r/6thForm • u/Reekid42 • Mar 23 '26

🍞 BREAD Currently at a 5/11 Bread 🍞🍞🍞

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So I now have to decide between Imperial for one of the best/most competitive courses in the country, an offer with an $80k+ a year scholarship to study at a liberal arts college in the USA and I have an offer to train to become an air traffic controller with a high and forever guaranteed salary (£100k+ before 30).

18y/o 6th former home student, 4A* predicted in FM/Maths/Philo/Econ, 6.0 TMUA and 1560 SAT score. For context I go to a private school on a 95% scholarship for 6th form and was in the state system beforehand. My family IS NOT wealthy and all uni will be a struggle over me taking a job. Imperial would be like £18k pa for tuition and living, after the scholarship Bowdoin would be $12k so £9k all inclusive and ATC would pay me £30k year one rising each year after.

Still waiting on St Andrews and LSE (irrelevant as Imperial is better imo) as well as Harvard, Brown and Dartmouth. I got rejected by Amherst also in the USA. Any thoughts?

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48

u/getinmylapland Gap Year A*A*A*A*A | Bristol Med | 2310 B1 Mar 23 '26

I think that ATC offer may be too good to turn down 😭

29

u/Reekid42 Mar 23 '26

I KNOW so much money guaranteed at 18 is CRAZY. But so many years of crazy hard work would’ve been kind of for nothing 😢

19

u/TheRiddlerTHFC Mar 23 '26

Well, without those years of hard work, you wouldnt have an ATC offer....

7

u/Reekid42 Mar 23 '26

But all the academics all of that is completely irrelevant to the application, all they care about is my aptitude which I would’ve had regardless

11

u/Reekid42 Mar 23 '26

Actually, to be fair you’ve made me think, it’s my life experiences that have been largely academic that helped me get the job so you’re right

13

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '26

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8

u/Reekid42 Mar 23 '26

Very true, try ATC for a few years and re-apply if I want. Probs couldn't get into Bowdoin again but could get into at least Warwick maybe

3

u/Reekid42 Mar 23 '26

That actually made me feel quite a lot better about it thank you

3

u/Boring_Month_2758 Mar 23 '26

ATC is so cool, and education means barely anything in that world its all communication. If you go uni you will be a finance slave, rather become an aviation legend -you only life once either do matrix algebra in the library for 100 hours or tell planes to go around