Re: What is the Enrollment vs actually Hired ratio
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"who will also make you study to the level that will make you competitive on an interview."
Don't you think it should be up to the individual to be professional and set a high standard for himself? Not up to the reg you are training under. What you are saying is DCA forces you to a higher standard. That's fine but I submit that a 61 guy can meet the same standard through hard work and professionalism. Not all 61 guys are up to the task. Nor do all DCA students "graduate" from the program.
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It is obviously up to the individual to study for an interview and be prepared. No school can make you do this.
Where the school is most important is during the initial training. If someone is going to get their private and they have a turd for a CFI, then they will probably learn alot of bad habits. They will probably also not know everything they should, because their CFI did not teach them what they should know, or even tell them what to study. I think that the private and instrument are probably the two most important ratings for this reason. If you have a good CFI for these, then you have a good foundation to build on and the quality of instruction becomes much less important.
The advantage the larger schools like DCA have is that they have a very standardized syllabus and strong management oversite. If someone is not doing their job as a CFI, then the situation will be corrected.
You can obviously get the same quality Part 61, but for someone who has little knowledge of aviation this can be difficult. Many get poor instruction and simply do not know any better.
I am not saying that the student should not have to do any research on the schools they select, it is just hard to make an 'informed decision' when you do not have much knowledge of the subject.
This is my only problem with DCA. I am sure they provide a good education and they do send their instructors to the Airlines. The problem is the Ads. They prey on the uninformed and are misleading at best. There are many other good schools that do not use misleading advertisements to drum up students. For those of us that have 'been there and done that' it makes it hard to take DCA seriously.
I would also think that the ads would hurt DCA in the long run as well. If you enter the school as a relatively uninformed student, you will learn more about the industry as your knowledge of flying grows. During this process you may loose alot of respect for the school if what the marketing people told you was somewhat less than truthful. If you then start to have any sort of problem at the school, management will have already lost alot of credibility as you will already feel deceived. This could easily result in the loss of students and bad feelings over minor problems.
From a personal standpoint, I was unimpressed with DCA marketing when I visited the school (back when it was still Comair). It may have changed, but most of the marketing people were not pilots and seemed to have little knowledge of the industry. I had already done some research and I knew that some of what they were telling me was BS. Even my wife who did not have any aviation background was somewhat shocked by their unprofessionalism and the 'hard sell'.
