[mr_turtle]

As an App Academy grad, I'm sorry about your experience. I am unaware of a/A charging $18,000 due to your age, or your lack of a college dree, or both. I know several students in my cohort didn't have a formal degree. Also the age of my cohort varied widely - young and old.

Was the $18k to be charged up front, upon finding a job, or within a year of you not finding a job? For me I was unaware of deposit increased from $3,000 to $5,000 which they only told me during one of the interviews.

I know there are some hoops to jump through, but I don't think it's as bad as you make it to be. The initial coding challenge can be taken almost immediately and my live coding challenge was scheduled a week later. I was in the conditional acceptance group where I had to do additional 'homework'. If you were in that boat, that sucks.

~ The policy does sound a little dubious. I would be very suprised if it was a blanket policy.

[busterarm]

You wouldn't happen to know of anyone looking for recent a/A grads to join their teams, would you?