Seneca, Sault or Confederation for Flight Training?

[imapo16]

Which of these 3 schools mentionned above is the "best" for flight training and getting your first job?

[ActionAxson]

All relative in my opinion. Confederation is a 2 year program. Sault is 3. Seneca 4. Confederation you only get your group 3 IFR. Seneca and Sault you get Group 1.

I would say Confed grads get the first job quickest (seeing as they graduate a year earlier), but Sault and Seneca grads have the chance to be offered positions at Jazz etc (through awards to the top students).

[goingnowherefast]

Many Confed students spend the month after they graduate getting their group 1 IFR (big $$$).
I've heard rumors that that Confed no longer offers float training. Anyone able to confirm or squash that? That was probably the biggest draw to that school.

Sault students graduate with their Group 1, but a year later (and an extra year's worth of housing and tuition).

Some companies love hiring Sault grads, they tend to be more the wheels/IFR type companies. Wasaya and Thunder as examples. Confed guys, in the past, tend to be hired at float and bush companies. We'll see what happens if they don't have a float program anymore.

[SuperchargedRS]

It's all the same chit

You'll end up as a greenhorn with a bunch of 172 trainer trike time, and a bunch of classes completed that won't do jack for you, as far as their "graduates" go, they are all mostly interchangeable.

Smart money would be on doing it at a mom and pop shop, while working full time in a grown up job, ideally in sales or something with your hands, learning to fly in a small tailwheel, building time in gliders, spending time around real pilots and networking, and no, you're not networking at the self licking icecream cone of confed, Seneca, etc.


You should be able to get your CPL done in a year or less this route, enter the job market sooner, and have a leg up on your peers.

[JasonE]

Do your homework. You can easily do your Group 1 IFR upgrade after Confed for much less than what a 3rd year would cost you.

Also SuperchargedRS's comment's are biased if you go read the previous threads like this one, so draw your own conclusions.

[SpeedChecks]

Confederation College has recently partnered up with Jazz for their college partnership pathway program. Nonetheless all 3 programs will get you where you want to be. Cheers and goodluck!

All relative in my opinion. Confederation is a 2 year program. Sault is 3. Seneca 4. Confederation you only get your group 3 IFR. Seneca and Sault you get Group 1.

I would say Confed grads get the first job quickest (seeing as they graduate a year earlier), but Sault and Seneca grads have the chance to be offered positions at Jazz etc (through awards to the top students).

[SuperchargedRS]

Confederation College has recently partnered up with Jazz for their college partnership pathway program. Nonetheless all 3 programs will get you where you want to be. Cheers and goodluck!

All relative in my opinion. Confederation is a 2 year program. Sault is 3. Seneca 4. Confederation you only get your group 3 IFR. Seneca and Sault you get Group 1.

I would say Confed grads get the first job quickest (seeing as they graduate a year earlier), but Sault and Seneca grads have the chance to be offered positions at Jazz etc (through awards to the top students).

Don't factor the Jazz thing into your decision,

unless you believe the world really works like this...



Also be sure to factor in res, meal plan, not being able to really have a job that pays for chit during school, books, etc etc.

[JasonE]

Don't stay in res.
Buy your own food.

[Canoehead]

Which of these 3 schools mentionned above is the "best" for flight training and getting your first job?

All 3 are good schools, however they tend to cater slightly different depending on what you want to do.

The reality is that Seneca is the best overall program in Canada (and I'm a Sault graduate and instructed there for several years). That's where I would recommend to anybody with a desire to go into the airlines.

The Sault "ain't what it used to be". Too many students taken in to the program with insufficient airplanes and staff to guarantee you will complete the program in the 3 years allotted. The reputation of a 'tough' program is a thing of the past; Sault grads are "a dime a dozen", instead of the days of just a dozen... I don't mean disrespect to the more recent grads, but it's simply the reality. Still many excellent candidates coming out of there though.

I'm not completely familiar with Confed anymore, except that it's unfortunate that they no longer do the float rating, instead contracting out to complete IFR tickets. Kinda 'ho-hum' if you ask me.

But answer to your question; Seneca.

[Bede]

Seneca is probably the most rigorous program. But who cares- it's just one check box and points on an airline application. You don't get extra points for what school you went to.

Confed grads all seem to get jobs right away- and 2 years before the Seneca grad graduates.

If I knew then what I know now, I'd go to Confed.

[Tailwheelup]

I was instructing at a one friendly "mom and pop" school where every student and instructor asked me about tailwheel flying. Just like the post below, I and was looking for a "mom and pop shop" where tailwheel was a priority.

Now, work is a real pleasure, for the last week, I spent all my time between a Cessna 150 Texas Tail-Drager and tearing up the sky in a Super Decathlon.






(pics are of identical aircraft and paint)

It's all the same chit

You'll end up as a greenhorn with a bunch of 172 trainer trike time, and a bunch of classes completed that won't do jack for you, as far as their "graduates" go, they are all mostly interchangeable.

Smart money would be on doing it at a mom and pop shop, while working full time in a grown up job, ideally in sales or something with your hands, learning to fly in a small tailwheel, building time in gliders, spending time around real pilots and networking, and no, you're not networking at the self licking icecream cone of confed, Seneca, etc.


You should be able to get your CPL done in a year or less this route, enter the job market sooner, and have a leg up on your peers.

[goingnowherefast]

Seneca grads also have a reputation, bit of a turn-off in the eyes of come chief pilots.

[Speedalive]

I would avoid the sault for these reasons...

The Sault "ain't what it used to be". Too many students taken in to the program with insufficient airplanes and staff to guarantee you will complete the program in the 3 years allotted. The reputation of a 'tough' program is a thing of the past; Sault grads are "a dime a dozen", instead of the days of just a dozen... I don't mean disrespect to the more recent grads, but it's simply the reality. Still many excellent candidates coming out of there though.

... and more, speaking as a current student. It's really not what people make it out to be. They accept far too many people into the program and don't have the staff or fleet to deal with them and this sucks for the preceding year students if you've had bad luck with our wonderful weather and fallen behind. I don't want to mention names, but a couple of the higher ups in the program who were recently hired are complete nutcases and have introduced this program to the wonderful world of politics and bureaucracy. There isn't a learning environment here. If you screw up something for the first time, you get a letter of warning of which you can only get 5 before get a fail grade in flight training. You are limited in your amount of review hours (I don't remember the exact figure.. something like 3 hours per semester and they don't carry through if you haven't used them). If you haven't flown in a while due to cancellations and you've got a flight test recommendation flight or something next, and you're out of review hours...tough luck. Your most asked question at the airport will be "did you sign the new memo's?" There's a new one practically every day. Our VFR departure procedures to get in/out of the zone and to the practice areas are so unnecessarily complex that they might as well just make a CAP chart for it. Very few of our teachers are competent. The bar has been lowered so much to be able to continue in the program too. I could go on and on. It's just not a good program anymore. I'm actively seeking a way out personally as I'm certainly not getting my money's worth. I'm trying to get a job back home so I can train privately and pay off debt and then I'll do a degree with athabasca or something later down the line. This is because at the current rate I'll be here for 4-5 years due to bad luck with weather, scheduling, etc and I'm far from the only one in this boat. Sure it's an extra year or two, but as SuperchargedRS said, you still have to pay for rent and living costs. Don't count on being able to hold a job if you're in one of these programs.

Enough ranting though. I'd advise to steer clear of Sault College! As far as I understand, Seneca is having similar issues, but apparently they've got a new CFI who's improved things a bit, so there's that. Confed is probably the better option of the 3, however, if I had to do this again, I'd go get a degree and train privately on the side. It costs more, but I think it's worth it.

[princessna172]

When it comes to a college FTU, you're gonna be knee deep in bullshit no matter where you go. Unless you really want the degree/diploma or you're under scholarship, it's not worth it.

[Tailwheelup]

When it comes to a college FTU, you're gonna be knee deep in bullshit no matter where you go. Unless you really want the degree/diploma or you're under scholarship, it's not worth it.

The Canadian "integrated program" was and is a wonderful plan for flight training organizations in Canada to get in on taking large sums of students up front and then doing the training later. The students mostly foreign believe they will be spoon fed knowledge and generally end up in schools who with a few rare exceptions don't give a rat's behind about the student's needs.

Canada simply copied the USA and changed the name from "accelerated training", another new fangled way of claiming more briefings and less flying can lead to more effective training. Hate it or like it, it's here for a long time to come.

The traditional sequential training has a lot to offer that can arguably be better in the long term for knowledge and skill obtained at the end.

"being knee deep in the bullshit" is another way of saying you don't like the extensive paperwork that goes with the job and you either get used to or find some place where they include secretaries to do instructor's logs and files for them.

[Tailwheelup]

It's a tragedy that we get posts like this one below. I left one airport where several schools fell into this description where instructors were paid peanuts and did about 10 hours of ground to one hour in the air and seemed to average around 12 hours a month of flight time in environments that make a mockery of students needs or even respect for students or the process.

It was not just "one school" but a large number of schools where instructors run out of rooms to do briefings, where multiple briefings are held at the same time and with a rat race of instructor's skating on thin ice by manipulating students to change instructors for their own selfish interests. These schools breed a toxic environment that prospective students cannot see on the web prior to coming to Canada.

These same schools pay their instructors little more than welfare and many need jobs at Tim Hortons just to pay the rent and eat more than Kraft Dinners.

Its enough to turn away good potential instructors to take the bush jobs which I was going to do until the phone rang from a place that has more sunny days than most places in Canada and a more appropriate genuine caring environment.

Too many students taken in to the program with insufficient airplanes and staff to guarantee you will complete the program in the 3 years allotted. I don't want to mention names, but a couple of the higher ups in the program who were recently hired are complete nutcases and have introduced this program to the wonderful world of politics and bureaucracy. There isn't a learning environment here. If you screw up something for the first time, you get a letter of warning of which you can only get 5 before get a fail grade in flight training. You are limited in your amount of review hours (I don't remember the exact figure.. something like 3 hours per semester and they don't carry through if you haven't used them). If you haven't flown in a while due to cancellations and you've got a flight test recommendation flight or something next, and you're out of review hours...tough luck. Your most asked question at the airport will be "did you sign the new memo's?" There's a new one practically every day. Our VFR departure procedures to get in/out of the zone and to the practice areas are so unnecessarily complex that they might as well just make a CAP chart for it. Very few of our teachers are competent. The bar has been lowered so much to be able to continue in the program too. I could go on and on. It's just not a good program anymore. I'm actively seeking a way out personally as I'm certainly not getting my money's worth. I'm trying to get a job back home so I can train privately and pay off debt and then I'll do a degree with athabasca or something later down the line. This is because at the current rate I'll be here for 4-5 years due to bad luck with weather, scheduling, etc and I'm far from the only one in this boat. Sure it's an extra year or two, but as SuperchargedRS said, you still have to pay for rent and living costs. Don't count on being able to hold a job if you're in one of these programs.

[Canoehead]

Might want to recheck your quoting abilities there Tailwheelup...

That wasn't my post.