Thanks for the advice on HBO. I would love to do so but I am from China and local HBOs are very expensive. In fact, they are generally more expensive than those 2 schools. I would love to go to a good HBO and a good instructor in U.S. to get my PPL first but so far I have no luck getting consistent recommendations. I guess by definition FBO don't receive a lot of attention and it's hard to see many people recommending on a specific FBO.