I have just come back from completing my FAA commercial with a flight school in Oregon.
Hillsboro Aviation to be exact.
In my experience for FAA stuff, they are the most professional flight school I have come across and beat some of the Florida ones I have dealt with into dust. The aircraft were well serviced.
They have one of the biggest helicopter schools in the US and have a sizeable fixed wing school too. Currently they are doing an ab-initio to multi CPL /IR for Shanghai Airlines. They have a fair few European students from continental Europe especially for helicopters so they are immigration approved and can issue I-20s.
What other advantages - The weather in summer is pretty good and much more pleasant that summer in Florida with very few thunderstorms.
If you want to do the IR then there is a good change of real IMC conditions.
Hillsboro which is near Portland, is in bit of a bowl. To the north east and south is the Cascade mountain range with the local mountain going up to nearly 12000ft in the east and Mt St Helens brooding away to the north at nearly 9000ft.
To the west is the coastal range which goes up to about 5000 ft and a mere 30 miles away is the Pacific.
So a considerable contrast to both Florida and California with a climate more suited to British tastes but with more interesting flying siteseeing opportunities.
The other major advantage is the fact that Oregon has no sales tax - it has income tax so for visitors the price you see is the price you pay.
The school is a part 141 school but I did my stuff under part 61 and had the same instructor from start to finish. They dont mess about with things like that, although my guy did say that I if wanted to change after we had flown together it was OK with him.
Anyway, we hit it off got the result. So naturally I am pleased.
This forum often asks for recomendations, here is another one.
The next time I go to Florida it will be strictly for the holiday.
chrisbl