App Academy is an intensive web development course in San Francisco

We're sorry to say we couldn't accept your proposal for funding. Please don't take it personally. The applications we receive get better every funding cycle, and since there's a limit on the number of startups we can interview in person, we had to turn away a lot of genuinely promising groups.

Another reason you shouldn't take this personally is that we know we make lots of mistakes. It's alarming how often the last group to make it over the threshold for interviews ends up being one that we fund. That means there are surely other good groups that fall just below the threshold and that we miss even interviewing.

http://ycombinator.com/whynot.html

We're trying to get better at this, but the hard limit on the number of interviews means it's practically certain that groups we rejected will go on to create successful startups. If you do, we'd appreciate it if you'd send us an email telling us about it; we want to learn from our mistakes.

Y Combinator Team

If you're willing to give us a second chance, I'd be happy to port over your friend's application. You can reach me at kush@appacademy.io.

We have also spent considerable time reviewing traditional CS topics like algorithms and data structures.

We're a couple weeks away from hiring day, but companies including Apple, airbnb, Lytro and Twilio have signed up. These companies are making the investment to send senior engineers to hiring day; they don't do this lightly.

To my mind, we're not underpricing Dev Bootcamp. Our focus in pricing is to change the risk equation for students. We want to lower the barrier to entry for the tech jobs market. We also want students to know that we are really committed/invested in them.

The big difference from student loans: students only pay us if the course actually works :-)

Our first batch students are just beginning their final projects. You can check out what they have to say here: http://appacademy.io/alumni

The difference in the pricing model here is that you don't have to pay it back should things go pear-shaped after the course. Obviously, it's in their interest to secure 100% placement, but at least it's not a financial burden on a student if it doesn't work out. This is an important consideration for some people: these bootcamps are sometimes a last resort for people jump starting a new career after long bouts of unemployment in the current economy. As good as any of these schools are, the risk of dedicating months to a program and taking on additional debt with no guarantee of a job is a tough thing to swallow.

1. We help you arrange housing by connecting you to other App Academy students moving to SF, as well as by connecting you to local hacker/startup houses, but ultimately accommodation is the responsibility of the student.

2. We have accepted international students in the past, and will continue to do so. However, we unfortunately don't have the resources to help you with visas.

3. The only difference for entrepreneurs is the payment plan.

We taught Ruby/Rails for the first 3 weeks of the current iOS course; several of our alumni directly speak to their experiences learning Rails in their testimonials. That said, the most important (and hardest) concepts to learn through these programs are the fundamental skills of software development (how to model a real-world problem, how to design a solution, how to debug...). Those core, essential skills are common to both Rails and iOS, as well as any other software development work.

It took me about 1 month here to cover the same amount of material that took me 1 year to cover on my own. Being self taught is great, but learning in a classroom full of equally motivated students guided by an incredible teacher is even better. If I get stuck, I can turn to any of my fellow students and they'll help me out. Likewise, I often learn the most by helping others get unstuck. And, of course, our instructor is always there to help us think about problems in new ways. He gives lectures daily and then for the rest of the day he helps us out in a more personal, one on one basis. His great skill is his ability to break down complicated ideas and present them in an easy to understand manner.

While I could learn all of this on my own, it's hard to overvalue the effect of learning in an accelerated environment like the App Academy provides.

I've actually been blogging daily about my experience at the App Academy. You can check that out here: http://krisallenfields.tumblr.com/

http://www.quora.com/Computer-Programming/What-are-the-best-...

We want to expand the business and teach all the things! The iOS class will be back as soon as we can run them both simultaneously :-)

Anyone know of opportunities in San Diego?

A program like this would be like Knewton online for GMAT training. They charge $500 per program and can't begin to charge $10k. The other point is that these programs are set up to find great people, teach them to code and then hook them up with a company looking for great people who can code (go figure).

The company that is going to win will set up courses like this in multiple cities, SF, NYC, Chicaco, etc. and build an online component.

I look forward to seeing what companies the alumni work for and project they build.

Like the other commenter, I completely disagree. The reason these programs work is because they are in person with heavy accountability structures, rapid sharing of knowledge, and an amazing community building.

I honestly can't see any of these working nearly as well as the in person programs. You have to be involved, invested 9, 10, 11 hours a day. Your fellow students will pull you up if they see you slacking or not working hard enough. They'll help you when you're down.

There are a lot of challenges on how to teach effectively online, and we have certainly learned a ton over the past few months. We are graduating about 20~30 students now every month.

Can talk more if there is interest.

I'm part of their fall cohort that's about to start and so far it's been great.