kicked out for ridiculous reasons, most of them were VETTEC. Personal days, technical issues, and health issues were all reasons to kick a vet out. Also most of the instructors have no real job experience and are instructors. They also employ keynote graduates to do things like promote and review Sabio. THe weirdest thing is that they have an apprenticeship program for Argentinians where they enroll in the course, graduate, and become instructors. So alot of your instructors are Argentinian college grads. This wouldnt be bad but on their website they proudly say "industry expert instructors" when really they are foreign college grads and Sabio grads.

At the end of the day, Sabio worked for me. The product dev section that allows you to put a real start up company on your resume is the absolute best part of this camp. I also found that their mentorship and job support is really good. If you want to do this program and ignore the fake positive reviews and outraged failed students, I think you should. Just understand that there is some shady stuff with this company and be prepared to look past things that you may disagree with. Everyone I know who brought up a complaint about Sabio to Gregorio was kicked out. If you are prepared to keep your head down and understand that this bootcamp will teach you how to get a job, not how to code, then I recommend it. I would not change a thing about what I did. Have a clear head, don't quit, and keep your head down.

If you can't find a job within 180 days after graduation, Sabio will not receive the rest of the 50% tuition from VA, AND they WILL ASK you to pay it back (not every school does that, but they are one of them), which is $7500.




*If you want to do in-person, you will be asked to show up 2 days a week at the office (LA or Irvine office only, parking is not free) watching videos there.




The instructors are simply not that good and they don't really care about you (a lot of them are former students), missing guidance or instructions.




You are basically watching videos and learn it by yourself (I can do it free on youtube, or Udemy, edx...)




If you have questions, you are going to get on the que and wait for 30min to an hr for them to answer you (and the answer is either too short for you to understand or misleading).




A lot of students have to work with each other or look up online videos for help.




At least 1/3 of my class wasn't able to graduate because of lack of instruction, the class is too demanding...




and beware of Co-founder Gregorio when you interact with him. If he doesn't like you, or you get into an argument with him, good luck... he will find ways to fail you and kick you out while keeping his money.




It is not just me. It happened to a lot of veterans.  They spent a lot of money on marketing and fake reviews.

This is a terrible bootcamp, I'm not even going to waste my time writing about it because all the 1 star reviews are the legitimate ones. Most of these 5 star reviews are paid for by Sabio. They pay the individuals who graduate to leave them a good review. If you're a Vet trying to waste your VetTec benefit then join Sabio.

Don't pay attention to the last reviewer saying tell you family you're changing your life, one person I knew got dropped because their child got sick and this individual had nobody to take care of their child so they could work on a Saturday, no remorse from the co-founder though. Easier to take the VetTec money and let them go.

This company is NOT transparent, they pay for good reviews, change expectations during training and send notices after making them. You'll only speak to Alumni that they choose to have speak with you they're also paid for the "success story" interviews.

The only word I agree with in that last 5 start review was the last word that person wrote... "RUN". I would just add AWAY after it, RUN AWAY.

The bootcamp curriculum is really informative but many of the instructors are bad at explaining to you what you’re having an issue with. The cofounder/instructor who teaches in the instructional videos moves extremely fast and doesn’t explain what he’s doing in the videos and you have to get in a Queue of people in order to get any help. If you have to go on campus there are no instructors there and they have you in a co-working space and you have to rely on the other students who are as clueless as you. I’d highly recommend attending Sabio if you already have a background in coding.