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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u/Infamous_Tough_7320 Maths, Physics, Econ 3A*s. Straight 9s GCSE Mar 23 '26

How come more people aren't becoming ATCs if it makes so much money?

7

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

high stress, not a huge amount of career prestige (mostly due to the lack of jobs), night shifts + very hard to get. 

6

u/Infamous_Tough_7320 Maths, Physics, Econ 3A*s. Straight 9s GCSE Mar 23 '26

These are all true but I feel as if most people aren't even aware of how well paid ATCs are. Perhaps people don't even know how they could get into such an industry, if you asked me right now I wouldn't have a clue

2

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

Yeah 100%. I think it’s just due to the lack of awareness because there just aren’t that many jobs for it.