View Full Version : Ad nauseum this school vs. that school, let's compare advertised vs. actual price
As the title says, the eternal questions of which school is better, A or B?
I tried on the NAC/EFT/OFT thread but nobody responded yet.
Let's make a list of schools, their advertised price which was one of the reasons you choose them and the actual price you ended up paying.
Let us know the following:
Which year did you do your training
Which school
PPL/IR or complete Career course?
Advertised price by the school
The price you ended up paying.
Why the difference?
This will hopefully compliment the thread "How to avoid school tricks"
I would have started with the school I did my training at but they went bankrupt many years ago.
This is a very difficult one; if you have only attended one school but achieved the goal set (ie to get the qualification), you generally don't have a yardstick. You might have had some arrogant instructor who got his qualifications on Mrs. Windsor's tab and thinks him/herself as God's gift to instruction. Alternately, you might have had an instructor who inspires you, identifies your personal deficiencies and actually does something about them.
However, you achieved your goal, therefore no complaint gets further than the celebratory pissup when the paperwork comes in the respective format.
Having failed to achieve the goal set in the USA, I returned to the UK and achieved my goal there. Bad habits (for myself, at any rate) were undone and the standard set by the CAA was achieved well above the tolerances. With the inevitable additional costs associated with unravelling the rats' nest.
I would urge you to consider why you want to attend a school in the US. I am of the opinion that the monitoring by the CAA is tempered by distance, the concept of customer care and understanding is borderline complacent (who, in the UK is going to sue a US company?) and the costs differential - especially with today's exchange rate - is minimal.
If I had my time again, I would stay in the UK at a FTO I know and trust and go the whole training gamut done there.
Remember - these organisations are businesses, there to extract money from you wallet. How they do it and the return gained is the measure of their commitment to your success.
Good luck with whatever you do.
This is a very difficult one; if you have only attended one school but achieved the goal set (ie to get the qualification), you generally don't have a yardstick
True, therefore the slightly different angle this time, how much did you end up paying vs how much was advertised.
Having failed to achieve the goal set in the USA, I returned to the UK and achieved my goal there. Bad habits (for myself, at any rate) were undone and the standard set by the CAA was achieved well above the tolerances. With the inevitable additional costs associated with unraveling the rats' nest
So what did you end up paying overall vs what should have been done at the school in the USA in the first place?
So despite all the mud slinging, nobody is willing to put their money where their mouth is...
I thought this would have been one of the great dividers,
School A advertises 50K, real cost after completion 80K
School B advertises 80K, real cost after completion 80K.
I'm sure a lot of wannabee's would be interested in these numbers.
I can confirm that the advertised price was that paid...
...but the failure to be useful - ie get the qualification - caused me to go well into contingency with repeating the CPL course in the UK.
The line of questioning is too nebulous to give concrete answers. Usually the mud slinging comes from those 'done wrong' at the FTO, ie personality failures and/or failure to get the qualification.
Having done both options, however, in my opinion the JAR FTO I attended in the US failed morally and professionally on many levels. From comments on PPRuNe and elsewhere, I can only assume that the others are the same - if not worse. A gross stereotyping, maybe, but do the courses at a reputable UK FTO and at least there is some accountability.
School A advertises 50K, real cost after completion 80K
School B advertises 80K, real cost after completion 80K.
You cannot do this - an honest FTO just won't get the business! I believe that the UK CAA should at least publish official figures to confirm or deny the 'first time passes' bs.
Then again - is the cardiac surgeon with the greatest mortality rate bad, or does he just get the worst cases because he/she is the best?
SoCal App - I agree wholeheartedly with you.
I was caught in the trap where I had 'completed the hours' (allegedly). I felt I needed more time, but the FTO had finished with my allocation and were no longer interested.
Fortunately the payment up front or credit card details was not an issue. Had I given them, however, form has shown that it would have been.