There are several issues that hasn't been discussed with recent changes that were made by ATP within the last several months. First, the days of ATP just handing you a book are now over. One thing that I like that they did is develop full blown ground schools through the Ipad. This alleviates the instructor from having to be there all the time and makes your scheduled ground time more productive as the student can now go into discussions with little background knowledge already. Secondly, you are not buying "flight" time at ATP as much as you are a program. Keep in mind my story of how I went under flight time on everything but ATP assured me I got what I paid for. For example, during your instrument program you get 12 flights (that is not a typo) before you take your check ride. 2 of those flights are your commercial XC's. All your other time is spent in the sim which I think was a total of 24. You have unlimited access to the sim as long as no one is using it which makes your flights more productive because you can use the aircraft to go fly a XC somewhere close or just shoot approaches. All the sims are scenario based. Chances are you are never actually going to go over sim time unless you are really struggling. Now if you are more advanced (this happened to me) and are flying through instrument training (I did mine in 12 days) they will offer to let you just fly XC's and move planes for maint. The down fall if you fail your check ride that's on you not the instructor but that's why they let the student chose. Me and my instructor went down to Tampa twice. So in all reality I only really did check ride prep flights because all I did was XC's for the rest of my training. But most of those flights were in real IMC and most of the approaches were down to actual minimums. I did an ILS where I actually broke out 1 FT above DH. That's one thing I will give ATP they encourage instructors to go fly in IMC and get real experience. Now for those that bash the ATP will never teach you anything. First ATP is designed for (mostly college graduates are most of the students) for the person that can read a book and learn the knowledge. The ones that couldn't learn like that got kicked out or dropped out. The program isn't for every one but they don't say it is either. How does ATP make money you ask? By the add on programs. They make more from the add on's than they do from the ACPP. All those deals you see on the web site is how they keep the other training centers busy. For example, they will offer free housing if you do the ACPP at XYZ training center. Or they might take off $2,000 to get a training center business. There business model is smart but they will be quick to tell you a lie. What they don't tell you is when you drop out you don't get honored with a full refund. For example, when I did the CFI opt out I got refunded $2,000 even though the course is around $6,000. When I went back and reread the contract sure enough it said they have the right to that. That's why I would never recommend ATP any one. They are a great airline style based academy but they make their business from those that can't succeed. Any business that conducts business like that is one I will never teach at or associate my self with. Those of you that went more than a year ago. This is all recent changes. BTW the guaranteed job went bye bye. They promise you a job for six months but they have instructors who have been there for years. When I was there I even watched them fire instructors for BS reasons because they had no openings but they HAD to hire them due to a contract the school had with the students. Some of them legitimately could not fly. My instructor almost got fired because on my instrument check ride I didn't operate the GPS exactly how he wanted it. I operated it in a safe manner that was consistent with regulations but he has his way of doing things. BTW any book ATP gives you that isn't a study guide was written by an examiner. SOCAL you need to make the decision but if you have any more questions feel free to ask.