tl; dr After a lot of struggle, I graduated from Dev Bootcamp San Francisco. Then I couldn’t get hired as a developer. Now I regret the experience.

Note that I can comment only on the experience at Dev Bootcamp San Francisco. I haven't been to the other locations. I completed DBC before the Kaplan acquisition.

One factor that convinced me to attend Dev Bootcamp were the glowing reviews offered by previous students. Nobody, it seemed, had a bad experience. But what was really happening is that the program's failures--the people who dropped out, the students who didn't learn enough useful skills, the ones who couldn't get jobs afterward--just didn't write or talk about it.

I thought the Dev Bootcamp curriculum was terrific. The material was very structured, proceeded thoughtfully, and was based on common programming tasks. Each day's exercises had about 2x more work to do than could be completed that day. I heard something about this motivating students to always have something to strive for.

When I attended, there were too few instructors. There were part-time "coaches," Dev Bootcamp graduates, who came in nights and weekends. It was hard getting personal assistance or extra instruction during the day. I was disappointed that the mentors program had been discontinued, because I think I would've done better with at least one person I could count on for questions.

The atmosphere could be very juvenile. The youngest, noisiest, brashest students set the tone. If you thrived on sociable "all-nighters" to get through college, you'll do fine at DBC; the energy is the same.

There's a strong emphasis on pair-programming at DBC. I found it a great way to build rapport with the other students. I don't think I learned as much as when I worked on the exercises on my own, which we were allowed to do only certain days and after 6 P.M. So I went through many of the exercises twice, once with my assigned pair and then again by myself. I wasn't the only student in my cohort doing this.

Do not attend Dev Bootcamp expecting a Golden Ticket to the San Francisco tech scene. It's not very easy getting a job as a junior developer here; employers want at least a year's professional Rails experience on your resume first. The DBC grads hired most quickly were getting jobs outside the Bay Area. Others had job searches stretching into six months and longer. Many of us sent out about 70-100 resumes before getting an appropriate job offer. I was enticed by this statistic on the Dev Bootcamp website: “over 90% of the graduates looking for a job found one within 2 months graduation, with an average starting salary of over $80k.” Well, four months after graduation only about 40% of my cohort was working as developers, in any language, for any price. I feel swindled.

I think you should have lower expectations for Dev Bootcamp if you:

- can't be onsite 10-12 hours/day, at least 5 days/week
- don't learn well in "all-nighter" or "cram school" situations
- need quiet time alone to study new material
- can't relocate for a job
- don't already have U.S. work authorization
- can't afford to go without income for at least 6 months (3-4 for attending DBC; 3+ for finding a job)

In retrospect, I would've done better keeping my day job and taking online courses part-time.

I find it very irritating that bootcamp founders chime in on questions like this and that other people don't call them out as completely biased. This is not a place to add your take. Your sites have this info all over it. This is the one place people can go and possibly get a completely honest and personal viewpoint on what its really like to attend a bootcamp. Let's start calling these folks out because I see it all over Quora.

I had a bad experience at a bootcamp and I'm not going to name where, and I'll tell you why and why other's don't either: it makes me look bad because it's on my LinkedIn and resume. If I criticize the bootcamp, I'm criticizing my own claim to a certain amount of skills.

Here's why ALL bootcamps have the ability to suck at any time and why people don't come out about it:

• The teachers constantly change. Often the "main" instructors remain but they don't actually teach 90% of the classes. TAs who went to the school teach a lot, either immediately or after a year out in the world. This is odd to me. Go out and get that 80-100K programming job you went to this school to get. Other schools just keep rotating teachers. But even if the don't rotate teachers, teaching is an actual skill and it bothers me that bootcamps think anyone can do it. At the boocamp I went to, the engineers who taught at it were good engineers but bad teachers, with maybe a handful of good days. There are actual studies done on how people learn, things they probably would have learned if they actually set out to be a teacher. Because these bootcamps are not regulated, no one can do anything about this. No one can force these teachers to learn how to teach. I felt so bad for my peers. I had taught myself stuff on my own like JavaScript and saw the instruction, it was horrible. They just kind of floundered.
• Bootcamps will sue you or threaten to sue you for slander if you say anything really negative without proof. I've heard it happening and seen [redacted] posts where you know the only reason to do that is a possible lawsuit.
• Since they aren't regulated they can report whatever claims about hiring they want. The bootcamp I went to claimed some crazy 80% number. But that number was based on them getting graduates internships at this one horrible design agency that had 4 employees, and took on tons of interns, having them do menial labor. It was a weird deal between the bootcamp and agency. The rest of the number was just a fabrication. Also, there is one bootcamp where I see people claim to be a Software Engineer at that bootcamp for 2 years, not a hacker in residence, not a TA, but an engineer there. What is that about?
• Certain bootcamps were scooped up by the same company that own major for profit colleges that have come under fire lately for absolutely shady recruitment practices. One of those bootcamps responded on this page.
• When people are lost, sometimes they don't know how to ask a question because they are so lost. So when the bad teacher says, "Any questions?" they will sit there silently because they don't have a specific question just an overall feeling of being lost and they don't want to appear that lost because its embarrassing. Good teachers instead ask specific questions and possibly call on people to gauge the classroom.

I could go on and on, but basically you'll never know what you're getting. Try to go to a bootcamp AFTER trying to learn on your own for at least 3 months while working on on your own. You're about to pay $10-15K right? Take some of that and learn on your own. People learn better when they have something to attach new information to. I read that in a book while attending when I was so frustrated and realized I had to teach myself, and in order to do that, I'd have to understand how people learn. Also, find a school that has a baseline for accepting students that you are currently at otherwise you will either be completely bored or you'll feel this constant sensation of drowning. I'm not going to lie, I still hold out hope that a couple of bootcamps actually are great for the majority of its students, but there is zero way to know from class to class.

Disclosure: I recently graduated from Hack Reactor

To answer your question bluntly: yes, people have bad experiences. You can check Yelp and see lots of dissatisfaction with certain programs. Also, it's common for one or two people to drop out of a class. In my cohort at Hack Reactor, one student dropped out within the first 2 weeks because he didn't like the fast pace. It's not like he was too stupid to handle it, but he simply didn't like it. That said, he exited the program with no regrets, so it wasn't a total loss, I guess.

In my own experience (Hack Reactor) there were some scheduling problems with the last 2 weeks of the program. My cohort was supposed to receive a ton of great job search support, but we could only get about 66-75% of what was expected. Part of the problem was that an instructor had an emergency. Another part of the problem was that my graduation overlapped winter holidays (bad time for job hunting).

So that was a bad experience, but Hack Reactor made up for it by providing us with a TON of post-graduation job search support. In a way, we were unlucky and then we were lucky because Hack Reactor got more office space and they were able to schedule some good lectures and mock interviews for us. That said, the timing still hurts some students who didn't expect to have their job hunt delayed. For example, being unemployed for a few extra weeks hurts the wallet and I know one student had to fly back home after graduation so he can't take full advantage of the post-graduation support.

To answer the broader question of how to "know the whole story": There's quite a bit of research you can do to get positive and negative feedback.

If you have time, go to tech meetups.
Before I started applying to bootcamps, I went to programming meetups just to get my feet wet (they also helped motivate me). I inadvertently met a handful of bootcamp students/alumni after attending 5 or so meetups. By chatting with these people, I got a few interesting insights about 3 different bootcamps (but not Hack Reactor). I won't share what I heard because it almost feels like gossip, and the opinions were from July/August of 2013, so they could be outdated/irrelevant. Remember to gather negative feedback about bootcamps with a grain of salt much like how you consume positive feedback.

Search the Internet like crazy (not just Quora).
- Yelp: for reviews of course
- Facebook/Twitter: lots of programs share insight about "life at [insert school here]" on their social media feeds. You might get glimpses of photos that show how fun the program can be, what guest speakers make visits, etc.
- YouTube/Vimeo: you can find promo videos that show you what kind of workspace is available, but you can also find vlogs from attendees.
- Blogs: for me, blogs were especially valuable. I noticed that Hack Reactor student blogs focused on the awesome learning experience and environment. Dev Bootcamp blogs were similarly positive, but they also described a bit more week night drinking/partying than I expected. Anyways, my point is that blogs tend to be very honest about sharing moments of struggle or dissatisfaction. It's pretty easy to find relevant blogs, but let me know if you need some specific pointers.

If you want to know the whole story, I think reading small blogs will be much better than asking Quora thanks to anonymity and whatnot. For example, bootcamp owners seem to browse Quora to provide rebuttals but there is no fear of reprisal on blogs.

Shameless self-promotion:
I've blogged extensively about my own experiences with researching bootcamps. You can check out my findings starting with this post:
[Coding Bootcamp Research] How to Compare Bootcamps
I've written about good and bad experiences with applying to other bootcamps. I've also written about good and bad details of my Hack Reactor experience, but it's mostly good so don't expect to find much "dirt."

Don't forget about the value of interviews.
I know applications take a lot of time, but I think it's worth it to apply and get interviews to inform yourself. Some bootcamps seemed impressive until I interviewed with them.

On the other hand, before I interviewed with Hack Reactor, I had done a ton of research, and I was certain that Hack Reactor was NOT my top choice. After I interviewed with them, I changed my mind because I visited their HQ, I loved the atmosphere, their community culture felt great, etc. So the interview process motivated me to reconsider and spend more time researching Hack Reactor. I'm so glad I interviewed with them despite my initial reservations.

Dev Bootcamp

The program was a positive experience for me in my November 2013 graduation cohort. It is painful to write so many negative things, but is what the question is asking about, and there are plenty of places to find rose colored materials. The school did have some unexpected and some falsely advertised negatives. I also have some gripes with the state of the coding bootcamp industry in general because I think the bootcamp industry is falling far short of its potential.

High Tuition

I feel that $12,200 is way too much to charge for a 9 week 40 hours/week program. That comes down to $33.89 per hour of teacher instruction at an 11:1 student:teacher ratio. I feel teachers should be the biggest expense, but the camp runs off billing students $373/teaching hour when they are more likely paid in the realm of $50/teaching hour. There are a lot of other perks to the camp, but I don't think it comes in the form of x7.5 the value of a teacher/hour.
Call it capitalism, but this is a new market with more demand than supply, so companies can get away with ripping students off.

Bad Core Technology Stack

This is more due to my own poor research before starting, but I chose a Rails bootcamp because I enjoyed writing Ruby more than Javascript, and Dev Bootcamp had a safe brand name. There are still many Rails jobs, but it's becoming more blatantly obvious that Javascript is the way to go. Had I known this, and that the Coffeescript framework makes Javascript read/write more like Ruby/Python, then I would have gone to a Javascript school. Yet, I was just starting out and didn't know much about the industry. Most graduates now will look back a couple months later and wish they had learned Javascript/Node instead.

Slow Job Acquisition

I figured students would search for jobs after graduating and find them in the usual 1-2.5 months. This might have been true 6 months prior, but it seemed to take an average of 3-5 months for people to find jobs after graduating, and some still haven't. This is a long time for a 2.25 month program. Most students are still unprepared to get jobs after graduating and must spend many months perfecting their skills to become employable.
Many lost motivation to continue coding regularly between discouragement at not finding an initial job and wanting to recover from such an intense program.

Poor Management

The schools are so profitable and, I imagine, most lack actual business people in management. Dev Bootcamp hired back students as coaches who worked really random inconsistent hours (I reckon students only used around 4-5 hours of help from coaches the entire program). They also made a bunch of hires without the company or the employees knowing their job role, so they often just sat around getting paid.
When you are making so much profit, it's near impossible to fail.

Bad Lectures

So far as I know, none of my 6 teachers had any previous teaching experience, and all but one were terrible lecturers. It was well known in my cohort, and among the teachers, that they were hard to follow and would often write code quickly without explaining what they were doing and the majority of the class wouldn't be able to follow along.

Lack of Structure

The curriculum itself often changed so quickly that people from different phases worked on entirely different projects and were learning different things at different times. With little centralized planning teachers would have to ask students what they knew. Flexibility and personalization are good, but you'd think after a year of instruction the school would have honed down on a good working subject matter/exercise/project flow.

Lack of Attention to Freelancing and Entrepreneurship

No attention was paid to freelancing. I gave a talk on it, and the teachers said negative things about freelancing. I view freelancing as a valid way to get paid while you continue learning in search of a job on so many levels. Good freelancers also make more money, can work from home, and get to cherry pick the projects they want to work on. I don't think it's for everybody, but students should at least be made aware that it's an option.
The same goes for entrepreneurship. There is such a narrow-mindedness on finding a job that entrepreneurship is entirely ignored, and even shunned by some teachers.

Lack of Employer Recruiting
There were only 1-3 companies present at final presentations for the 4 cohorts I saw go through. When I applied I had an impression there would be around 9-12.

Lack of Guest Speakers
It was advertised there would be speakers every week, but I found this to be more like every two weeks.

Long Wait Time

After spending all my time filling out my application, I was kind of insulted to see a 4 month waitlist for the San Francisco camp I wanted to attend. This is information they should have made available prior to applying.

Again, I DID have an overall positive overall experience at Dev Bootcamp, these are just my bad experiences. You're also going to get just as much out of your fellow students as you get out of the program itself. If your'e interested in coding, bootcamps offer a much higher value proposition than traditional college degrees, and going to one is a smart bet.

EDIT: Since this post I've become a mentor at Bloc | Online Coding Bootcamp for Developers and Web Designers, an online coding school with a mentorship model. I believe it to be the most cost/time efficient bootcamp if you're able to mostly self-motivate.

It's funny. Many people have bad experiences doing many things - dining out, store purchase, college. But for some reason no one wants to say anything, ruffle feathers, or be scrutinized especially if it seems like you're the only one having problems. That's the same thing that happened in bootcamp. I attended Coder Camps in Houston, TX and for a while I felt like I was the only one troubled by my experience after week 3. I stayed silent during week 4 but after awhile, I knew I had to say something. I spoke to my own troop and previous troops and learned that many were having bad experiences but they were willing to suck it up as long as they got jobs after they graduated.

I spent 9 weeks in the program and the first 3 weeks were awesome with Alex, one of the instructors. At first, I felt that I was receiving a fine education but after that everything went down the toilet. That's when I learned that I was a "guinea pig", part of an experiment. For what I was paying to be educated, I didn't have the patience to deal with adjustments and improvements that should have been in place before hand. Many improvements weren't coming fast enough, things mentioned since week 1 had not been addressed by week 8. What was worse is that, in my opinion, I felt that Coder Camps was growing too big, too fast, with little regard to its students/customers. Nick, another instructor, was educated but he couldn't reteach everything we may have missed out on.

I personally wouldn't recommend attending. But I know that convenience will definitely be a factor for many people - location, deferred payment option, length of program. But to be quite fair, if you're dedicated enough to research bootcamps (for days, maybe even weeks on end), you can definitely learn on your own. The scary part is really knowing where to start but the real secret is, it honestly doesn't matter what language you pick. Just follow a couple of tracks from Udacity or Udemy or PluralSight (highly recommend this one), build a couple of things to put on your resume (Sample Resume for an Entry-Level Software Engineer), then apply to a ton of jobs. Your goal is just to get your foot in the door and get an on-the-job software developer mentor. You don't need a bootcamp for that.

Coder Camps does have nice facilities in Houston. You will learn something. Plus meeting new people in your troop does make it less horrible. Recruiters rarely come and visit - in the time I was there only 1 visit (there are troops coming and going every 3 weeks which means that for some, they see no one). There are in-house recruiters but the "magical list" of companies Coder Camps works with was never produced to me, even though we're supposed to receive it upon graduation. There was no mock interview. Everything that comes standard with other bootcamps you have to ask for, even then you probably wouldn't get it.

In case you're wondering, I worked hard, did my assignments, passed my exams, even graduated. However, this does not change how I feel. For me, getting a job is not the end all - the quality of my education was very important to me. Coder Camps, for its price, was not the best quality. Maybe it's improved though.

If you want to learn how to code on your own, you can do so for far less money with books or online training. If you pay thousands of dollars to go to a class, make sure the instructor has multiple years of coding experience for an actual software company and will grade your code. Bootcamp companies don’t count for experience, and make sure the instructor will grade your code rather than TA’s. Don’t fall for false confidence, because they keep giving you 100% on your assignments. If you aren’t getting what you think you should after even a week or two, bail while you can possibly get some money back.

Yeah, not me but I’ve met and heard about others who have and this includes the top ones.

First, a lot of those who attend and find jobs are already Computer Science or similar majors. For them, it’s about fast-track learning the most popular stacks used among startups.

The issue is for those who do not have that background. They may be good enough at whatever the schools are using to judge acceptance but to an employer, they may immediately dismiss them due to the lack of a CS or related degree.

For this reason, if you have the opportunity, go back to actual university and take whatever program you can there. It doesn’t need to be a whole new 4 year major, just some sort of official academic degree and at the same time you can still learn what is taught in the bootcamps.

Second, the competition at the entry level is just insane right now and there are very few true “junior”/entry level positions. Among the few junior positions listed, most still have very high requirements including 1–2 years of professional experience! The good ol’ days of being able to easily get your foot in the door ended around the same time the bootcamps started. Employers are also getting more and more demanding in what they expect of applicants.

Third, as mentioned by a couple of others here, bootcamps are notorious for their aggressive online grassroots marketing and those who attend the school praising it to an extreme like they’re in some sort of cult. The reason the former do it is obvious, the latter is due to those praising it being among the successful (see 2nd paragraph above) or they’re hoping their excessive praise results in them getting preferential treatment in job search assistance and possibly being hired by the bootcamp. They also want it to have/keep a positive reputation since they attended and spent a lot of money on it.

Before you go to any for profit computer school you need to know what percentage of those who pay the tuition get the jobs they are training for. Many students drop out. They rarely get their money back. If the school is reluctant to give you that percentage, do not go to that school. If the school gives you a number, do not trust it. Ask the Better Business Bureau.

Walk around the school and talk to students. By the time they are ready to graduate they will have a good idea how valuable the training is. Again, if you are not allowed to do that, do not go to that school.

Call companies you would like to work for. Tell them what your background is. Ask them if they would be interested in interviewing you if you complete the course.

I'm not currently in, planning, or ever have been in a coding bootcamp, but I did apply to Hack Reactor when I was still interested.

The technical interview went fine for me; I successfully solved the technical interview questions, I asked a lot of questions, and overall just had a lot to say. But the thing is, I believe I was rejected from HR even before I started the technical interview. Why? Well at the beginning of the interview, I was talking about how I'd only been coding for a year, but had done a lot of stuff in such a short amount of time. It went something like,"Yeah, I did APCS in high school which was mostly algorithms, so I could see why a lot of people didn't like it, but I did for some reason. Then towards the end of my school year, I did my first hackathon and won best overall game. Then in the Summer, I made my first Android app, then after that, I made my own website portfolio. And as of lately, I've been attending a bunch of tech meetups including the algorithms one here. Would you like to see my projects? I have my computer with me." Then there was just this really long pause (about 5 seconds) like my interviewer didn't know what to say, so then I just said,"How about we just talk some more about coding?" And he continued to ask me more about my coding career.

That long pause just makes me think he was overwhelmed or something; it was very awkward on my interviewer's part.

A few weeks later, I got an email saying I didn't get in, but could reapply in a month, BUT I had to have a few projects to present the next time I get interviewed. I was very confused because I knew my portfolio was very impressive for someone who had been coding for less than 8 months AND I even asked my interviewer if he wanted to see my projects. I literally already had all the things the email told me to do. I feel like my interviewer just didn't want to see my projects because he didn't want to believe I had already made a coding portfolio for myself.

So then I just thought,"Screw Hack Reactor." After that, I just applied to a bunch of internships (all unpaid) on Angelist. My first one dealt with iOS development. Second was about teaching coding. And my third was about web development. My second internship has already lead to a part time job teaching code to students and I view my first and third internships as learning experiences.

Also, just to clear things up, these internships were not busy work internships where I made coffee and sorted files (Ok, my second one sort of was, but that one lead to a paying job) ; I actually got to look at and make/fix the source code of very big projects.

Now, I'm still doing my web development internship and the job from my second internship, but on top of that, I'm doing Free Code Camp. I believe it covers a lot of what HR covers, but it's free, so I'm gonna stick with that.

So there's my story; sorry if I sounded really sassy. I just felt like I was wrongly rejected from HR due to my coding portfolio at the time in combination with my interviewer's awkwardness. Looking back, I'm glad I didn't get in because it $18k upfront and I just recently found out about FCC (which you should try before applying to HR!).

I'll speak only to the experience at Dev Bootcamp - Chicago.

What we do is incredibly demanding, and doesn't work for every learning style. We work very, very hard to screen candidates to only the people we are completely confident will succeed at DBC. We also screen for people who will make the people around them wildly successful. Sometimes we make mistakes; that's our failure, not our students.

Data:

Last year, DBC Chicago had roughly 5% of students walk in the door, and walk right back out again in their first week ( with counseling and best wishes from their instructors ). We offer students a tuition refund specifically to encourage this. We only want people who want to be here and can thrive.

Some of those people worked with us a for a week, and realized that they could achieve their goals, and those goals were other than a career in software. One went to a theater bootcamp. Another became a full time musician. Our program asks people to tap into their drives at a deep level, and that does funny things. People who leave are still part of the DBC family, and visit sometimes.

In 2013, two people couldn't learn the material we teach on the very swift pace we work. These students didn't make it through the checkpoints needed to graduate after two attempts through the program. I taught both of them, and it was heartbreaking.

This was one percent of our students, and this was too high. Starting in 2014, we have added a highly structured 9 week prep program to screen students, and give students a chance to see and do the work we ask them to do, while they still have jobs and apartments. Since we have added this, we have had fewer voluntary leaves and no required leaves.

Wrapup:

I will work with any student of mine to figure out what they need to be successful.

Too slow? Here's extra challenges. Too fast? Here's pairing with instructors. Still too fast? Repeat a section by dropping into the following cohort. We do not teach to the average of a lump of students. Unlike most American education, we very much want to adapt and flex our program to meet the needs of the individual humans that learn with us.

I'd encourage you to find graduates of a school you are considering, and ask them about their experiences.

Of course people have bad experiences at bootcamps, just like people have bad experiences with any business that has been around for a while. You're dealing with people, and people are complex creatures.

First, the bootcamp experience is not for just anyone. It can be a high stress affair, not just because of the workload, but because most people aren't working a job while attending, so they're learning a skill that is difficult while watching their savings dwindle.

Second, because people are people, you can have a bad experience because of group dynamics. Personal interviews help reduce this, but sometimes you might just not gel with the group, you may not really like your instructor (as an instructor, I hope my students don't dislike me, but I recognize that when you have a diversity of personalities, not everyone is going to chum up together, but a benefit of having hard working and mature people in the program is that we can get past that with professionalism).

Third, you can learn during the course of the program that you simply don't like programming like you thought you would. Maybe it's too frustrating for you when things don't work the first time, maybe you can't see yourself staying interested in it.

Lastly, personal things in your life can interfere with getting a great experience out of the programs. Illness, death in the family, relationship issues, etc.

The more important issue in my opinion is: if you have a bad experience, how does the program respond? At The Software Guildi we have a well defined refund policy that meets state regulations (since we are certified) but we also have provisions in place for people to repeat our course for free if they need to (whether for personal reasons or if they would need more training before finding that job...) we've only had one person take advantage of it, but we feel good about offering the option.

I would suggest monitoring them as a whole, a lot of these schools are sprouting up and creating a massive industry for producing powerful developers very fast.

With that being said, some of the schools lie. Some are fake, and some are just barely staying in the game I guess.

Just like college recruiters they can become desperate, and potentially not worth the money.

I started looking into developer bootcamps 1 1/2 years ago, When I first started hunting them down not many sites catered to finding the one that fits your unique needs.

Now we have sites like Thinkful, Skilledup, Switchup and Course Report.

Occasionally schools fake their way onto these boards, or they basically scam the students.

America has a lot of issues with schooling laws and there are lots of loop holes for businesses to profit from.

Just because you read something online doesn't mean its guaranteed a great experience.

The really nice Developer bootcamps are hard to get into to begin with without a career, or some strong connections.

Building up on your social skills by promoting confidence in body language during interviews, including over a webcam chat or in person. Talent Acquisition scouts are excellent poker / card players. Meaning they can tell when you are nervous, which a little is okay. Pretty much 100% of developers have some sort of anxiety.

If you can stay positive, speak clear and be honest then all you need to do is build up a profile before hand when they start interviewing you / prescreening your application.

Lots of people think speaking with your hands is bad, but actually it states creativity.

I would also suggest cross checking comments on sites like course report with reddit.

I ran across a school that said they had a 60% acceptance rate and an 80% job placement rate.

As it turns out the school was new, they faked 40+ posts onto the site, made it look real by making multiple accounts.

They then continued to use a word spinner I can only assume, because every post started the same way, and where all the same length

They had only just showed up to the dev bootcamp market, and they claimed to have made the perfect curriculum.

The site looked like it was from 2000, I went and read some nasty reviews on reddit.

Other cases early on where reported of people paying, and going to the school only to find it didn't exist.

I knew it was fake content and excellent reviews, because I was looking at countless other bootcamps and none had near as many reviews, and certainly not all are long.

The best place to look for info on bad experiences is on the ratings and reviews sites:

Course Report
SwitchUp.org
Techendo
Bootcamper.io
Bootcamps.in

I Agree with Jonathan’s post; it is up to the bootcamp to educate the potential student and help them make an informed decision because, well, bootcamps are new and it’s hard to be an educated consumer about something that is brand new. If things don’t work out between us at Launch Academy and a student, we offer a refund (just the right thing to do). That hurts the sustainability of the business, so we’d really rather everything go smoothly and find students who we know are going to be the most successful. I also 100% agree with Eric’s post; what matters most is how the bootcamp adjusts and helps the student. If things don’t work out, the bootcamp absolutely should do the right thing to help the student. Whether that means letting them retake the class, giving extra help, or a refund and walking away.

So, why do students sometimes have bad experiences?

1. Bad Admissions Filtering: It's 100% up to the bootcamp to ensure that unprepared students do not enroll. It's not the students fault if they are admitted, but due to their learning speed or ability to comprehend the material, they aren't able to keep up. That's more a sign that the bootcamp didn't do a good job screening the student. Bootcamps should have a rigorous admissions process to ensure that all students end up having an awesome experience.
2. High student to teacher ratios: If we've learned anything after teaching 6 cohorts of students, its that students need a lot of interaction time with instructors. If you're confused and need help, and nobody's available to help you, you're going to have a bad experience. Over time we've reduced the student to teacher ratio to 7:1.
3. Too much live lecture, not enough recorded material. When you're first starting out, you want to go over the material a few times. Which is hard if the bootcamp emphasizes lecture. Really, the bootcamp should educate students through the flipped classroom, which emphasizes practice instead of lecture.
4. They Didn’t do the Prework - We’ve found that prework is actually a great way of giving the student a softened version of the experience here. It doesn’t tell us 100% that Launch is the best place, but if the student can’t handle the pre-work or just decide not to do it, it’s a really good warning sign that they shouldn’t come. Not doing prework is either a sign of a lack of enthusiasm or comprehension. Far better to find out before quitting your job and moving.
   
5. Financial Problems - Some students have tried holding part-time jobs, freelancing, or running their businesses while at Launch Academy, and its never worked out well. The time and energy we require doesn’t leave room for maintaining income streams. After Launch, some students didn’t budget enough money for the job hunt process and end up taking jobs simply because they need the money. Our best graduates have also been the most selective when choosing a job, and they benefit greatly from the time that they get out of smart budgeting.
   
6. Didn’t Shop and Evaluate - Sometimes aspiring developers have preconceived notions about what they’ll experience at a bootcamp, which may or may not square with what is actually offered. For example, at Launch Academy we focus on a well rounded programming education and are most similar to Dev Bootcamp. But if you’re looking to focus on Javascript, you should go to Maker Square. If you want to build iOS apps, there’s a few schools you should consider. My best advice here is to evaluate each school’s curriculum and also their teaching style and approach to programming and then decide which one fits best with you.
   
7. Super Fast learners - I wouldn’t say this is a “bad experience” kind of thing, but if a student is a really fast learner and flies through the material, they can be left wanting more and feeling bored when they don’t get it. Every bootcamp should have a plan for accommodating students of varying learning speeds by having non-core work that students can work on if they get through the required material. It should not be “busy work”. Non-core work should push the student deeper into the core concepts, but in a way that is most similar to the problems and challenges that they’ll see in the real world.
   
8. Slow Learners - By extension of the last point, the volume of material and the pace of progress in a bootcamp require someone to be a reasonably quick learner. The easiest way to avoid this is to have the bootcamp test you with a couple of coding challenges during the application process. We’ve actually found this to be a great predictor of learning velocity. It might sound harsh, but we’ve found that students would much rather know that a bootcamp isn’t the right environment for them before they quit their jobs and jump in.
   
9. Beer Test - Half of succeeding in a bootcamp will be determined simply by a student’s ability to fit into the culture and mesh with their fellow students. Why? Simple; collaboration. The best bootcamps emphasize pair programming, which is when you sit side by side with your classmates and solve coding problems together. There’s an image of the solo programmer who just sits at his or her desk with headphones on and jams out code. It makes for a great movie character, but it’s not real life. So, is the student someone we’d want to have a beer with? Are they chill people? This is right out of the hiring handbooks of the best companies. Yes, really. This is a real thing, and it is amazingly effective.
   
10. Life Happens - A death or serious illness in the family, spouse who lost a job, or some other major issue (all issues some of our students have had). These things can be major distractions and really impede the learning process. If anything major like this happens, we actually recommend the student take a leave of absence and come back when things are settled. Most of our students have come back after dealing with these issues, but sometimes they simply have to drop out and wait until they’ve handled the issue.
    
11. Unrealistic Expectations: Some students graduate from bootcamps and make over $120,000 in their first job. Emphasis on “some”. But unless if you’re both an absolutely amazing savant programmer AND you’re working in a high income area like San Francisco or NYC, that kind of income is unrealistic in most parts of the United States.
    

At the end of the day, if things don’t go well, the bootcamp should do its best to admit students who will succeed in the bootcamp. But if things don’t work out, they should make it right with either a chance to retake the program or a refund.