CDL School, What's Good, What's Not

Ok :)

As usual, Old School swoops in, changes the direction of the conversation, and drops some incredible bits of wisdom and insight on us. Nice.

I'm still interested to hear about others experiences with private schools.

I went to a private school and got about the same amount of road time as you will--11 hours after everything was said and done. I didn't pass my road test the first time, so I was one of those students coming back and hogging the truck (went on two more drives before my second road test, which I passed).

Like Old School said, the school is usually about getting the bare minimum of skill to pass the exam. Your real training will come later. There are some wonderful community college programs out there that really prepare students for the road, but my state didn't have a single one.

Ya...I couldn't find a community college offering it either.

Well, I had just posted recently about my personal experience, but even by other private trucking schools' standards mine was significantly sub-par. I was getting about 20 minutes a day, if I was lucky. There were some days I didn't get in a truck at all. If you're concerned about how much time behind the wheel you're getting to learn skills, you can always talk to your instructor or school administrator to see if there are extra days you can practice, or what their policy is after your session is over but you feel you still need some extra time to practice before taking the licensing test. I think any school should be able to offer you some additional help.

Old school. We should all go with company training?

Old school. We should all go with company training?

Company training should be more appealing. I have the choice at 150 per month for 13 months or 5200 at the same school. So I'm looking at a tech school for 1800 with six week 260 hour and will not be locked into a company.

Private school was more convenient for me, as I needed to keep my job so I could keep paying my bills. Going to company sponsored training , I wasn't sure I'd get any money to pay my bills, and didn't like the idea of having to sign a long term contract. I can however see that this is a better option for many, mainly because not everyone can fork thousands of dollars right off the bat. So going to company sponsored CDL is a great option for many.

RV I can tell you that your experience is pretty much par for the course for private schools. I was kind of lucky with my school and we were able to do 2 groups for the road and backing training. I wrote a training diary about my school, not sure if you have checked that section out but yeah it seems like your getting the same as everyone else.