OAT Food for Thought

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A few things you wont hear from Oxford but I wish I knew prior to going there. Their average course size is 25 people per month, that equates to 300 students a year. If you look at the “Employment Statistics” section on their website, graduate jobs for 2006 currently stands at 141 that equates to a successful graduate employment figure of 47%

From my experience Oxford career services should only be claiming that they have managed to gain employment for the following companies BA, BA Connect, Excel, FlyBe and Jet2, which is a grand total of 61 jobs (21%) according to their latest web site figures (2006) If you take into account the GECAT scheme where you have to pay ₤500.00 for an assessment and then fund your own type rating, then you have BMI, BMI Baby, Easyjet and Thomas Cook which totals 33 (11%) but this is more a GECAT success than Oxford career services. Combining these 2 figures together (being generous towards OAT) it comes to 32% graduate employment. A further 47 (16%) of graduates have managed to gain employment from their own initiatives. This leaves 159 (52%) students without jobs, zero help from Oxford careers services and a whopping debt yet you have paid over the odds for a careers service that is no where near as successful as it claims to be.

To be in this 32% there are some un-written rules that you will not be aware of when you start your APP course. To stand any chance of the selection board giving you a recommendation at the end of your training you need to have ground school first time passes with an average of 85+% you will need “3” or better in all flight tests and a first series IR. Any mistakes along the way during your training will rule you out of receiving any recommendation from OAT’s selection board. Even if you do achieve this standard your face needs to fit, they have to “decide” to like you and you have no control over this.

You need to also be aware of the EPST (European Pilot Selection & Training) Dutch contingent, they get preferential treatment especially when being put forward for jobs due to contractual obligations between then and Oxford, so any English student is immediately disadvantaged.

The 16% who find employment through their own imitative were binned by Oxford yet when Oxford hear of their success, they suddenly pull your name out of the bin and proudly put it on their “Graduate Jobs Board” and put you in as a statistic on their web site as if you are one of their success stories.

Overall you have a less than 1 in 3 chance of successfully being employed through OAT

The actual school and their training I have no problem with however I take issue with the misleading marketing spin they employ, you believe that you are paying a premium for the use of OAT’s many contacts in the airline industry, their careers service and the so called employment boom that is apparently about to happen in the next month or two (after 2 years of this it wears thin!!)

If I knew all these facts before going to OAT, I would have perhaps gone elsewhere and definitely have gone down the Modular route as the truth about the integrated course is just hype and does not deliver a job in the fashion they would have you believe. Taking the cheaper modular route will mean that you will still spend the ₤60,000+ but included in this cost will be a type rating that you will most probably have to pay for.

Other schools integrated courses may be similar, I don’t know, I can only comment on my own experience, This post is not intended to just slate Oxford, I feel it is important for any wannabe to know that before parting with a huge sum of money that you know precisely what you are going to get for that money and the fact that there is a very good chance that you will graduate and then be left to your own devices with a monumental debt. You very quickly become the forgotten Oxford student; there are many of us out there!

One final piece of advice: Read between the lines of all the marketing spin thrown at you! At the end of the day it’s your decision and you need to be able to live with that.

hans25 schreef:He jammer man, maar gelukkig mag je het over een jaar nog eens proberen!
Misschien zie ik je dan uiteindelijk toch nog in Oxford.

Ik weet trouwens niet of michel het gehaald heeft.

Succes