There was some bait-and-switch with regard to their "free unless/until you get a job" pitch. I think the competition for students in the space is increasing pressure, and oversight is probably a necessary thing.
In my opinion, students who went on to A-list companies probably could have gotten a job without the bootcamp. But the offer is still compelling if you get a couple months of intense introduction to an in-demand framework, and don't pay anything out-of-pocket (App Academy collects when you get hired).
As an aside, I met most of the first class of App Academy. I was really impressed with Ned's teaching as well as the progress Hugo and a couple of the others were making. It was seeing that that lead me to go to an immersive school and it was one of the best investments I've ever made.
If you didn't take the job, well, they'd fulfilled things, and got you a(n undesirable) job.
That's not to say it's happening here, of course. I'm sure some of these programs are great. But it's something people should consider when looking at any program like this, especially unregulated ones.
The people from my cohort are not just statistics to me. I know them personally, and all I can say is that they are very satisfied with how things have turned out.
Also note that with App Academy, the tuition is a percentage of your first year's salary. So the company is incentivized to ensure that students get a job (and the highest paying one they can), because otherwise they don't get paid.
I like App Academy's percentage-based approach. That's definitely putting their money where their mouth is. I think the only thing undemonstrated for me is how much difference their program makes. It'd be interesting to take their pre App-Academy resumes and put them in the hands of a good recruiter.
It can be difficult for people who have not experienced it to understand the sort of progress you can make in such a short period of time. I obviously can't speak as to the other hiring bootcamps, but the guided pair programming approach taken by App Academy is very effective for rapid hands-on learning. I had taken a CS class or two prior to App Academy, and the difference is night and day.
Also, there is more to the program than just technical learning. There is a 3 week hiring bootcamp, where everyone works together on the job search process, under the guidance of an App Academy hiring instructor. For people new to the tech industry, this is very effective at bringing them up to speed on how hiring works in tech.
At this point, there are many companies that employ App Academy alumni (including thoughtbot, Facebook, Vimeo, Hipmunk, Twilio, and Zendesk), and many have realized the quality of its graduates, and so whenever a new cohort is getting close to graduation, managers from those companies come to a "demo day," where students can show their capstone projects and get interviews.
I'm not saying that's what they're doing, of course I'm just saying that in this market a strong hiring rate alone doesn't prove anything about the program.
The big difference now for me is that in 1999, the tools were much more primitive. Then, it was more plausible to me that somebody smart with a little technical training could just leap in and figure a lot out. Now, though, the technologies are much more elaborate.
What seems really odd to me, is that the market for creative talent seems to want the cheapest, least skilled talent for some reason. I suspect this has something to do with how we as a culture value creative art labor versus programming labor.