ATPL Exam Pass Rates

[T-key]

I know it's only advertising, but I'm intrigued....
Oxford publish their first time pass rates as 94%, and are probably justified in being proud of that. I understand that this is for integrated, but a "mole" at Oxford tells me that their Modular first time pass rate is within 10% of the integrated rate.
Now I see Pilot Assist saying they are "Leading in first time ATPL passes". If they are better than 94% - wow! I know where I'll be going.
Bristol also seem to be saying they are the best!
Cabair seem just to keep quiet!
Oxford have published their results, so come on Pilot Assist, Bristol and Cabair what are your pass rates? Does the CAA know? Can they publish pass rates?

[Send Clowns]

There have been many threads about this, I suggest you go back. Most schools do not even calculate overall pass rates - it isn't worth it. Look behind the headlines. Those on integrated courses are almost all selected by a sponsor for aptitude (integrated courses have no advantage to the self-sponsored student, as far as I can work out, and I have asked here, even asking an Oxford employee!). That is why Oxford use this for publicity. Ten percent less would take the modular courses pretty close to what I understand to be the overall pass rate that the CAA hint at (they don't publish it officially!).

The performance of other people at the school is a lot less important than your likely performance at that school - how do you get on with the people, what is the school's philosophy like? Do you want approachable staff, or a highly-disiplined regime?

As I have said before to others, visit some schools, see how they treat you, ask former students if you can find some (look through threads here you can find comments from graduates of most schools).

Note from my profile, I work for an FTO (you cannot ask our former students, we have only just started, but our groundschool instructors all used to work for SFT). I'm not trying to sell my school specifically, just the idea that you should look deeply into this commitment. This is because I know I did not look at enough options, and fell almost by accident to what I think was luckily the best option for me when I did my ATPLs (I shall not say where or discuss the school, as I could be accused of bias).

[oxford blue]

Send Clowns, you are talking bollocks, as usual. It is quite simply not true that at Oxford "those on integrated courses are almost all selected by a sponsor for aptitude".

Oxford has not been immune to the effects of September 11, you know. The reason why Oxford has kept going (and even prospered) when your previous FTO went to the wall was, quite simply, that, in an increasingly competitive market, only the best survive!!!!!!

It is just NOT true that the majority of Oxford's present high pass-rate is attributable to having a high proportion of airline-sponsored students. All of that stopped after Sep 11. It was quite well-publicised on this site (with quite a lot of expressions of glee from our rivals) that BA, bmi and Aer Lingus had cancelled all sponsored courses and have no immediate plans to re-instate them.

Well, Send Clowns, that was nine months ago. Practically ancient history. The last BA course has already passed through Ground School (with a 100 % first-attempt pass rate on the most recent set of Phase 2 JAAs, by the way). Our current percentage pass-rates are now based on the current students.

And, do you know, our current students are almost all self-sponsored!! A small percentage of the Khalifa students take the JAA - probably less than 10%. The rest are the self-sponsored ATPL course, or the residential modular (ground school only) course. The only figures we can't include are the distance learners, because they make their own arangements to sit the exams at Glasgow and Silsoe etc, and we only hear of their results if they choose to let us know afterwards. Some do, some don't. Most don't, so we don't think that it's fair to include those who do in our statistics, because we guess that only those who have passed will let us know. This will bias it in too positive a direction, so, in the interests of ethical business practice, we leave it out.

Integrated courses have a lot of advantages for the self-sponsored, whatever you might say. If you come to Oxford on the integrated course, you are in and out in 12-13 months. There is a damned good chance (we make no guarantees) that you will pass all the ground school first time. How many other colleges can say that?

Compare that with the modular (distance learning) course. You're trying to keep a job going to bring in some money whilst you study as and when you can. You do your best but, with the best will in the world, it's not easy. You're not surrounded by supportive people (which you most certainly are at Oxford) and you'll probably take 2-3 years to finish both ground school and flying.

What's the average FO's starting salary? About 20 -25K would be a reasonable average. Compare 3 years distance learning and hours building modular with 12-13 months full-time, and we are talking of an extra 50K in earnings (or 50K minus whatever you would be earning in your 'mark-time' job).

Are you still sure that the integrated route offers "no advantage to the self-sponsored student"?

I leave it to the readers of "wannabes" to work it out for themselves.

But don't continue to peddle the myth that Oxford's results are based largely on airline-sponsored students. They aren't, any longer.

Of course, when the industry picks up again, we hope that they will be again.

[Send Clowns]

Oxford Blue,

If integrated courses have such advantages then why did you not mention any when I specifically asked what they were? I have asked many people over the last couple of years, while I have been in the system as student and teacher, and no-one has managed to tell me any advantage to the self-sponsored student. I asked you, and you came out with bluster.

Your one "advantage" here assumes that a modular student is trying to do something else at the same time. I sat the modular course straight through, in the same way as an integrated student. Had it not been for weather and illness I would have completed the whole course in 2 weeks longer than an integrated course. The saving I made was around £10,000 over the quote from the only integrated provider that was efficient enough to answer my enquiry.

I never mentioned distance learning either. That does have the advantage that the student may continue to work, so possibly negating your cost/benefit analysis, depending on current salary. If doing nothing else an intelligent student could with an aviation background and numerate education could distance learn in less time than the official attendance course time (I know I could have, though I had other reasons for attending a full-time course).

[oxford blue]

What "bluster"? Everything in my post is fact.

[scroggs]

Clowns & OB

Your perpetual turf arguments are getting a little repetetive and tiresome. I know you'll both claim that the other one started it! Could you please agree to disagree, and could you please stop promoting your schools on this forum!

By the way OB, your comment : 'What's the average FO's starting salary? About 20 -25K would be a reasonable average. Compare 3 years distance learning and hours building modular with 12-13 months full-time, and we are talking of an extra 50K in earnings (or 50K minus whatever you would be earning in your 'mark-time' job). begs one fundamental question. How many students - of all schools - since last September have obtained a flying job on graduation? If the answer is, as I suspect, very few, your argument is shot to pieces! That's a shame, as I generally lean toward the view that integrated is probably better for most average students as the continuity and intensity of training allows minor hiccups to be caught and ironed out without the inevitable backwards steps during the next fund-raising gap between modules.

[oxford blue]

Scroggs, I have thought long and hard before replying:

a) because you don't mess with the boss

b) because I don't wish to appear defensive or small-minded.

Having thought long and hard, let me make the following statements.

1. I have been contributing to pprune for about a year now.

2. I have never started a thread, only responded.

3. I have only responded whenever I have thought what has been written was unjust, unfair, or quite simply, not true , or when I can be helpful (on the information and education threads).

4. I have never, ever, attacked our competitors, and certainly never by name.

If every other contributor to this site played by the same rules, there would be no need for me to post.

You probably have better things to do with your time, but if you check my posts you will find that all the above is true.

[RowleyUK]

Is it true that Oxford send people into the exams just purely so that they can get feedback questions?

Im not trying to wind you up, its just something ive heard, thats all.......

[oxford blue]

Definitely not!!! Speak to any student who has been through Oxford (as opposed to the rumour-mongers) and they will tell you that the Oxford School Finals is a genuine hurdle. Oxford will not let a student sit the JAAs (as a registered Oxford student - we can't control what private arrangements you make) unless your School Finals results indicate that you have a good chance of passing.

This is to save you examination fees and to reduce the number of any one candidate's exam sittings -we are well aware of the 18 month and limited numbers of sittings rules.

[The Boy Lard]

I can confirm what Oxford Blue is saying.

A course running one month behind mine had at least 5 people "Held back" after their school finals as their results were borderline, for one month.

This caused all sorts of logistical problems as they were booked to go the states for the first portion of their flying at Oxford Tyler.

I spoke to several of these students who at the time were understandably "unhappy", however I spoke to them just after their JARs and to a man/woman they were glad that they had been held back as they felt they had done considerably better for the extra month.

From a personal perspective, yes, I was asked to try and remember any questions if I could, sadly my brain was so mashed that I could hardly remember my name, but it was no problem, no students are ever pressured into collecting feedback.

Cheers

TBL:D

[RowleyUK]

ok

[Delta Wun-Wun]

T Key,
I don`t think the schools get notified of the results.
I am with Bristol and so far have no complaints about the standard of the notes etc.Full time ground school is not an option for me, and Bristol suited my circumstances.If you have the option I would say that full time would be better, because you won`t be trying to juggle a job at the same time.
According to the posts on here Oxford`s notes are very good.
ATA at Coventry also seem to get good reviews on here,Atlantic Flight Training also run both distance and residential courses.
Whoever you finally decide to go with be under no illusions that they can have the world`s best pass rate,but you are going to have to work your socks off as there is a huge amount to learn.
Go and visit them all and choose what you think will suit you best.
It has been said loads of times all the schools mentioned on here have good course material and good Instructors.

[Luke SkyToddler]

:mad:

There's been a damn sight too much subtle hijacking of threads by the various school representatives here in recent months (in no particular order, certain individuals who live in Bournemouth, Oxford and Leeds do spring to mind as the worst offenders :rolleyes: ). I'm sick of the whole lot of you, all you do is try to sneakily reverse-plug your particular school by finger pointing at other people's plugs, claiming the moral high ground, trying to score minor points of precedure against the others and generally being a pain in the @rse. Give it a rest all of you : it's goddam tedious, it's not fooling anyone, and all you are doing is making your no-doubt reputable companies look like they're being officially represented by a bunch of bickering immature brats.

All this carry on about who's got the best 'first time pass rate' is utter bollocks anyway IMO. Truth is, ALL the notes are similar because they're all based on the same material, they're ALL good enough quality to do the business, there's no reason why ANY of the schools mentioned here can't sort you out a good exam pass as long as of course you have the mental agility to cut it in the first place.

If there was a truly dodgy ground school operator out there we all get to find out about it on PPRuNe within minutes I'm sure ... but getting all precious about it because one school's got a 90% pass rate and the other one's got 89% or whatever ... woop de doo :rolleyes:

It's got ****** all to do with the school a person chooses, and everything to do with the amount of hard work they put in.

Right that's my bit said. Flame away ... I dare ya ... the next ground school employee that posts an uppity post on here is officially a Denmark supporting big girl's blouse :D ;)

[Send Clowns]

Ah, so we have it Blue. You only count the results of people who do well in your mock exams. Now any school could achieve an excellent pass rate with that. Other schools frequently recommend a delay, but many students go for it anyway, to get a few exams out of the way, and there is nothing practical the school can do about this.

The "bluster" I refered to was in your previous post, when I asked an open question if there was any real advantage to the integrated course you did not try to give any. Of course when you accused me of asking rhetorical questions (I wasn't) I specifically directed the question at you. Since you failed to reply, I assumed you did not know of any advantage.

[Send Clowns]

Luke, my apologies, but if you read my post I simply made a point that has been made several times here by moderators among others (and in fact by you in your post!): that headline exam results are not a good way of choosing a school, and that most schools do not know them. Oxford Blue's posts since have backed up the former assertion.

That was entirely in line with the original post of the thread. The debate was then forced onto a side issue I used as a supporting argument, for which I apologise.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

For full time groundschool OATS is very hard to beat. For distance learning Bristol is very hard to beat. These two sit at the top table in my opinion.

There is little wrong with the groundschool at any of the established players. I don't think Pilot Assist is yet old enough to judge either way.

Don't get too hung up on it.

There are NO reliable pass rate statistics, there never have been and there never will be. So drop that idea pronto.

WWW

[Gin Slinger]

Well said Luke ST!

I do value the input of FTO bods, however, my hackles are raised significantly when they push their own agenda.

For the record, I picked distance learning because I felt I didn't require someone to stand over me whilst I learnt to read a map or add up moments.

I have just done my first batch of exams and feel pretty confident with all with the possible exception of Met - I hate it!

I hope to have completed my ATPL writtens in around 7 months start to finish, not 3 years ;)

[FO Cokebottle]

Lads,

Wake up, its all apissing contest between FAA and JAR. We are merely meat in the financial grinder.

[D 129]

More about Oxford ...

At the internal school finals, the "full time modulars" and the "integrated" courses get very similar marks - it varies month to month who is higher.

The integrateds may be pre selected - but the modulars are motivated by their overdrafts !.

When it comes to sitting the external exams, students struggling in the integrated course are told to withdraw and spend another month etc revising. The same happens with full time modulars but to a lesser degree - advice is given (!). So the drop out rate is lower.

I believe that Modulars (including distance learners who inevitably are seldom as well prepared) recently got a first time pass rate in the mid / high 80s and the integrateds got mid / high 90s.

So I'm a pretty satisfied customer ...