We know completing your application can be intimidating – but it doesn’t have to be! Admissions Manager Dori Grant walks you through the most commonly asked about parts of the application.

Dori Grant, Admissions Manager

The application is not meant to be a challenging process. It should be fairly easy to complete – easy enough that if you have some free time over the weekend, you should be able to get most of it done in just one sitting! Here’s my advice:

The Coding Challenge

For starters, this doesn’t have to be perfect! The formatting doesn’t have to be in such a way that the coding challenge is the only thing holding you up in submitting your application. I would encourage you to look at the challenge, and once you understand what we are asking, do the research in advance and work on the challenge outside of the application.   Then, when you are ready, you can copy-and-paste it into the application. Remember, you are not yet software engineers (not yet – but soon!) so if it takes you a little while (hours or even days) to complete the coding challenge, that’s okay!  We would love for it to execute flawlessly too, but more importantly, we want to understand the logic and research you did in order to solve the challenge. You got this! If you still need a starting point on the coding challenge,  I would encourage you to check out Senior Instructor Katie Leflevre’s blog on how to tackle it.

Area of Expertise

This doesn’t have to be about coding or anything technical. Remember, the application is about getting to know more about who YOU are.  Part of that is hearing more about an area of expertise you know a lot about. This could range from a famous family salsa recipe, training Guinea pigs, bathing monkeys, tying knots, or how to get a toddler down for their nap time. Whatever area of expertise you have, write about it, because we can’t wait to hear about it!

Video Submission

Yes, this is optional but highly encouraged. Again, we want to get to know more about who you are and no better way to do that than with a video about YOU!  It could be 30 seconds or 30 minutes (well, actually that may be a bit too long, but less than 10 minutes would be just fine). It could be scripted or unscripted. Perhaps it’s you talking about why you love Hackbright, maybe you are showing us your expertise, introducing us to your family, talking about why you want to study at Hackbright and nowhere else. Or maybe there was something you wanted to talk about in your application but did not know where it should go so you dropped it into a video for us. Great! We can’t wait to see it! Just another opportunity for us to learn more about you.

Something to keep in mind: we want the application to be the exciting part in your adventure to becoming a software engineer. After you get into Hackbright – that is when the fun academic challenges will surround you. For now, our goal is just to get to know you!

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