Originally Posted by Liberty Pilot

I think you may be referring to a part 61 school.

I have worked at one of the larger 141 universities and also a mom and pop part 61 school. They each have their positives and negatives.

part 141 is nice because you work off of a syllabus. Personally I am glad that I started instructing at a part 141 school because I knew exactly what I had to do for the next lesson and how to prepare for it.

Part 61 was nice for after instructing almost 600 hours because I knew how to judge what the student needed to learn next from passing others in the past. For me part 61 was my favorite because I got to tailor each lesson for each student depending on their skill set.

The negative for me about the 141 school I went to was simulator usage. I think sims are great and they serve a phenomenal purpose as a teaching aid, but the school I was at seemed to be replacing it with actual flight training. Im pretty sure we were in the sim more for instrument flying than in the actual aircraft and as an instructor trying to build flight hours it can be a real downer when you spend 25 out of your 40 hours with students that week in a simulator.

In your situation I would see if you could find out any information from current instructors at both schools.

Ask about safety, maintenance, student/instructor ratio, how many hours they fly per week/month/year, how weather affects them (the 141 should have a FOM that is a guideline for when ops closes for certain WX)

That is kind of just a start. If you are willing to fly as much as possible I would go with whatever gets you from instructing to the right seat asap unless you see some red flags.

Hope this helped and good luck!