Thread by @AustenAllred

A lot of talk about Lambda School today, and most of it I'll ignore.

One I'm going to respond to - that Lambda School is "creaming" - removing the best students from other schools and locking them into ISAs.

This is a tweetstorm full of student stories, so buckle up.

J is a single father, high school dropout with two kids (1.6 GPA), had been working in a warehouse for four years. We noticed in our intro courses he was doing well at programming, and decided to invest.

He attended Lambda, now makes software for warehouses, making $80k+/yr

S had to drop out of school when she couldn't afford the payments on her archaeology degree. She was living in a car when she applied to Lambda School.

She was also hired at an $80k rate.

D had an associate of arts degree from the local community college and was making $10/hr washing dogs.

After she attended Lambda she was hired making $130k+ total comp ($110 base).

Chris dropped out of college and was managing at a local Chipotle making minimum wage.

He was hired at the same company as D, making the same comp - $130k. He recorded his thoughts here:

Honestly I'm just looking at our offers database pulling our random names at this point, this isn't even hard

T was a religious refugee from China, no college, recently learned to speak English.

Landed a job for $90k/yr

A had a degree in sign language, she was making $24k. She makes $110k.

L studied social work and made $11/hr designing escape rooms for a living.

He's now a software engineer at Amazon. $140k+ total comp.

J was an immigrant who had to drop out of his local community college when he switched his major from music (he had a music scholarship).

He was hired for $85k in a very low cost of living area, and one year later leads a team of almost 40 engineers.

For this one I'm just going to screencap the LinkedIn profile.

T was a coach at the local YMCA. When we accepted him almost had to drop out because he was $321 short on an auto loan he needed to pay for to drive for Uber.

I loaned it to him as a friend, he paid me back like clockwork.

Now he's a hired software engineer.

L had to drop out of college, and found himself living in government subsidized housing next to a known drug dealer. He had to sell some priceless items to visit his mother who was dying of cancer, and got his interview clothes from goodwill.

Not anymore. He now he makes $89k

A is 46 years old and had been a military chaplain for almost 20 years. He found his income practically capped at $50k - couldn't move up. He was pretty concerned about ageism.

Two weeks after graduation he was making $85k.

R is the reason we put together our nonprofit fund (lambdapaf.org). He was $400 short on rent his last month in class when the farmer he was laying pipe for fired him after he refused to work weekdays (because of school).

We loaned him the $400. Hired for $75k.

S was waiting tables making $400/week during Lambda.

She now makes $70k.

J is 37, had two uncompleted degrees, and was feeling pretty stuck in life. He came to Lambda hesitantly, barely opting for us over a community college.

Had multiple offers within weeks of graduating.

Here's another where I'll let the picture do all the talking

D's wife was supporting the family making minimum wage before Lambda. After he was hired post-Lambda they were over 6 figures.

We have hundreds of stories like this (literally), despite being around for about 18 months.

The *only* reason this works is because we have an incentive structure that allows us to hire 50+ people who think and hustle to help these students 24/7.

Fin.