McTaba Admissions: What We Look For (Hint: Not Your Mean Grade)

Here is a list of things that do not appear anywhere in the McTaba application:

• Your KCSE mean grade
• Your university degree or transcript
• Your KUCCPS cluster points
• Prior coding experience
• A technical assessment or coding challenge
• Your age
• Letters of recommendation

This is deliberate, not lazy.

KCSE grades measure your performance on exams you took in Form Four. They have zero predictive power for whether you can learn to build software at age 24 or 34. Some of our strongest marathoners scored a C+ or lower. Some of our dropouts had straight As. The correlation is not there.

University degrees indicate that you sat through four years of classes. They do not indicate whether you can commit to an intensive, project-based learning environment. We have seen first-class honours graduates struggle with the marathon's pace, and high school graduates thrive in it.

We do not ask for prior coding experience because the marathon starts from zero. You learn HTML from scratch. If you already know some coding, you will move faster through the early weeks, but it is not required.

Our admissions process evaluates three things. None of them are on your report card.

1. Time commitment

Can you actually commit 40 hours per week (full-time) or 20-25 hours per week (part-time) for the duration of the programme? This is the single most important factor. We ask about your current job, your family responsibilities, your living situation. Not to judge them, but to understand whether the marathon schedule fits into your life.

If you work a 50-hour-per-week job and want to join the full-time track, we will be direct: that will not work. If you are a single parent with young children and no evening childcare, the part-time evening sessions will be a constant battle. We would rather tell you this before you pay than after.

2. Realistic expectations

Do you understand what the programme is and what it is not? We ask applicants what they expect to happen after graduation. The answer tells us a lot. "I expect to have a strong portfolio and be competitive for junior developer roles" is realistic. "I expect McTaba to place me in a job" is not, and it signals a mismatch that will lead to disappointment.

We also listen for whether applicants understand that coding is difficult. If someone describes the marathon as "a quick way to get into tech," they may not be prepared for weeks of frustration, debugging, and slow progress that are normal parts of the learning process.

3. Genuine curiosity

This one is harder to define but easy to spot. We listen for whether someone is excited about building things or just excited about developer salaries. Both motivations are valid, but people who are only salary-motivated tend to quit when the work gets hard. People who are genuinely curious about how software works push through the hard parts because the work itself interests them.

We are not looking for passion speeches or dramatic career change stories. We are listening for something simpler: when we describe what you will build in the marathon, do your questions suggest interest in the building, or just in the outcome?

Step 1: Online application form

You fill out a short form on mctaba.com. It asks for your name, contact details, which track you are interested in (full-time or part-time), your current situation (student, employed, between jobs, etc.), and a brief explanation of why you want to join. No essay required. A few sentences are enough.

Step 2: Admissions conversation

Within a few days of submitting your form, someone from the admissions team reaches out to schedule a short conversation. This is typically a 15-20 minute phone call or video call. It is not a technical interview. Nobody asks you to whiteboard an algorithm or write code on the spot.

The conversation covers your schedule and availability, what you know about the programme, what you expect from it, and any questions you have. It is as much for you as it is for us. This is your chance to ask about anything you are unsure about: the schedule, the projects, the payment process, what happens after graduation.

Step 3: Decision

After the conversation, you receive a clear answer: accepted, waitlisted, or not accepted. If you are accepted, you get payment instructions and a start date. If you are waitlisted, it usually means the upcoming cohort is full and you are in line for the next one. If you are not accepted, we explain why and suggest alternatives.

The entire process, from application to decision, typically takes less than a week.

We do reject some applicants. Here are the most common reasons.

Schedule impossibility. The applicant's work or family schedule genuinely cannot accommodate the programme hours. We do not reject people for having a busy life. We reject them for having a life that is currently incompatible with 20-40 hours per week of structured learning. We usually suggest the self-paced Academy courses or recommend they reapply when their schedule changes.

Financial risk. If an applicant tells us they plan to borrow from multiple lenders or skip rent to cover tuition, we flag that. We are not in a position to make financial decisions for adults, but we strongly advise against putting yourself in financial distress for a bootcamp. We suggest starting with cheaper alternatives and saving toward the marathon.

Expectation mismatch. If an applicant's primary expectation is guaranteed employment, and they express frustration when we explain that we do not guarantee placement, it signals a fundamental mismatch. We would rather lose the enrollment than create a bitter graduate who feels lied to.

We do not reject people for low academic scores, lack of experience, age, or background. We have accepted everyone from 19-year-old KCSE leavers to 42-year-old career changers. The marathon is designed to work for people starting from zero.

You do not need to prepare like you are applying to Harvard. But a few things genuinely help:

Be honest about your schedule. If you have evening commitments two days a week, say so. We can figure out together whether the part-time track still works. Hiding a scheduling conflict and then struggling in silence after enrollment helps nobody.

Do a tiny bit of research. Read our What Is McTaba page. Know the basics of what we teach and how the marathon works. The admissions conversation goes better when you have context. You do not need to understand the Daraja API. You just need to know that we teach it.

Try something small before applying. Spend an hour on freeCodeCamp or work through our Tech Foundations course (KES 2,999). If you did either of these and can describe what you tried, it shows initiative and helps us understand your starting point.

Ask questions during the conversation. Applicants who ask thoughtful questions (about the schedule, the projects, what happens after graduation, how the mentor system works) tend to be better prepared than those who just say "I want to join" and wait for instructions. Curiosity is a good signal.

Be direct about your motivation. "I want to switch careers because my current job pays KES 25,000 and I want to earn more" is a perfectly valid and honest answer. You do not need a dramatic origin story. Just be real about why you are doing this.