AppAcademy started with and still does ISAs and has been fairly successful. There have been situations where they've deemed certain participants greater risk and NOT offered them ISAs and asked for upfront payment, but I believe their success has largely been a result of aggressive candidate filtering all the way up to 1/3 of the way through the program after its started.
I have first hand experience with their program, albeit 10 years ago, but I would largely say that almost no one who completed the program with me actually needed it and its benefits are largely a forcing function to get you to build a portfolio in a short amount of time and have a peer group to rely on. Everyone from my cohort is still working in industry today if they want to and all seem to be doing well.
I have first hand experience with their program, albeit 10 years ago, but I would largely say that almost no one who completed the program with me actually needed it and its benefits are largely a forcing function to get you to build a portfolio in a short amount of time and have a peer group to rely on. Everyone from my cohort is still working in industry today if they want to and all seem to be doing well.