Ahh, a couple cohorts in front of me. I think I know your first name, actually.
My cohort graduated about 23 and only 2 didn't find work. As far as I know, all but one of those that did are still working in the field -- mostly as Front End engineers. I've doubled my pre-App Academy salary twice over and am working as Senior Full Stack Developer.
I skewed more towards the experienced side of my cohort but I was sans-degree and had a previous career in tech. I mainly went through it because I knew it would be the fastest route towards getting my portfolio together and a job, albeit an expensive way to do that.
Most of what I learned didn't really prepare my skills (I've been writing code since I was 6), but it gave me confidence that I wouldn't have had otherwise. I don't do Rails on the job and I'm pretty happy continuing that way for now. One thing I did get though was an extremely solid foundation in SQL which has paid off in my career enormously.
My skill with data, sysops and ability to keep the whole project in my head are what set me apart from my peers. I'm the guy everyone calls to do 'weird, arcane shit' (not my words) with regexp, sed, awk, etc. Small scripts combining the power of Ruby with basic shell commands that replace large, crumbling applications. Things are going great.
I do wish that we had spent more time just practicing interviewing. I consider myself a weak interview and have missed some jobs I'm well-qualified for but didn't do as well as I'd like. Or at least I'd like the ability to go back and drill with folks going through that process now.
I'd been reading/posting on HN for years before I even considered the career change, btw.