The best part about App Academy was the people. Great instructors and likeminded peers all gathered in the same place to learn and grow together under intense pressure. I graduated from the 16-week on-campus program and landed two jobs within six months. A lot of my success was due to my own hard work, but my success would not have been possible without AA. read more

App Academy taught me the skills necessary to succeed in the software industry. I heavily leveraged their partnership program to get connected with the right company and I landed a fantastic job after 3~4 months. This is absolutely true. However, it's naive to think that their 24 week course will give you ultimate super powers. What they offer is teaching you how to research and learn as an independent thinker. You will become very intelligent, leading to incredible strength on and off computers. FYI, I had to learn TypeScript, Electron, Capacitor, Nx monorepos, Recoil, Jotai, creating my own Node.js based plugins, etc. since starting my new job, but I would have failed miserably if I tried to study on my own. Some people can achieve this as a self taught programmer, but if you like to learn best practices and bounce ideas off of the smartest people you've met, App Academy is for you. read more

App Academy has team of instructors who give lectures on SW topics and help with projects. These instructors and the job search coaches are recent graduates from AA who are also doing their own job search. The projects were fun to work on and helped me put into practice the knowledge and skills that I was gaining from the curriculum and from working with other peers. AA makes sure you adhere to deadlines and stay on top of your projects and job search. This bootcamp is useful if you need some extra encouragement and direction in software engineering. For those who are good at self study, you probably won't need AA because their curriculum is the same as their free online curriculum, or other free resources online. On the curriculum: You will learn Ruby, Ruby on Rails, SQL, Active Record, JavaScript, React and Redux. There is very little on CS topics and ultimately when you finish the curriculum, they tell you to go back and study data structures and algorithms on your own and via LeetCode because that is what companies will interview you on. There is an assessment almost every week for the first 2 months and will have very thorough practice tests and some will just be a simple practice test. Instructors will tell you to do each practice test at least 10x over the weekend and the assessments are mostly memorization of material. Every night there is homework to do each night to prep you for the project you will do pair programming with the next day. The quality of this material can vary greatly from topic to topic. Post curriculum: Once you finish the 16-week curriculum, you have to do 3 projects (JavaScript, Fullstack and MERN, with MERN being a group project) which will become your portfolio projects. Once these are done, their job search team will guide you through the process of making job search materials. This will includes resume, cover letter, portfolio website, creating GitHub, LinkedIn and AngelList profiles, and how to give a personal pitch. So far I have received wonderful feedback from coaches (also past graduates). Communication with their team can be disorganized as they don't have a consistent platform to share information (including what is expected of each student). There were a couple things that caught us off guard and was a bit frustrating: * We were initially told passing scores for assessments are 50% but once you start, they tell you its 85% * They do not use Slack Premium, so you will not be able to look at communication that is over 1 week old * Deadlines for various tasks may be given in Zoom chats, Slack or verbally (inconsistent) - It would have been best if they used email * They have a bot that emails nightly with information needed but they are not updated - often we received deadlines for previous cohorts * All marketing says it's a 16-week program but after the 16-weeks, they begin the job search period which you are still required to attend for at least the first couple weeks after graduation, meaning you can't make vacation plans, this should have been better communicated prior to signing onto bootcamp Ultimately, it depends on what you want to get out of a bootcamp. They provide a set curriculum and structure for those who need it, which I like to have. I really enjoyed meeting people from a very diverse collection of backgrounds and learning from each of them. I also had a lot of fun using the knowledge learned to do the final projects. Since instructors are past grads, there is quite a bit of turnover and I think each cohort's experience will vary greatly depending on the team of instructors. It's a very good start for anyone who doesn't have a technical background and doesn't know how to start, or what materials to study on their own. read more

App Academy is great. It will change your life. It did for me! I was working in Finance, truly unsatisfied with the work I was doing, then I learned to code. I built awesome websites, and gained great knowledge across the entire stack (frontend to backend). App Academy taught be the fundamentals, but there is a lot more to learn after. It was a great start, however, and I am much happier with the work I'm doing now, and the cherry on top, is my salary is much better too! I highly recommend app academy. It's hard work but worth it. Get a head start in the curriculum for best results, in my opinion. read more

I already knew App Academy would be tough before I applied, but I never would've thought it was the most difficult experience I had ever imagine. As someone with no prior coding experience, I would say the first few weeks were really hard on me and it doesn't get easier. Eventually, it's something that everyone gets accustomed to. Before I knew it, it was 3 months already and I can finally tell people that I'm a software developer. To sum things up, App Academy is harder than anything you imagined, but it will also be the most rewarding experience in your life. read more

When I told my parents I was interested in pursuing software development, that I found a good program that boast awesome stats, they (and everyone else I knew) was pretty skeptical. To be honest, even I was skeptical. But, I took a leap of faith and am so glad I did. App Academy is a boot camp (seriously). You'll average 60-80+ hours a week grinding through problems and concepts. You will have little to no social life. You will dream (okay, have nightmares) about code. In exchange, you will become a better critical thinker and problem solver than you ever thought possible. You'll become acquainted with very exceptional people, and your mind will be blown away by people's genius. At the end of the long and challenging road, you'll walk away with a six figure salary, and will get paid to just solve puzzles all day. All in all, App Academy was the single best decision I've made for myself as a full-fledge adult. read more

Learned more in the program than I would by myself I enjoyed the program very much. It was well paced and definitely very intensive. They teach more than just the basics and structure the curriculum very well to get you to the point of being an independent learner. I think it's daunting at first to pick up web development without much coding background, but I think the program does a good job at teaching you what to focus on. The most intensive part of the curriculum is keeping up with the schedule. The material by itself is structured to teach a student from the ground up. The challenging portion is for the student to maintain studying priorities, time management, and health. If a student can do these things well, then the student will be able to pick up everything needed to pass the program. The job search support is very good. I feel like App Academy is set up for a student's success, giving the student constant support and material to work on post-graduation from the program. If the job seeker puts in the work and keeps routines established by a/A to find employment, it'll only be a matter of when. read more

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. read more

Never thought I would be a software developer, but App Academy gave me the skills needed. The curriculum teaches the most popular languages and technologies in the industry, making you a valuable asset to thousands of companies paying competitive salaries. Gonna make this really blunt - you will sacrifice to do this program. It is extremely demanding, requiring 80+ hours each week just to keep your head above water. There is always more to learn and more to master. Give the program 100% and you will become a great developer. There are developer jobs in every country you would want to live in, it's a great skill to have. You will crush interviews - every company I visited was thorougly impressed with my abilities. Many grads go to very recognizable companies! Up to you, but with a deferred tuition model, the risk is almost completely eliminated! read more

Definitely a great learning experience but is not for everyone. If you do great under pressure and can handle being thrown a lot of material in a short amount of time, then give it a shot. That being said, they do provide a lot of helpful material and provide some of the best resources for both programming and job search. read more

I was a part of the NYC March cohort (Mar - Jun 2018) and purposely waited to write my review until I accepted a job after completing the program. App Academy has changed my life; within 8 months, I quit my old non-technical job, took the course, went through interviewing and accepted a job as a software engineer (have been working for 1 month now). I think very favorably of the program overall, but want to provide some quick bullets to answer questions that I know I had when considering if App Academy was right for me: 1. How long does it take to get a job after finishing the program? - I feel very fortunate in that I was connected with a company with an App Academy alum at my graduation night (the final week of the program) and wrapped up my interview cycle with them in 2 weeks. This is not the norm, though. Expect your search on average to take anywhere from 4-9 months. 2. What is the average starting salary? - My offer was just shy of $100k at a company in New York City. Friends of mine from App Academy who have gotten jobs in the past few weeks have all been offered slightly more than me, but I hear the average range is closer to $85-90k for App Academy graduates in the New York area. 3. What are the payment plan options? - There are 3 choices: (1 - upfront) $17k all up front, (2 - hybrid) $9k up front and $14k in scheduled payments after accepting a job, and (3 - deferred) $5k upfront and $23k in payments after accepting a job. For #s 2 and 3, how you pay off the larger second amount depends on your starting salary; if you sign the alumni engagement agreement (you agree to mentor future students and show up at a/A events), your tuition will be capped at either 23% (hybrid) or 28% (deferred) of your starting salary and you'll pay the lower of that amount or the written amount that you owe. For example, if you accept a starting salary of $85k and you have chosen the hybrid plan, you'd only have to pay $10.55k back instead of the full $14k. Your payment schedule depends on your starting salary as well, but expect to pay between $1500 and $2000 monthly until you've paid back what you owe. If you don't accept a job after a year from when the program ends and you've been looking with a good faith effort, you get your money back. 4. Does App Academy force me to take the first job I get? - No. You can choose to turn down offers that don't make sense for you, but I'm pretty sure if you do that and don't accept a job by the time the year after your program ends, you're still on the hook for tuition since you technically did get a job offer. 5. Will I feel prepared to join the workforce as a software engineer when the program is up? - Imposter syndrome will tell you no, and that's not totally wrong. There is still so much that I want to learn about software development where I feel like I'm currently just scratching the surface. But, I do feel qualified for my current job. App Academy did a great job of teaching me both the fundamentals and how to learn things quickly that I don't know (Google is your friend! All developers, bootcamp or not, use it daily!). There's been nothing I've encountered at my job so far that I've had no idea how to handle. 6. Who are the instructors? - The instructors are former App Academy students that most times are hired while they are still students, so they know the material very well but have not yet worked as developers outside of App Academy. The curriculum is developed by lead TAs who take the job very seriously and travel to conferences/attend meetups to make sure it is up-to-date and relevant. 7. Who will my classmates be? - Students seem to vary in their backgrounds. Expect a cohort in NYC to be around 40 people though, and maybe 5 of them will have a CS degree. Closer to 1/3 might have previous light coding experience (SQL, basic JavaScript) from another job. 8. What languages will I learn and are they useful in the job market? - App Academy will teach you Ruby, JavaScript, SQL, HTML and CSS as languages. More specifically, you'll learn Rails as a backend framework and React/Redux as frontend libraries to help you render web pages. Ruby is not used heavily anymore but is a great semantic starter language to help teach you how to code. React, from what I've seen, is where job demand is right now. My current team uses React. 9. Is it really possible to be successful in this program with no coding background? - Yes. I had no coding background. That being said though, it takes a lot of work and determination to get up to speed. I did the JumpStart program through a/A which taught me coding basics for free after work over 4 weeks. Then once I was accepted, I meticulously when through the pre-cohort prep course (alpha course) before beginning classes. Take alpha seriously and make sure you understand it thoroughly; there's office hours for your questions. 10. Cons? - It's a stressful environment where you can fail out if you don't pass 2 of the weekly exams. read more

App Academy was my first choice, because: -- it's tuition model -- great reviews and overall rating -- greatest TA's -- it's curriculum -- supportive classmates Although it's pretty hard to keep the pace for the whole course, it pays back, once you start working on your final project, you'll realize that you know a lot, even if you thought you don't. Greatest experience. read more

"Would you like fries with that?" is what I would be saying if it weren't for App Academy. Instead I now say things like "who wrote this smelly code" and "oh it was me" and mostly "thank god for stack overflow". Since graduating from App Academy my quarterly steak consumption has increased by 400% and I don't even have to open the door to my own apartment building myself. Need I say more? read more

I had a great experience at App Academy. It is very challenging but equally rewarding. When they say 80-90+ hours per week that's not a lie but don't be intimidated by that time commitment bc more than half of that is part of the 9-6pm you're at school. The structure for the first 9 weeks is very intense but also very thought out and well-developed. The last 3 weeks are a job search curriculum which helps you hone in on your technical skills with less instructor support. I cannot vouch for the success rate of finding a job as I am still in the curriculum and we have not yet started to apply to jobs. Would recommend other people to go through App Academy. read more

I come from a background working as a QA Engineer in the kind of start-up I believe App Academy prepares you to develop for. The day-to-day curriculum is set up in such a way that students who are brand new to the material have a manageable and well thought out roadmap, and people who are familiar with the concepts can explore more in depth material after finishing their daily tasks. In this way I believe that the curriculum is beautifully geared towards giving students the full reward of their hard work and providing people who have a good work ethic and genuine interest in technology all of the tools they need to succeed. The career counseling is also extremely valuable for prospective job seekers. The amount of emphasis put on knowing the material well enough to have conversations about it, as well as interviewing techniques to set you apart from other bootcampers, is critical to opening up opportunities for jobs that are denied graduates of other bootcamps. I have seen graduates from coder-mills come out of their bootcamps and spend 2-3x longer than the average App Academy graduate before finding employment, due to the fact that they were not set up for success. In summary, I'd recommend App Academy for people who are not only capable of working hard, but are extremely passionate about software engineering/app development. It is an unbelievably intensive curriculum where doing the minimum should not be enough to satisfy you, because you don't attend this bootcamp with the expectation of getting a degree or good grades, you do it out of a love and passion for the trade you're training for. read more

Imagine being a level 1 Magikarp then - BAM! - you're suddenly a HUMONGOUS FRICKEN GYRADOS. That's a precise description of how App Academy transformed me. A+++++ would attend again read more

Some of the amazing benefits: - It changes your life in 3 months - You can make real friends who you'll be in touch with for years and learn so much from - You never feel like you're learning something useless - Only 2 months out and most of my classmates and I already have jobs (along with significant salary increases!) Word to the wise: The material is not always easy to grasp at first and the class moves so quickly that you must practice, practice, practice in your down time. There are weekly evaluations to make sure you are up to speed. I'd say i was spending 60-70 hours per week working. You cannot change your career without putting work and extra effort in, so you have to be willing to do that at App Academy. You will enjoy your new career, and App Academy gives you the fastest way of getting there. Finally, the fantastic teachers make the hard work completely worth it. I had Jonathan, Tommy, and Constance. Jonathan was the main teacher, and he cared so much that we understood the material. Tommy made crucial edits to my resume, helping me to land a job I really enjoy. Constance, the TA, has an insane amount of knowledge, and answered every questions I had and every bug I encountered within seconds. read more

UPDATE! My original review for App Academy is pasted below- it was lost when their address changed on Yelp. Since the last review, I've moved to a new job. I've learned a ton, and I'm making a great salary now. App Academy helped me get out of a dead-end career path, get out of my parent's house, and get a marketable skill (which I'm hugely passionate about now) in just a few months. Can't recommend it enough. I was a student in the September 2014 cohort. Before App Academy, I was looking for work as a teacher, carrying around a useless diploma and debt from four years of college. After a while, I realized that teaching wasn't for me, a decision that was made easier by the shortage of well-paying jobs for new teachers. I decided to go into programming, but I knew that going back to college for a computer science degree was not an option. I decided to pursue one of the many coding bootcamps that have popped up in the past five years or so, and applied to a handful of them. I was accepted to a few schools, but App Academy's payment model won me over. App Academy doesn't collect any tuition from you unless you find work. Some of these other schools ask for upwards of $10-15k upfront, an unrealistic option for most people looking a career change. App Academy was one of the most rewarding and transformative experiences of my life. The daily routine involved a short lecture in the morning, covering yesterday's work and a discussion of the previous night's readings. The lectures are very free-form, and we were always encouraged to ask as many questions as we wanted. The rest of the day was entirely spent pair programming, except for a handful of solo days here and there. Every student worked with every other student at least once, and you very quickly learn how to work as part of a team. During my time at App Academy, the curriculum moved from Ruby to Ruby on Rails, before we dove into JavaScript and Backbone.js. After the three month curriculum was up, we were able to stay with the program for as long as we needed, as they helped us find work and finish up solo projects. Every student comes out with a pretty wide portfolio, with a single capstone final project that we design from start to finish. Their 'job search curriculum' is extremely helpful, and I ended up applying to dozens and dozens of companies smoothly. Former App Academy students became connections in companies around the country, and I went on a number of interviews at very different companies. About a month and a half after the graduation date, I was happy to be given an offer at a great web design firm. Less than a year ago, I was looking for underpaid work in a field that had very few open positions. Now, I'm a crucial part of a development team, making a salary that I am very, very happy with. If you're considering making the jump to a career in programming, I definitely recommend App Academy. Be prepared, because it's going to be three of the most work-intensive months of your life, but the payoff is absolutely worth it. read more

I went to App Academy because I thought that their model would attract the best students. I believe I was right. From the first day I felt as though I was behind the rest of the class. I had come in expecting to be ahead of the crowd, having built a website and developed an iOS app before. I had no idea that the talent of my fellow classmates would far exceed my own. I think there is a perception that students who attend bootcamps learn the tools they need on the surface to become an app or web developer and I think for certain bootcamps this is true. At App Academy, I was learning algorithms from the first day. If you finished the assignments before the rest of the class you could write an algorithm to do a basic form of artificial intelligence to solve a maze - through breadth first search. My partner and I couldn't solve it. By the end of the week we had tackled recursion, studied tree logic, created hangman games that could play themselves, and rewritten many functions that make life in Ruby so simple. For the remainder of our time there, we would study a different subject for a week or two to really master it, digging into the internals of how that thing worked and solving complicated projects that demonstrated why it was important to know. After 2 weeks of digging into the details of the Ruby language, we spent a few days mastering SQL - being expected to read half a textbook on SQL over a weekend so we really had 5 days with it. After SQL, we moved onto Rails and spent about 2 and a half weeks with it. In Rails, we recreated two of the most important libraries that make it up. We spent a week learning Javascript and by that point it felt like we only needed a week to really understand a topic. I couldn't recommend App Academy enough. You will learn why things work, not just how to make them. App Academy is a great balance of theory and practice with excellent teachers and the brightest students. read more

Graduate - September '14 Cohort Of all the institutions I've been a part of through my education and career, App Academy is probably the one I feel the most connection to and loyalty towards. Unlike some of the boot camps springing up that seem to springing up to capture some quick profit, App Academy is building something awesome. With its highly selective admissions process and no-tuition business model, App Academy is bringing innovation to the badly broken higher education system. During my time at a/A, I was surrounded by some of the the smartest, most driven people I have ever known. This environment lent itself to some seriously accelerated learning: a few months before I applied, I didn't know the first thing about computer programming, and especially not about the arcana of web development. But by graduation day, I had landed a job at an awesome startup and have been impressing my superiors since (which is apparently normal for App Academy grads). Some people took quite a bit longer to find jobs, but I don't know anywhere from my cohort who has not yet found a good web dev job. And if you have even an iota of charisma (I think I do) or have a strong STEM background (I don't), you can expect to find a job in no time. So basically if you want to learn a ton from smart people with other smart people and then get paid money to keep doing that when you finish, do a/A. 9.9/10 Would do again. read more

App Academy sounds too good to be true, but it is as good as it sounds. Any student with the aptitude and motivation to make it through the rigorous 3 months of training WILL GET A HIGH PAYING JOB. Most people I know out of App Academy love their jobs as well. I certainly do. Beyond just job placement, as a Software Engineer I can confidently say that App Academy gave me the skills crucial to doing my job effectively and with a high degree of quality. There's a lot of things schools don't teach that most software engineers just have to figure out on the job. App Academy teaches a lot of them. The mark of any good Software Engineer is the constant will to learn and pursue new projects. App Academy will take anyone (with the willpower) with minimal knowledge of software engineering, and get them to the point where they can learn by doing. A wide range of independent projects become possible after App Academy, so even after the program while your looking for a job, you can continue the learning process you started at App Academy. I cant recommend App Academy enough to anyone looking to pursue a career in web development. read more

I have to admit that going down the path of changing careers is daunting, and really scary. Learning how to code adds another layer of stress. So I really liked how App Academy began our course by stressing how they understood how difficult it can be, but not to give up. It seems so trivial, but for a team of "techies" to believe it's such an important topic to cover shows their compassion in teaching people of all skill levels. That put me at ease early in the course. I'm a beginning coder, with very limited experience so I had a lot of catching up to do to prepare for my bootcamp interviews. However, after these last four weeks in the bootcamp prep course, I am confident that I can tackle most problems, and for those I don't know, at least show my interviewer that I'm able to think like a software engineer by fully explaining my thought process. I've learned so much more in these 4 weeks than I ever would have been able to on my own in the same amount of time. I simply would not have been prepared to interview, now, however, I'm confident that I'll be accepted into one of the top bootcamps this coming fall. It's not easy, and I really liked how our teacher, Alvin, pulled no punches in forcing us to be clear in our code writing and explanation. It was like being in school all over again, but at a much higher level. I fully recommend App Academy's Bootcamp Prep, especially for those career changers who need the skills necessary to succeed, not only in interviewing for a top bootcamp. But those interested in succeeding once they are in! read more

I was in the March-May 2014 NYC cohort of App Academy. I thought App Academy was one of the best learning experiences I've ever had. It was really demanding (11-14 hour workdays + weekend work), but also incredibly rewarding. I really thought the course was extremely densely packed with information, and I also thought they taught it very effectively by having such a high percentage of class time (80-100%) be working through coding projects. I got a web developer job one month after graduating at a company I'm really passionate, and, coming from an Economics major with zero professional programming experience, I think it would have been nearly impossible without App Academy. Finally, from what I've gathered, it really does compare very well with other Bootcamps (e.g. General Assembly, Dev Bootcamp). App Academy grads I've met almost uniformly are quite competent at the fundamentals of building web applications. As long as you can keep up with the work, you're probably find it extremely valuable, as I did. read more

I originally wrote this review 02/21/2015 but I saw they changed their page. It's 09/11/2015 and I still hold it highly. :) If you are serious about programming, you should consider App Academy. I've made some great friends throughout the program and it represents one of the major turning points of my life. You will learn the modern libraries, tools and technologies so well it'll stun those friends you have with CS backgrounds. But you don't just learn technologies here; you learn how to problem solve in computer science. You will implement recursion, breadth-first-search, trees, within the first week. You will learn how to bug-chase. The curriculum at the end has intensive algorithmic training. Yet, the most valuable part about the program that differentiates it over bootcamps is that by the end you become a developer with these traits: Speed. We learned JavaScript in a week. I don't think I need to say more. Technique. Source control and awareness of conventions and CS/Web Dev culture. You learn the sources, and shortcuts. You learn to be thorough and to leave projects better than they were before you touched them. Communication. In pair programming for the majority of the exercises, you get to gain the invaluable skill of how to communicate technically with another developer. Work-ethic. All I need to say is that even those with CS backgrounds were overwhelmed. By the 9th week you can make an application. A styled professional project you will be so proud of. From the database schema, to the back-end API, to the front-end framework. It's your baby!! And, of course, that's not enough. At App Academy pace, you are trained for the job hunt. You learn how to hustle and play the game. You get advice on difficult topics like negotiation and you practice interview problems. This alone is worth the cost of the program. I need to emphasize that a/A isn't just a cold-blooded employment agency. They actually care. When I needed to calm down before a phone screen, my teachers were there for me. When I told them I felt overwhelmed and frustrated the first week, my TAs sent me a pages-long response telling me I could do it. They care much more than they should just to take their pay cut. They continually improve the curriculum, and welcome feedback from the course. Now, my story: I'm absolutely not the natural in my cohort. I failed the first assessment. The averages, BTW are nearly 100% on those unit tests every week. I have never taken a formal CS class. I had to work my ass off and at times I didn't think I was going to make it. But I learned, and I produced, aided by all of those around me. The good thing about having smart people around you is that you can count on them to help you! And it paid off. Instead of writing this post, I should be preparing for further interviews at Facebook and Google. I cried when I made it past the first round at Google, one of the toughest processes in the CS industry. This is for a Software Engineer position -- the job that CS grads go for. I have offers with other companies I found really exciting too. 4 months ago being a programmer was just a dream and now it's who I am. I am by no means the exception, I am one of many. The first person in my cohort to be hired has no CS background. People without college degrees, people with PhDs, people that are older -- all of them have had success. I know because each and every colleague is also my friend. If this sounds dramatic, it's because it is. It's dramatic that months ago I had no idea what any of this really was and I wanted to change my career so badly. Now I'm coding up implementations for complex data structures (I like the CS theory a little too much...) and I have the privilege, solely based on my technical ability, to prove myself before the companies that inspire me. The only flaw about the program is that the office has(had?) really weird temperature issues. It's the price you pay for having tall windows facing east on beautiful Soho. Bring a sweater. read more

I am confident in saying that App Academy was the best move I have ever made career-wise. Graduating from a good college with a degree in Electrical Engineering was great, but truly did not prepare me for the real world. After having a difficult time finding a job in engineering in NYC, I eventually took a job in the financial industry. After two years at my previous job I was unhappy and needed a change, and felt pigeonholed into my current position. I came across the idea of coding bootcamps while browsing the internet one day. I had some experience coding in college but knew that I was not qualified to become a software engineer. After a lot of research I found that App Academy was, without a doubt, the best bootcamp around. There were definitely a lot of scams out there, but a/A was not one of them. With an extremely low acceptance rate and a tuition program in which you pay AFTER you find a job, I can honestly vouch for the hiring statistics that they boast (97% get a job within a year). They don't make money unless you find a job. Here I am, a month after graduation, and flooded with interviews for high paying full stack engineer positions. I would recommend this bootcamp to anyone that has an interest in becoming a software developer, because it is the best education around. read more

My path to becoming a professional software engineer was rather roundabout. I earned a BS in Computer Engineering from the University of Maryland way back in 2002, but changed paths immediately upon graduation and ended up working in Real Estate for more than a decade. Last year I decided to return to my software roots and even generated some interest and meager entry-level offers from employers due to my degree. However, I knew that I could be more valuable if I refreshed and updated my skills. After a bit online research, I came upon App Academy. Their statistics were impressive and their unique contingent tuition payment was very appealing. I applied, attended the November '14 class, graduated, and am now employed with a much better salary than was possible before a/A. Going into the class I expected it to be a breeze due to my background. I was mistaken. It wasn't that the material itself was incredibly difficult... If you are one of the few accepted into a/A, then you will be perfectly capable of mastering the material. My former classmates are some of the brightest people I've ever met... It was that we learned an incredible amount in a relatively short period of time. It was an intense experience that required all of my discipline and dedication. Also, the languages, frameworks, and real-world programming techniques that we learned, which are all in high demand with employers, are not taught in traditional colleges and universities. After completing the technical materials, there was a curriculum on the job search. It helped me to greatly improve my résumé and online presence. It also covered various techniques for interviews that helped me feel confident in mine. Finally, I must say that the professor and teaching assistants were fantastic. They are passionate about programming, helpful to those who need it, and even carry a good sense of humor! read more

I attended App Academy this past winter, and it was a great program start to finish. Some background on me - I was coming from a software background building ads in Flash. I never had any organized instruction in software, so I pretty much only learned what I dealt with on a day to day basis. After a few years, Flash was almost dead, and I knew I had to get my skillset more in line with the current tech ecosystem. I enrolled in App Academy, and start to finish it was an awesome experience. They had the right mix of lectures, well-written readings, and actual coding. Every day you'd be paired with a new partner, and then at night you'd have readings and homework to buff up your skills. It was a TON of work, but it was so busy and interesting that it never felt frustrating or overwhelming. It was just a matter of telling all your friends "I can't hang out for a couple months," and then putting the time in. That's a tall order I'm sure, but I think it was worth it. I swear at one point during a break, I felt my brain tingling from all the thinking I had been doing. Anyway, they taught a wonderful full stack curriculum that left me well prepared for coding challenges and interviews. It took me a while, but my new job is paying me 30,000 more than my previous software job. App Academy is an intense program, but for me it was one of the most personally rewarding decisions I ever made. read more

I have no reservations about recommending App Academy to anyone who is motivated to start a career as a software developer. I've now been working as a software engineer for over a year, and App Academy gave me the skills I have needed to be successful. I found the curriculum to be highly effective -- by making you work through everything yourself in the projects, you really absorb the skills at a very quick rate and in addition, they emphasized the principles behind the tools, so that you can continue to grow as an engineer on your own after the program. The NYC instructor Jonathan is fantastic -- he really cares about his students, is great at explaining concepts to people with a variety of backgrounds, and loves to share his enthusiasm with the whole class. read more

You will have access to tons of material, but expect to do a lot of self learning. This program is not for everybody. It will help if you can pick up material very quickly and want a structured curriculum. read more

At App Academy there are an amazing staff of instructors and advisers who work hard to make sure you have the tools you need in order to change your career path and become a developer. You'll have to put in the hard work, they are not joking when they say ~80-90 hours a week, but if you put in the time you will see results; ask for help, stay curious, and review. Enrolling in App Academy was everything I was looking for and easily the best decision I've made in my adult life. read more

tldr: JumpStart Program is unorganized, but can be helpful to unemployed people with coding familiarity to get into App Academy quickly. Not diverse. TAs are great sources to learn about a/A. Most reviews contain heavy bias. ************* I only completed 1.5 weeks of the JumpStart Program. I notice most if not all reviews are from people who have graduated and some are repeated all over the internet. Newly created accounts and such [perhaps paid reviews]. We focused on the basics of Ruby in part one for 3 hrs a day Mon-Thurs. Then there was homework to be done by the next day, intense! I definitely learned a great deal and doing my short stint has helped me further understand JavaScript, which I had been previously teaching myself. Structure Problems - We were told we could take the tests Mon and Thursday. Only 2 chances, after that we would not be allowed to come back. The emails about this program say it's 4 weeks, but the leader for my group said you had 2 weeks to do both and you could take a break, then proceed to apply to the actual App Academy Program. I was very confused by this. Also, after the First test only 4 people came back to review the test [ I'm thinking to go for the second shot]. Well at the end of reviewing our leader said we could go home, and didn't give homework that night. Are you confused? Me too. I took that to mean "Byyye". Homework/Instructions - Homework was sent out at various times anywhere from 10pm to sometime the next day before 630pm class. This is not the optimal program for people with jobs. The practice problems didn't always match videos, which was ok. And a few times we were not given peer warm up problems. The Class - You pretty much go and teach yourself using their website and Repl. You can ask TA's questions, but there is no timeline on what you should be up to by which day. Because of this I fell behind. Many classmates were looking up the problems online, NOT READING THE MATERIAL. I was so confused. How do they know these methods? Why are the TAs discussing things that aren't even in the given materials?? WELL I caught on that the best thing to do is to study the material while doing the practice problems. I did catch on too late to have a solid foundation to pass the test. But it did show me I can do a great job of teaching myself with tight deadlines. :) TAs - Amazingly talented. I think they are the best for learning and exactly why I came to JumpStart, however the structure is so poor that I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who has a day job. TAs didn't make sure everyone had partners during peer coding and I recall a TA laughing at someone who was asking for help. This made me feel very uncomfortable with asking questions, especially being a female of color in front of a majority white male class. TAs were also obsessively talking about interviews and getting a job [they were all recent grads]. This was interesting to listen to, but very distracting because I don't have the same background, and I'm also employed already. Classmates - I found most of them to be post college early to late 20s, and predominately unemployed/looking for a better way to make a living. This isn't a bad thing, but I would like to warn anyone looking into this program. It isn't very diverse. People are nice, but no one is going to keep making sure you are all caught up. If anything the people who excel are treated better than those who are confused. read more

App Academy is an incredible experience that will transform your life! (A review by a British App Academy grad) I heard about App Academy through a friend while I was living in London. At the time I was in a painfully dull job and was just looking for something interesting to do. I'd done a little recreational programming at university so I thought I would apply and see what happened. Now I'm a developer at a fantastic company with a great salary and an extremely exciting career ahead of me. Moving to New York for the course was surprisingly straightforward. Because the course is only 84 days it can be done on an ESTA as long as you're careful to site that it is a "recreational" vocational course with no qualifications. To say that the course is demanding is something of an understatement. They really aren't kidding when they say you should expect to spend the vast majority of your time coding for the duration of the course. However, the material is engaging and like many of my cohort I was so addicted that I found myself building code on the side. The methodology that they teach at app academy sets you apart from other bootcamp graduates and indeed from other applicants for any job that you will apply for. The enforced pair programming not only serves as a way to get to know your cohort, but will stand you in excellent stead for joining some of the most exciting companies in the industry. What really gives App Academy its colossal advantage over the other options is the quality of both students and instructors. Jonathan, Tommy and Constance are all exceptional teachers. I really can't express the extent to which these three heroes make App Academy the powerhouse that it is. They will help you navigate the stresses of working at such a fast pace, infect you with their genuine passion for the web and make you feel like you belong in the world of tech. They are an absolute joy to learn from. My cohort was also full of exceptional people, many of whom I hope to keep in touch with for a long time to come. Being surrounded by such an incredible bunch of people really does make you feel a part of something special. I should say that as a foreign student I was asked to pay the full cost of the course upfront, which is not mentioned in any of the FAQs. I consider it the best investment I have ever made by a significant margin, but I can understand your frustration if you can't pull that sort of sum together. I only managed it through a friend. If you're thinking of applying, stop reading reviews and do it now. Right this instant. If you are a British applicant and thinking of applying but are worried about the upheaval of moving, stop reading reviews and just do it already! It really will be the best thing that ever happened to you. read more

EDIT: Reposting here, because the App Academy page has moved. Just about exactly one year ago, I was a final-year undergrad at Oxford avoiding finals prep in every conceivable way. One of my more insidious procrastination techniques involved running through whatever programming tutorials and online courses I could get my hands on--Codecademy, Treehouse, you name it--and convincing myself that I was being productive. But I knew that I wasn't really being productive. I knew that programming was fun, and I enjoyed learning new skills, but I wasn't actually producing anything new, beyond the interesting but impractical projects I built while following tutorials. I believed, at that point, that I'd missed the boat, that because I hadn't grown up hacking through my teenage years or majored in Computer Science, that I had simply missed out on developing some creative part of my brain that connects the simple tools of if/else and variables into beautiful, response web pages. One year later, I don't think that way anymore, and I don't think anyone else should either. After completing the App Academy course four months ago, I'm now in my third month as a software engineer at a very well-capitalized tech company on the verge of going public, working 40 hours a week on a big, hairy open-source project to build the next big cloud computing platform (and writing iPhone apps in my spare time), and pulling down a six-figure salary. I can honestly say that I wouldn't be anywhere near as happy a place as I am today without App Academy New York. The curriculum is fast-paced. You get what you put in. But because the work is so collaborative, and the application process so selective, it's nearly impossible not to learn far faster than you would by hacking away on your own. There's no hand-holding here; no one's teaching you how to use a tool without explaining how it works. And that's its greatest strength: when you come out the other end of the program, you will have (at least in my experience) a *leg-up* over recent Computer Science grads when it comes to web app development. I repeat, with three months of App Academy under your belt, you will have a *better understanding* of web app development than most recent 4-year Computer Science college graduates, and a solid foundation on which to build expertise for more complicated software engineering problems, too. From where I'm standing right now, it definitely feels like going to App Academy was the best decision I have ever made. So if you're thinking about it, then apply, and if you get accepted, then take it. You won't regret it. read more

My days at App Academy were some them most intellectually stimulating, blissful experiences of my previous year. If you've googled the program enough, you may have encountered the analogy to drinking from a firehouse. But when you're thirsty for this knowledge, it's the most refreshing thing ever. Hydrated, educated, prepared, you're ready to take on any development job this ever changing world has to offer. Since attending, I've worked at a start-up and Apple doing Python dev. (Oh wait, the curriculum was Ruby, but you can grok ANYTHING following this). And more frequently than is comfortable, I've run into flaw after flaw in codebases that the App Academy devs are gung-ho to get you to avoid. Whereas most devs running around these days are comfortable cargo-culting solutions from Stack Overflow, you're trained to build applications from the bottom up with every good practice in play, while knowing WHY THEY WORK. That's not something you get in the average CS undergrad curriculum, and it's not something you can gleen from a MOOC. You have well trained developers at your disposal to show you the RIGHT WAY, or at least the most logical, least oh-well-this-just-worked way. Bottom line is... If you want to be a developer, and self-instruction isn't cutting it, or you really want to learn from pros, this should not be discounted. Take the assessment. Do it. If you can get that far, and I'm assuming if you've read this far, you can (even if you think you can't). The future is written by software, and there needs to be better developers out there, coming from every background (you read that, subtle doubter, every background). This is the vehicle for their production. I reiterate: Do it. read more

Just finished the curriculum part of App Academy. It was intense, grueling, and sleep-deprived, but I would do it all over again. I have learned so much and went from being an absolute beginner with no coding experience whatsoever to where I can call myself an software engineer (still have so much to learn though lol). They have a great and intense curriculum (it has to be that way for you to go from 0-100 real quick), and they have a great and talented staff of teachers that will lead, mold, consult, and be there with you every step of the way. They are smart people, people. You in good hands. If you are someone who wants to change the direction of your life or want to get into programming for whatever reason, AND above all else is willing to put in the hours to do it, do not hesitate and go for it. You won't regret it. You will learn ruby, rails, JavaScript, react, css read more

I was a tech support/IT dude bored with solving the same problems over and over. Then I graduated App Academy, made some really awesome friends, and got a job as an app developer. If I did it, you can do it! I highly recommend. read more

The program is very fast paced! Prepare to work hard every day for long hours. But that being said, the course structure and curriculum are very well designed, and definitely provide a rock solid foundation for a career in software engineering. We learned all the layers of full stack web development, with special emphasis on core computer science concepts (algorithmic complexity, data structures, OOP, security principles etc) which I think sets App Academy apart from other coding programs. I sincerly doubt I could have become the coder that I am today without App Academy. Landed my first job as a frontend developer at a growing company in Financial District and I owe a lot to App Academy. read more

Definitely my most sleep deprived stretch in my life, but for good reason. The stress and pressure of weekly assessments is intense and only the truly committed will survive. I have learned so much since graduating App Academy. You get daily instruction and help from the TAs', but it is on you to learn all the material. The path is laid out nice and clear, but it is you who must walk it. You truly only get from the course as much as you put in. The best learning experience in my life. read more

Poor company, don't waste your time, education cost you 23.000$ it is crazy for nothing. After graduation you will work for this company for jumpstart or boot cam or do interview new students. No job read more

I graduated from a/A NYC as a part of the March 2014 cohort. I was a business student at NYU at the time and wanted to learn how to program in order to prototype my own ideas. I made the decision to drop my minor, graduate a semester early and attend App Academy in lieu of my spring semester. I knew very little about programming other than small but ultimately futile attempts to self teach. I found that it was difficult to ascertain what languages to learn, how to learn them, and ultimately how all they all fit together. App Academy provided the structure and guidance I needed to steadily learn and build my skills without falling into the traps I encountered while self teaching. That being said, it proved to be very rigorous and required a great deal of dedication. This only better prepared me for landing a job as a software engineer. After being hired and seeing prospective employees from other bootcamps it became clear to me that App Academy is in the top tier of programming bootcamps. Overall an invaluable experience. read more