Thinkful - New York, New York

Skylar Garrison

Absolutely would not recommend attending this bootcamp. They are not truthful in their claims about this being a great course for beginners and the mentors that are provided for you do not seem to truly care about your experience or learning.

When someone in my class raised concerns about the workload and difficulty of it for “beginners”, he was essentially told to sink or swim. I, and many others, ended up not completing the course due to the difficulty and lack of help and are now on the hook for the full tuition of a dishonest program. If multiple beginners (and people with a background in coding) are telling you that your course work and curriculum is not as advertised, it’s important to actually listen.

Lydia Bandy (LydiasPianoStudio)

It is unfortunate as Thinkful had a 5-star reputation prior to Chegg purchasing the company in 2019. There is a reason the recent reviews (2020-2023) are all 1-star. I enrolled in January 2023 and was shocked how poorly the company was run. They advertise 24/7 support, which was a chatbox outsourced to India. There is no phone number to contact administration and only one email address with a response time of 10-12 days. One reason I signed up for Thinkful was for the 1 on 1 mentorship. After a month into the program, my mentor mentioned he wasn't being properly paid and eventually stopped showing up for sessions and never responded to my emails. The course material was horrendous and the instructions were vague. It was super frustrating as it would take 4 hours to complete a 20 minute assignment. I asked for outside help from a senior programmer who graduated from Thinkful in 2018. They were shocked as the coursework was totally different and advised me NOT to code this way. The tests were extremely challenging, especially the Java Script, which many students complained about in the Slack channel. Thinkful advertises a Tuition Refund Policy (TRP), but they keep changing their policies, which results in disqualifications for students to receive a tuition refund if they don't receive a job after graduating. I have talked to frustrated graduates who have to pay back their tuition though they never found jobs and lacked support from Thinkful and eventually Thinkful cut off communication with them. It has been a stressful 2 months for me and on March 1st I contacted Thinkful requesting a full refund as I felt they misrepresented their company (their contract states a full refund will be provided if there is misrepresentation). After waiting 10 days for a dissatisfactory reply, I opened a dispute with my credit card and was awarded my full refund. BBB, Trustpilot, and other sites have similar negative reviews. If you want to learn to become a computer programmer, you can find excellent courses on YouTube for FREE and bootcamp courses on Udemy (wait until they go on sale for $20-$30). Thinkful is NOT worth $10k-$20K so save yourself the headache and avoid this company.

Omar Sufi

I was supposed to get a refund last November and to this day haven’t received a single penny. Every time you email them, it takes two days to respond and after that nothing and I mean nothing gets solved. I have proof and currently planning on what the next step into solving this will be. This company is a scam, don’t not go here. You’re better off watching YouTube videos.

Bailey Weathers

I have had an extremely disappointing experience with Thinkful!!!!

I graduated from a bootcamp company who Thinkful itself purchased. We were guaranteed by Thinkful that graduates would always have access to our work and program lessons. This is not longer the case. They say it should be worked out by the end of the week. However it has now been 3 months, when I ask again, I get the same reply.

The reality of Thinkful is you will get lots of callbacks if you are thinking about signing up but get no help once you have paid them in full.

My advice is look at other programs!!!!

sohail shaikh

BE VERY AWARE of their fine printing. I took Web Developer boot camp with Bloc/Thinkful back in May 2019. At the time of registration I was told that I can finish the course at my own pace, no time limitation to finish the course. Since I had a full time job I was taking classes according to my schedule. After six or seven months later I found out that I only have few weeks to finish the course or I have to buy more time to finish the course. At the time of admission I have paid over $6000. I told them that I was told there is no time limitation to finish the course they why am I being asked to pay for more time. I spoke to several people including the supervisor and Academic Success Manager named Alexandra Taylor. Not only she flatly refused to allow me a time to finish course, I found her rude and careless. It was a huge mistake to sign up with them and paid so much money. Save yourself headache and money by registering some good Boot Camps who care about their students rather be greedy for money. Make sure you do your due diligence before registering to this school. I lost my money. I am considering to take a legal action against them.

bucks bunni

I’m a professional programmer that was helping out a friend with her assignments and I can’t believe how bad the instructions are. A lot of the time her mentor or other mentors she spoke to would give information to her code that was just plain wrong. Mentors often pretend to know what they’re doing but it’s clear here to anyone with any software engineering background that they’re incompetent.

Thinkful receives their funding from another company that will loan you money for this course, and at the end of the day they will receive their money whether or not you pass. Thinkful doesn’t care about student education and this is clear in their abhorrent curriculum as well as their poor mentorship.

When I looked up this place for reviews, I don’t believe that they’re true as you can see certain patterns in their success stories. There are also many students that claim the TRG is not reliable, as Thinkful finds a way to “disqualify” a student from it, or extend it into a year or more. If a graduate takes any job that gives them income (such as freelancing, a different non tech job etc) it immediately disqualifies them, which means they need to be able to have the means to go a year up to a year and half without having any outside income. Be careful with this place, as it is clearly an intricate way to scam people out of money.

Duc Pham

This is my first experience with a boot camp and I expected a more impactful experience. It is very discouraging with the position I am in. After graduating, I've tried to communicate with them about the fees. It is not close to worth the money. Even if I had more experience coming into the program, I don't believe much success I would've made would be due to Thinkful. A fact I noticed from the beginning of the class is that more than half of the class dropped within two or three weeks. I appreciated the efforts of the mentors and instructors there, but the company as a whole is disappointing. I hoped I'd come out the course with more experience and knowledge, but it really only brought me stress from the debt.

Lilly Murnane

I took the digital marketing program. This program was not worth it. There are so many skills you need to have in marketing there they do not teach. I could make a list but it would be too long. They promise that you can get a job after the program and if not, you’ll get your money back. This is a lie. There is lots of fine print they don’t tell you about so they said I didn’t qualify. I’m three internships and about a year later and I still can’t get a job. What a waste of time and money! This program definitely did not help me get a job in digital marketing. I would have been better off teaching myself. Don’t pay the $4000. I sure wish I didn’t!