Get a copy of Private Pilot and of Flying magazines. Look at the adverts. If at all possible, visit the campus on a weekday before you commit yourself.
I've been working as a pilot since '88 and there have been a few changes. Flight Safety, though expensive and no better than any other good school, is a world wide brand name. It is also now owned by Mr. Warren Buffet, one of the most canny investors in the world. You'll pay at least 30% more for the name. It may be worth it. They have a nice little network of job placements, and you stay in their files for years after you graduate.
My only advice is to favor a school that gets 4 seasons worth of weather. Some Florida schools, though fun to attend, have a high fraction of idiots teaching there, and when you've got your licences you have seen almost no IMC and no ice or snow at all. You're lucky to have seen much wind either.
You have only one chance to develop your first flying habits. A well trained private/instrument pilot will never have trouble with the more advanced ratings. It is worth going someplace where the instructors run the range of age and experience, and where the weather and winds will show you the full range of conditions obtaining in North America.
If you are British and think of yourself as reasonably cultured, stay away from the South. They are charming, at first, but it wears off in days and you are left with their fundamental ignorance and inefficiency.
Names I have come to associate with well trained and well socialized pilots.
Flight Safety, Vero Beach, Florida
(Losts of Chinese student pilots etc. Drawback: weather too good.)
Parks College, St. Louis, Missouri
(All I know is I have never met a bad pilot from there. And they're all pleasant, too.)
Air Safety Int'l, Vero Beach, Florida
Seem as good as Flt Safety but I think you can get a UK PPL and Instrument right there.
Fax 561 567 3390
Comair Aviation Academy. I don't have a good feeling about them. It's the South, again. Maybe I'm wrong.
Presuming you intend to make a career outside the US, I might slightly favor Flt Safety because of the name brand. Perhaps you could look into the Lufthansa school in Goodyear, Arizona, too. I think they take their students on an aerial tour of North America, including Canada and Alaska. If they do that, then you'll have everything: the Lufthansa reputaiton, and the exposure to absolutely every bit of geography and weather that we've got: high elevations, mountains like the alps, multiple pilot crews etc.
Good Luck