u/InTheDarkDancing wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I think when most people, and specifically myself, refer to CIRR as the gold standard, it's specifically about a bootcamp producing audited results. CIRR isn't perfect, no audit procedures will satisfy everyone in the public, but compared to what existed before, it seemed to be a
u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
I think the bigger point here is the auditing doesn't matter. I don't know where "audited" became synonymous with integrity. The CIRR process auditors just make sure humans input data correctly, and they don't do much investigating to dig into if that data is correct. For example, if a human put Susan's salary as $50,000. They will ask Susan, "was your salary $50,000?" and if she says yes, they are done. The CIRR spec doesn't say much about what auditing means, which is one of the flaws... they just throw the label on their to make it sound more legit... and it doesn't hurt, but it's a flaw. They don't even say clearly how salaries are verified! All they say is that start dates need to be pulled from an offer letter, but they say nothing about salary, so it can be entirely reported by a student incorrectly.
All of this to me is much more important that slapping "audited" on there and calling it a day.
RE: MIT/Harvard. This is from a lecture Eric K gives for job hunting that several people have quoted and offered evidence of.
RE: Smoke and Fires, many students and alumni think exaggerating time frames on resumes is wrong and send me things... apparently it's something discussed often behind the scenes, in lectures, in 1-1 meetings, etc.... and there is definitive evidence of Codesmith in more than one occasion supporting people exaggerating their timeframes. If you want to verify, run a background check on a Codesmith student and seen what time frame gets officially verified by Codesmith staff for that OSP (yes, just the OSP and not other, separate, projects).... it's not 4 weeks... it's 3 months+.
All of this said, I still think this is just one small element of the program and it doesn't invalidate at all everything good about Codesmith. I just think everyone should know for EVERY PROGRAM how it works, who it is good for... instead of 'I want the objectively best program' and 'Codesmith is the best, you just have to trust the system and it works'... be a good engineer! figure out why it works, figure out if how it works is a good fit for you, and don't just accept that 'it works' and make a decision!