Applying to Ada Developers Academy — Part 2: Resume — Essays — Data Analysis

Hi there. My guess is you found my blog because you’re interested in Ada Developers Academy (ADA). While I’ll keep my blog content, I want to clarify that at the moment of June 2023, I don’t support ADA the organization nor do I encourage people to apply. This is the second time I put this statement in my blog, the first time was in March 2022.
That’s said, if you’re applying to ADA, I hope the content of my blog will be useful to you. Good luck and happy coding!

Photo by Theodor Lundqvist on Unsplash

I wrote about things to consider before applying to Ada Developers Academy ADA) in the previous part. Now, let’s say after consideration, you decided to give it a try (or three, ha). Brace yourself, cause ADA’s application process is anything but simple, and it’s sure competitive (but good news, ADA is expanding, woohoo!), not to mention the looooooooooooooooong wait.

Oh and it’s been ever evolving, so if you’re reading this from the future, let me know how it’s changed. I just have experience with three consecutive admission rounds, and there’re already changes here and there, so let’s jump into the first phase: Resume + Essays + Data Analysis.

Important small details first:

1. The Cover Letter at the end of the Application will NOT be read. The field is there because ADA uses a third-party service and that is non-removable from the form. I spent days wrote it during the first two times I applied.
2. Bookmark the Application page after the system verifies your email. Or register again using a different email. Stay calm if you accidentally closed the page. Contact ADA Admissions Team.
3. Complete the Application Form. Leave no field un-filled (except for the Cover Letter).

Now about each component of the first phase. For the resume, basically update it, update your LinkedIn profile, and include what relevant. They don’t have to be exclusively relevant to programming or technology. You have more valuable, transferable skills from your previous experience than you think. And include anything you think is relevant to ADA’s vision and mission. Just like when you care about someone you’ll show it, if you care about ADA’s values, show it. Do you think a small act of kindness matters? (Spoiler, I do)

I think there’re already enough resources about how to write your resume, so let’s keep it short here. Just remember to check the format. ADA used to require Markdown format I believe, but for the latest admissions they asked for PDF. After publishing this article, somehow I’ve seen questions regarding resume for ADA popping up a lot, so I wanted to add in some info here. In particular, to include or not to include, online programming courses you’ve taken. I think this is a personal choice, do what you think is BEST FOR YOU. I left all of the online courses I’ve taken out of my resume though, because they can easily take over (online course hell is real) and distract reader from what I want to highlight. I update them on my LinkedIn instead (ADA asked for your LinkedIn as well).

About the Essays, overall, they asked about:

• your reasons for applying to ADA (that’s why I wrote the previous part),
• why you want to be a software developer,
• what you find interesting/challenging about programming,
• what diversity/inclusion mean to you and how you have demonstrated/will demonstrate it.

The word limit for each essays is between 150–350. The wording, the combination, the word limits of the questions, and THE QUESTIONS THEMSELVES may change. Reapplicants also get a few more questions:

• when you last applied to ADA,
• why you’re applying again,
• what have changed during that time,
• what you’ve learned in the last six months (bullet point format).

One note: we have no concrete idea if it’s crucial for reapplicants to change the content of the essays between admission rounds.

Back to the core essays, take them as a chance to reflect on yourself. No need to pressure yourself to submit early, not only because it doesn’t increase your chance of getting admitted, but also because you may rethink your responses.

If you have someone you can trust, who is objective, ask for their feedbacks. The first time I applied, I made a mistake and one of the persons I asked misgendered me when they gave me feedbacks, even after I shared my pronouns and that I purposely chose those words. My lesson is to not assume someone will respect gender neutrality or pronouns of choice because they said they were progressive (basically I should not assume anything). It lead to me not asking anyone to review my essays the next times except for one person. I’m not sure if it was a right decision, and I hope you can find the best way for you.

Also, keep a record of your edit history (if you like). I personally keep an outline of the ideas, the drafting period with different colors for each time, and a final version that I copy from when filling out the application form. Use the editing mode if you like, I’m so glad it’s useful for you. I’m just confused by that format so I came up with my own. Print out if it’s more comfortable for you.

It’s ok to feel like you’re bragging, as long as you’re truthful. Politeness, humiliation, and modesty is different from underestimating yourself. It’s hard to unlearn what we’ve been told our whole life, and it might take another whole life to do it, so just take my suggestion as a suggestion. With a load of salt. And butter, and garlic bread. And cake.

Now to the Data Analysis. There should be a link in the application form to a file explaining the requirements, the data, and the questions. SAVE IT. If you can’t find the link, CONTACT ADA. The data is, for the past admission rounds, all CSV format. I noticed that the data ADA’s chosen so far are really meaningful and I really appreciate that. They do pour their heart into their values. Try to think about the social meaning behind those data if you can make some time to do it.

The explanation will let you know the data file can be opened with Excel or other similar tools, and so naturally you can use those tools to process the data, and it’s totally doable. However, if you’re not comfortable using spreadsheet tools (like me, hahaha), feel free to use other tools to complete this analysis. I’ve definitely wrote programs in Ruby and Python, as well as using panda (still Python). Give it a try with the data analysis from admission for Cohort 15. My code is there just as a suggestion to what I mean by ‘tools other than Excel’. I strongly advise against using/copying my solution for several reasons.

• The explanation about your thinking, reasoning, and technique is more crucial than the answers. ADA’s made this point really clear: they’re looking for clear, logical communication skills. I’ll stress it again below.
• YOU ARE CAPABLE! I know you can solve this data analysis.
• I can spot a handful of bad coding practices in there (laugh) and unfortunately I’m not willing to fix them now. I’m not even willing to actually read my code after glancing through those bad practices.
• If you think you have to code here just to show that you can code, remember you’ll have that opportunity in the Code Challenge and Technical Interview.

The data analysis comes with about five questions, with the word limit is 500 words each (yes, you’ve read it correctly), in bullet point format. You would give answers along with the reasoning/explanation of your process, and the reasoning/explanation is more important than the answers. The data analysis is more about communication and logical thinking than Excel skill. If you can use the 500 word limits, go ahead, that’s awesome! But if you can’t, rest assure, all of my submissions were only about 1000 words for the whole data analysis, and that’s my paraphrasing skill in best use (laugh).

That’s it for the first phase of ADA application process. As always feel free to challenge my thoughts and drop me a word. Next time we’ll talk about the second phase: the Coding Challenge and Technical Interview. In the meantime, happy coding!