PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - M1 Visa or no Visa and SEVIS approved schools in the USA
Old 17th Dec 2010, 18:03
  #44 (permalink)  
lollots82
 
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Lund
Age: 41
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Brilliant answers, keep them coming!

Any Flight School can get FAA Part 141 approval. That in itself is not enough - the School must be SEVIS approved.
As the school train primarily international students and gave me forms to send to SEVIS, I am pretty sure they are ok in that respect, but thanks for the clarification.

Be aware that under Part 61 the minimum coursed is longer than the Part 141 course as it is less structured. The FAA give credit to Part 141 and allow a shorter syllabus.
I knew about the different requirements, but as I am only doing my PPL, 5 hours are not going to be much of a difference, especially considering that the average student (and I count myself as one) will take much longer to finish it off anyway.

Like I said, your existing Fight School can make it as easy or as difficult as they want to make the transfer.
Have you read your Contract with your existing School? If you booked a course with them and they reserved a space for you on that course - they may be quite within their right to charge you a fee for early termination as they will now have an empty slot and unable to fill it. For example, if that Flight School had arranged accommodation for you, you may well have to cover that expense etc etc.
It all depends what you signed.
Call me stupid, but I don't remember signing anything at all??
Actually it was one of the reasons I chose them at first, them being informal etc.. but now this has turned into them being rude, unprofessional and simply just not a good environment to train into.

Probably not a wise move. Remember you have to be in good standing with your School - they 'own' your visa.
Eeerm.. the reason why I'd transfer is because I am NOT getting along with the person responsible for my account AT ALL. Does that count as 'not in good standing'?

Just to give account of the last two encounters:

1) I told them they got the math wrong and was overcharged once by $50 --> was told not to complain because I was already getting a good deal --> made them notice they set their market rates freely and it is only as good as what you get, and that it's not the $50 but the principle that if we agree on one price you cannot change it at will --> was told they have had "people like me" before at the school and that the way they deal with them is just ignoring them --> asked them if they knew the concept of customer satisfaction and that I was not happy about the way I was treated --> was told "I don't care, now get the hell out of my office"

2) After the last encounter I was told I had $700 in the account, and since then I had only done 3.5 hours of ground school, so when I was told I had no money in the account I said "there must be an error", and asked to see the breakdown of charges --> within 10 seconds of looking at the monitor, it was clear they had simply got the sign wrong on two transactions, meaning that something that should have been down as a credit on my account was instead charged to my account: this would restore my account to over $500 positive, as easy as that --> was told "let me see" and then they proceeded in getting out all invoices for my account, going through one by one and double checking against the computer, while it was obvious what had happened --> ten minutes later "ooooh I have charged for something that was a credit, now how do I correct that" --> told them it really wasn't that hard, they just had to reverse the charge and then finally credit the same amount --> was thrown the invoices at and told "do you know how our invoicing system works?" --> told them it's none of my concern and definitely isn't my job, even though it really isn't a complex problem --> was told "then quit telling me how to do my job".

Now tell me if I can keep training with people like this, or simply grace them with my money they don't deserve.

The transfer process may well take quite a bit longer with the USCIS than a week or so.
The new school said this normally takes from 4 days to a week. Either way, I am not in any sort of rush and Christmas is approaching so if they want to take longer, I'll take a longer holiday.

How many hours have you completed to date?
Done only about 9 hours, so it shouldn't be much trouble transferring I would think?

Have you completed your written?
Nope, not even stage 1 or anything.

How long is your Duration of Stay as denoted in your passport?
I have the whole 12 months max as allowed per M1, and about 11 months left

How long are you planning to be in the US before you depart?
Not sure what you mean, but I am assuming I will finish the PPL much earlier than 12 months, probably at the end of February or beginning of March? Might throw in IR as well, but not anything else, I wasn't planning to go commercial.
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