Hey everyone my name is Josh. I am currently in a local flight school working on getting my private pilot license that I plan to get by the end of the year. Currently I am sitting at just over 40 hours of fight time and am preparing for the written test. However I am planning on visiting an ATP school in Atlanta in the coming weeks, and was wondering if anyone had any specific questions that they asked or wished they had asked so I can ask when I am down there.
I plan to ask about housing and of course financing but other than that bulk of the questions I have are involving the timeline of the program. But anything will help me make my final decision of which ATP school to go to. I appreciate the help.
First off, I trust you don’t plan to just pop in on the ATP location. Generally there isn’t office staff and the instructors are usually instructing, not just hanging out to give tours. Make sure you contact ATP admin to schedule something if possible.
As for questions, this was created by Chris and may offer some guidance:
I really recommend giving Admissions a call (if you haven’t already) and scheduling a training center tour if you are interested in stopping by an ATL location. You don’t just want to show up because there could be a great chance everyone is out flying or partaking in a lesson, the last thing you’d want is someone interrupting your ground or flight event…
I had a student once enter the program around 30-40 hours and while he was ahead of the game, we had to fix the bad habits from the previous flight school. It is important to note that while you may be ready to solo, there are bad habits that can be taught and at ATP, you will become standardized so that when you fly with your partner in the crew phase, you both know what to expect of one another.
If you’re looking at housing, ATP provides a list of all the places (and fees) for the housing:
For financing, I would really recommend reaching out to the team and indulging in conversation about your financial considerations. We’re in a time where prime market is 8.5% and things can be tough for individuals, so making sure you have a good application (and possible co-signor) is really important.
If you plan on coming in credit private, make sure you review the prerequisites. You need to have a minimum of “78+ Hours Total Flight Time, including 8 Hours Cross-Country PIC”. Just wanted to make sure you are budgeting for that.
Fantastic, you have a scheduled tour, start brainstorming some questions for the training center and be interactive with everyone there. The FAQ that Adam linked from Chris’ initial thread is a great start, obviously your scenario could be different and questions vary per visitor, so start up a list for yourself using the basis questions.