App Academy

7000
App Academy

App Academy helps students advance their career as a web developer. Get a thorough training building web applications with Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, and React/Redux. Prior programming experience isn't required. There are campuses in New York City and San Francisco.

What Will You Learn at App Academy School?

The App Academy offers full-time courses, bootcamps and bootcamp preparations.

The full-time software engineering program will take you through Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, React/Redux, SQL, Advanced Algorithms, Data Structures, Job Search and much more. The course lasts 12 weeks and takes place at San Francisco and New York campuses from 9am to 6pm, Monday to Friday.

What Are The Benefits of App Academy?

The App Academy offers various tuition options based on job guarantee. You pay $0 tuition until you secure a job. App Academy offers plenty of resources for job searching, helping you present yourself in the right way. Although of course finding a job completely depends on you, having professionals who will help you and give you the right direction, can become the great place to start.

Moreover, App Academy, unlike some other bootcamps out there boasts great employment record and are willing to put their money where their mouth is.

What Are the Disadvantages of App Academy?

Based on numerous reviews, App Academy has a very rigorous and selective applicant screening process - it is not that easy to get in. You have to complete some challenging coding tasks in order to be accepted, which means you have to have some knowledge base before you apply. But on the bright side, they do offer bootcamp preparation courses, so if you have little to none programming skills, it will makes sense to inquire about those first.

The App Academy Costs & Tuition Plans

The App Academy offers plenty of programs and options, depending on your level, requirements and so on. However their most popular immersive full-time program option costs the total of USD28,000 (USD25,000 tuition + USD3,000 refundable deposit).

The App Academy strives to offer equal opportunities to all students: they offer three payment options, two of which provide a placement guarantee.

Placement Based

Total when placed: USD28,000

Total when not placed: USD0

Upfront

Total due intial payment (placed or not placed): USD17,000

Hybrid

Total when not placed: USD9,000

Total when placed: USD14,000

What Is the App Academy Curriculum?

The App Academy curriculum is based on JavaScript and Ruby. The major focus of the entire course is to equip students with the skills that are most sought after by emoloyers. This is why App Academy is able to guarantee the tuition payment based on placement.

The course is divided into three parts:

  • Week 1-5: Ruby on Rails and SQL
  • Week 6-9: JavaScript, Redux and React
  • Week 10-12: Algorithms and Career Support

Is App Academy Legit: Will You Be Employable?

App Academy has great job and emloyment statisitcs, which seem to be rather legit. And here is why:

The times when companies only hired college graduates are long gone. Comanies are looking for people who are able to produce the results and offer the right set of skills they are looking for. App Academy is focused on equipping its students with exactly the skills that employers need, thus being a bootcamp graduate gives you as many chances to find employment as any college or university grads: it all depends on what you CAN DO, rather than on WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNT.

App Academy offers highly relevant curriculum that you will actually need when looking for a job. Buulding on the previous point, you do not need to study 4 years in order to deliver a set of skills that companies are looking for. With App Academy's targeted course, you will acquire the right know-how to become highly employable.

App Academy will provide the right learning structure and deliver the material for fast and immersive learning. Sure, there are plenty of web developers who are self-taught, however joining a bootcamp can provide the right 'structure' to your learning process and will put you in a position where it is easier to build on your knowledge rather than tackle the learning on your own.

Licensed:
Type of school:
  • In-Class
Total Cost:
18% of your starting salary
Deposit:
$3,000
Focus:
  • Ruby on Rails
Length:
12 weeks
EliottE 15:12
+1
  • Curriculum
  • Job Support
  • Overall Experience
This program is the real deal. Coming into the experience I had limited coding knowledge and uncertain job prospects. In twelve weeks I gained more useable skills than over the entirety of my undergraduate career. App Academy assumes you are already a well-rounded person coming in (their selection process makes sure of it), so they don't waste time on anything other than teaching you what you need to know to get a specific type of in-demand job. My classmates and teachers were inspiring and part of a positive learning environment. As a result of the program I have already gotten an exciting job offer with a queue of interviews. If you're passionate about getting into coding professionally definitely apply!
FelixTheCat 15:14
+1
  • Curriculum
  • Job Support
  • Overall Experience
The impression I and my cohort-mates got was that there's a world of difference between the SF and NYC branches. The SF has all the founders, all the energy, and all the expertise. The NYC branch has a set of (very) unpolished tutorials written by Ned, the Rails guru at in SF (who we never met or interacted with).

In my cohort, the instructors seemed to completely checked out / phoning it in, and their inexperience was palpable (to be fair, perhaps they were just in over their heads). By the end of the program much of our nights were spent criticizing the program's management and wondering if we were being scammed.

In hindsight, all this is written into its business model. Most of us found AA appealing because we thought their incentives would be aligned with ours, but that's not necessarily so. If you have instructors who are unscrupulous or lazy or in over their heads (or, to be charitable, overworked and underpaid), it'd be pretty easy to just coast and let AA collect its cut when students get hired, which they will, because they have to eat and will do what it takes.

Which means you don't necessarily need to put as much effort into preparing them as you might if they weren't already on the hook. Even with good instructors, I'd wager that in the long run any organization would figure this out and tend toward that low-effort equilibrium.

And of course, students will generally keep quiet about all this because it's in their own interest that the school be seen to have a good reputation.

For me, AA is a case study in how easily education can turn into a Ponzi scheme.

Speaking of which, wasn't AA started by a pair of recent Dev Bootcamp grads? Hmm…
FelixTheCat 15:15
  • Curriculum
  • Job Support
  • Overall Experience
To add some more concrete detail to my previous post: 1) The curriculum is fairly strong in its design but gets weaker as the course progresses, by the end of the program it descends into piles links to external resources. 2a) The signal-to-noise ratio also degrades over time. It's like they got to the halfway point, started losing motivation, and then figured out they could appeal to Agile methodology as an excuse for why the remaining curriculum was a half-finished mess. 2b) Students are enlisted in the business of error-checking the curriculum (oh but it'll help teach you Git! Right. And laboring under erroneous instructions for a while helps build character...). 3) Algorithms and data structures weren't covered at all except for some links and a few sample problems at the end of the program. This was a serious stumbling block for me during initial interviews, but of course I learned it...among other reasons, because I have to feed myself, no thanks to AA (see the broader problem there?) 4) At least in my cohort, the instructors were extremely inexperienced 5) BUT: The biggest added value of AA was the other students. It's really great pairing with people and you do feel like you're learning fast. (However, Meetups offer this for free, services like AirPair for much less than 18% of your salary. Most of what you're paying for in a dev bootcamp is the curriculum and guidance from instructors.)
Marcin 16:26
+1
  • Curriculum
  • Job Support
  • Overall Experience
Programm in App Academy is cool. I learned a lot of cool stuff from there. So I can strongly recommend App Academy to anyone who wants to learn coding. My review for App Academy is strongly positive!

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