Selecting a bootcamp was no small feat. Considering that I live in a tech hotspot, there was an abundance of options. It was just a matter of picking a couple to apply to and discerning whether or not it was the best option for me.

Thankfully, I had a former roommate that graduated from App Academy and he referred me to an incredible article by Haseeb Qureshi. His post, Cracking the Coding Bootcamp, was my bible while I was applying to bootcamps. And I followed his advice to the T, this included getting started with Codecademy.

At this point, I already had determined that a/A would be my top choice given my former roommate’s success with the program, as well as reading about the rigorous application process, and the tuition deferral model. a/A’s application process is conducted favorably in Ruby, that and hearing about how Ruby is an easier language to start with, I made the jump and started learning Ruby on Codecademy.

According to Haseeb’s article, it was advised that I apply to back-up coding bootcamps while preparing to apply App Academy. That said, I had to find coding bootcamps that would serve well as back-ups. I first did a google search for bootcamps within the Bay Area and was directed to some great sites with lists of the top 10 bootcamps in mainly San Francisco (which was where majority of the bootcamps were located), among the resources was a website called Course Report, which held a wealth of information on coding bootcamps nation wide. This was where I spent majority of my time as I was able to research factors like: application process, curriculum, positive and negative reviews, and even bootcamp vs bootcamp comparisons.

I prioritized bootcamps that focused on teaching Ruby or conducted their application process in Ruby. Javascript bootcamps followed. While I did decide on a Ruby bootcamp as my first choice, in my research, another bootcamp with a notable reputation was Hack Reactor, a Javascript bootcamp. Given Hack Reactor’s seeming prestige, I decided to make it my number 2 choice despite it being a JavaScript school. I figured that if I didn’t get accepted into a/A, that I would just learn JavaScript and apply to Hack Reactor. I applied to these two bootcamps last so that I could get coding and interview practice with the other schools I wasn’t keen on attending.

I created a list of back-up bootcamps and organized the bootcamps first in terms of languages, then in the order I would be applying. I started off with sending applications and inquiries to Coding Dojo, General Assembly, Anyone Can Learn to Code and Coder Camp to recall a few. Some of these coding bootcamps had low barriers of entry. They had fairly easy coding and entrance challenges that were preceded by tutorials or exercises to prepare for the interview process.

I wasn’t kidding when I said these bootcamps had lower barrier of entries. With the exception of General Assembly, I was accepted without a coding challenge or technical interview, despite reading online that some of these, like Coding Dojo, had technical interviews. General Assembly required some prep with HTML and CSS, as well as some very minor JavaScript, but overall, the coding challenge and technical interview was fairly easy. It’s worth it to note that while I sent an inquiry to Coder Camps, I found out they had a $100 application fee and immediately crossed them off my list. All the other bootcamps didn’t have application fees and instead used coding challenges as a means of assessing commitment to learning how to code.

I won’t go into the details of my application process to a/A in this post, it’ll be in the next post. But to transition into the next stage in selecting a bootcamp, it should be preceded by saying that during the application process for a/A I received what I call, a “conditional rejection.” This conditional rejection stated that I would need to reapply after 30 days and only after completing the first 30 problems from Project Euler. It was at this point that I hit an all time low with the application process and decided to seek some insight and feedback to my process and how I should proceed. This was when I decided to reach out to Haseeb and see if he was interested in having lunch with me while hopefully going over my application process and what I could do to better improve my acceptance chances at App Academy. Fortunately, he accepted! I’m forever grateful I got the chance to speak to him. His insight was infinitely appreciated. I’ll go further into detail in the next post, but a little nugget of advice that was given to me was that instead of having Coding Dojo as a back-up, he recommended that I apply to Dev Bootcamp as a back-up. I won’t go into the specifics of why, but after researching and applying to Dev Bootcamp, I could see the difference between the two bootcamps and why he felt Dev Bootcamp was the better option.

Fortunately, Dev Bootcamp was also a Ruby bootcamp and at this point, having had a couple months in Ruby under my belt from applying to a/A, Dev Bootcamp’s application process was relatively easy and I got my acceptance within hours of applying. With the acceptance to Dev Bootcamp, and a great talk with Haseeb, I was pretty much ready to dive right back in and re-focus on my a/A application.

That’s it for this week! In the next post, I’ll go as in depth as I can into my application process at App Academy. Thanks for tuning in, I’ll talk to you guys next time!