Where Should I Go?Confed. Or Sault?

[flyordie17]

Hello All.
I know everyone has seen this question millions of times. I don't mean to start any fights between Confed and Sault, but I need some help. I just graduated high school last june and decided to take a year off to save up some money and work. My grades are 12 English(U) 85%, 12Calculus(U) 84%, 12 Advanced Functions(U) 80%, 12Chemistry(C) 88%, 12 Physics(U) 90%. My first question is are my marks good enough to get into either program? My second question is am I better to go to Sault and get the multi or Confed and do the multi on my own. I am big on the multi as I wish to sit right seat as soon as possible. I know its likely I'll be working ramp first year, but I like to give myself the best chance. The parents are paying for school so I figure I can easily save up enough money to get my multi right out of Confed(especially since I have a year off to work right now). Again I don't mean to start any problems between either schools, I am just giving my situation. Am I better to go to sault and have the multi paid for? Or go to Confed, and get my multi right after or during? I beleive that if I went to confed and got the multi on my own I would have more TT hours. I noticed confed also does some prep for the IFR so getting my multi/ifr won't even be normal cost. I also like the float flying idea, at least the 25 hours, so you can get the experience and give yourself options. Both schools seem like amazing programs, but the fact that I can get more, in less time seems very appealing to me. Please give me your thoughts.
Please forgive me for making another thread about Sault and Confed.
Thanks for reading.
Bob

[mattedfred]

i went to the sault and wished i had gone to confed

i couldn't afford an instructor rating after graduation so i got my float endorsement instead and my first job was flying floats

if confed is still a 2 year program then i highly recommend confed over sault as you'll be out in the industry 1 year ahead of the sault grads and you can always work on your multi-ifr at perimeter while working for them on the ramp for example

good luck

[AUGER9]

As far as the multi goes, what quite a few kids from Confed do is head to Cornwall during March break of second year. It's a lot less expensive than another years tuition and living etc. Plus Confed does all the ifr ground school that you'll need. And note, the program is actually only 18 months long, not 2 years. There's also a far amount of grads that get float jobs once they graduate as well, if you decide to that.

[joe forty-sixpack]

http://www.avcanada.ca/forums2/viewtopi ... 19&start=0

I'm stealing sis' job now haha

The above poll is what avcanadians generally think, take it with a grain of salt. Both are good schools with good reps and grads all over the industry. One is 3 the other is 2yrs, the experience? Priceless. It's hard to say, Sault is heavy on math in year 1 with not much flying going on whereas you start flying right away at Confederation. You get to do aerobatics (no, not aerobics) in the Soo, floats at Confed.

Traditionally people didn't usually like to do the group 1 IFR right away so Confed had the advantage but things changed over the last year or so and people could get jobs with wet-ink-on-license experience.

Consider: how will the current state of the economy have things looking by the time you graduate? Hard to say. Personally I left the group 1 until last minute but kept sharp with IFR procedures etc. It's just cheaper like that, or at least initially it is. With a seaplane rating more jobs open up right away and you'd be done sooner (cheaper?) at Confed. That's the cost advantage anyway.

[767]

Confed, because you get done in 2 years.

If you want to spend more than 2 years, do a different program instead of aviation. If you decide to do a different program, you can attend any local flying school and get your licence.

No point in spending 4 years for the same thing, when you can get done in 2 years.

That is my opinion. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

[. .]

The Sault is a three year program, not a 4 year as some had insisted. Confed is 2 years not 18 months again has some had insisted. You don't remove the summers from your 4 year engineering degree and say you've done it in 2.75 yrs or something silly like that.

That out of the way here's some facts for you. At confed you'll start flying 4 months earlier. The Sault takes that first 4 months to weed out quite a few that shouldn't be there. That way once you start flying, you're not sharing the planes with those who almost certainly won't graduate anyway.

The entire last year of your time at Sault College is spent focusing on IFR and milti flying. To assume that you get the same quality of education in a 2 week course at perimeter or heading down to Cornwall and doing the cheapest IFR in Canada is silly at best.

The industry is about to take a major down turn. In the last downturn we saw the American dollar still very strongly positioned vs. the Canadian dollar. This had a nice side effect of letting the yanks still come up and do fishing and hunting trips at 40% off deals in Canada. This time around the American dollar is at par. This means that the pleasure hunting and fishing trips are going to crash badly. So that float rating isn't exactly going to be the ticket to anyone's success in the next few years.

The Sault eliminates well over one half of the students each year. So a lot of the negative feed back you'll read on this forum and others is written from those who simply couldn't make it. So keep that somewhere in the back of your mind when reading some of the responses. With your grades I would be quite confident that you'd make it through the Sault's academic side of things. You'll just have find the right balance between lifestyle and homework.

Here's some personal opinion for you now. I would think long and hard about where you'd like to see yourself at the end of your career. If you're thinking about something bush or Northern related then I'd certainly head to Confed. No questions asked they'll better prepare you for that type of career. If you want to fly for an airline, then the education that the Sault provides certainly gives you a better foundation.

I'm not trying to even hint that you can't make it to an airline from Confed. From my experience now at my second airline, I've just met a lot more Sault grads than Confed people. Both of my initial ground school classes at airlines had a few other Sault people in them and no confed people.

I'm sure then next 100 posts are going to be about how someone, or their brother or uncle was a Confed grad and they're now all at Cathay or Air Canada or WestJet, and the entire ground school class was all confed people, etc etc. That wasn't the intent of my post.

[AUGER9]

Confed is 2 years not 1.8 months again has some had insisted.

Actually, September to April of the next year is only 18 months.

If airlines are your goal, it does not matter where you go. You'll get there at the same rate from either school. Just 1 year less if you went to Confed.

[BTD]

Actually, September to April of the next year is only 18 months.

True. However it is all semantics. The point he was trying to make is that if you look at it that way, Sault is not a 3 year program it is 2.5 years (30 months). And any 4 year undergraduate degree is actually only 3.5 years from start to finish. You can't use one scale when you talk about one of them and another one when you talk about the other.

Either Confed is a 2 year program and Sault is a 3. Or Confed is 1.5 and Sault is 2.5.

If airlines are your goal, it does not matter where you go. You'll get there at the same rate from either school. Just 1 year less if you went to Confed.

Agreed. I went to Sault and have flown with a number of people from Confed. If you are successful at one college you would most likely be successful at the other.

I enjoyed, and do not regret the time I spent at Sault. Others will tell you they hated it. It is what you make of it. I enjoyed the time spent in the academic courses even though not all of them directly applied to aviation. They allowed me to expand my own knowledge base and exercise problem solving skills I would not otherwise have had the opportunity to do.

If your reasoning for going to Confed is about getting it done the fastest, you might as well go to a private FTU and hammer it out as fast as possible (if you have the resources).

Go see each setup, talk to the professors, and current students, and make an informed decision on which you like better. Do not base your education decisions on the opinions of nameless posters on an internet website, who will just end up in a "who has a bigger dick debate".

Best of luck with whatever you decide.

BTD

[. .]

With the economy going into the toilette getting done a few months faster doesn't mean what It might have two years ago. There's no mass hiring going on. There's no college kids going right to Jazz. There's no 1000hr king air Captain jobs being posted weekly anymore. That extra year spent in school learning a bit more about your craft isn't gonna kill ya.

[flyordie17]

Thank you all for this helpful information. Im not too concerned with time, especially since aviation seems to be a bit slow right now industry wise. Endless does make a good point about the multi. A year long program would give you better knowledge then a two week program, plus you have some time to study what you learned and take it all in. Thank you all for your posts.

[CYQT]

The Sault is a three year program, not a 4 year as some had insisted. Confed is 2 years not 18 months again has some had insisted. You don't remove the summers from your 4 year engineering degree and say you've done it in 2.75 yrs or something silly like that.

I'm in first year at confed right now. Just for clarificiation, my program started Sept 2008 and will be finished April 2010, which is 18 months. You dont get a summer break, it is spent doing floats and x-country flying. So the program is actually 18 months straight.

[BTD]

I'm in first year at confed right now. Just for clarificiation, my program started Sept 2008 and will be finished April 2010, which is 18 months. You dont get a summer break, it is spent doing floats and x-country flying. So the program is actually 18 months straight.

The point he was trying to make is that if you look at it that way, Sault is not a 3 year program it is 2.5 years (30 months). And any 4 year undergraduate degree is actually only 3.5 years from start to finish. You can't use one scale when you talk about one of them and another one when you talk about the other.

Either Confed is a 2 year program and Sault is a 3. Or Confed is 1.5 and Sault is 2.5.

Compare on the same scale. If you refer to a university program as 4 years, and Sault as 3 years, then confed is a 2 year program. People understand that school starts in Sept and ends in Apr.

[. .]

BTD: It's too tough of a concept for some to understand i guess.

[flyordie17]

Are those mark's going to give me a good shot of getting in?
Thanks everyone

[flyordie17]

Im not trying to be told im good, or bragg or anything. All I want to know is if I will be able to get into the programs. Anyone who is going to sault or confed, or has gone to sault or confed, should know their marks and wether or not mine compare to theirs. I don't take any pride in gloating. Does the title of the forum say "Am I good, Tell me if I am" ?

[deflux]

You should have zero problems getting into either. By recent experience Confed is a bit harder to get into than the Sault though.

[flyordie17]

Thats all I wanted to know, I really wasn't trying to boast. The programs don't list an average or marks that you need to get to get in. The only way to find out is to ask.
Thanks for the straight up answer deflux I appreciate it.

[CYQT]

You don't remove the summers from your 4 year engineering degree and say you've done it in 2.75 yrs or something silly like that.

BTD: It's too tough of a concept for some to understand i guess.

The point I was trying to make was that confed goes right through the summer. I was not simply arriving at the value of 18 months by removing a 4 month summer break... like the example you gave with the 'engineering degree'.

[ToFlyIsDivine]

With those grades why don't you go to Seneca or Western?

[CYQT]

Because he wants to get it done quicker and cheaper and not spend 100k+ at western for something that shouldn't cost nearly that much. I dont mean to offend you, but everyone is well aware of Western's 'amazing' program. There's no need to advertise it in every single thread.

[ToFlyIsDivine]

Because he wants to get it done quicker and cheaper and not spend 100k+ at western for something that shouldn't cost nearly that much. I dont mean to offend you, but everyone is well aware of Western's 'amazing' program. There's no need to advertise it in every single thread.

where did you pull the 100k+ from?

also notice the fact that I mentioned Seneca as well....with those grades....I would recommend him go to Seneca

[sstaurus]

BTD: It's too tough of a concept for some to understand i guess.

Normally I wouldn't keep beating the dead horse... but in this case it makes sense to call Confed an 18 month program. Summer breaks in normal programs like Sault or any other post secondary aren't long enough to get meaningful work and you have to leave your job to go back to school anyway in the fall. But since Confed is only 18 months straight, once you're done in April you can start working, you're not going back to school... seems obvious to me.

At least that was one of the specific reasons why I chose Confed. But if I had started straight out of high school, I might have considered Sault as I wouldn't have been in any rush to finish.

[CYQT]

where did you pull the 100k+ from?

http://www.registrar.uwo.ca/FinancialSe ... UGRDFT.pdf

ACS (Com Aviation Mgmt) Year 1 19,620.29
ACS (Com Aviation Mgmt) Year 2 18,068.59
ACS (Com Aviation Mgmt) Year 3 16,772.84
ACS (Com Aviation Mgmt) Year 4 15,498.09

I pulled it directly from Western's website. They charge their university tuition (all the regular fees for the BMOS program) and then they tack on an even $50,000 for the flight training. You're telling me it costs that much to go from 0 to commercial + Multi IFR? Theres no way.

What happens if the student doesn't cost maylan $50,000 after everything is complete? Does he/she receive the unspent money when they graduate? I highly doubt that.

[ToFlyIsDivine]

Thats still not 100k+

So where did you pull the 100k+ from?

[TopperHarley]

When you tack on living expenses on top of the tuition, it is probably close to the 100k mark. But it's comparable to going to any other university and doing your training on the side I'd imagine.

When I went through the program 4 years ago it was $32,000 for the flight training which included a class iv instructor rating. We were charged rates for their old 152s but got to fly the brand new 172s and C1 and Da40. When we were done the program, my account balance at Empire was close to -$12,000. But we never had to pay the difference as we were locked into the price in year 1 which worked out great for our class as we got a sweet deal. Today though the price and cost of flying is a lot higher. You wont pay more if you go over budget, and you really shouldnt ever go under budget as you are charged for a set number of hours.