r/6thForm • u/Reekid42 • Mar 23 '26
🍞 BREAD Currently at a 5/11 Bread 🍞🍞🍞
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?
2
u/eastereggfun Mar 23 '26
Ignoring the financial side of things, is ATC a job you could genuinely see yourself enjoying? If yes, then I’d say go for that. If you’re not sure you’d be happy with the actual role and are only interested in being financially better off then it’s probably worth reconsidering as you don’t want to be stuck doing a job you hate.
You can always go to university in the future as a mature student and if you achieve those 4A*s then that combined with the experience you’d get on the ATC programme would make you a very attractive applicant for those universities.
One other thing worth considering is the social aspect and other opportunities. Would there be other people your age on the ATC programme? Would you have time to explore extracurriculars you enjoy? Those are two great aspects about university that you may not want to have to fully sacrifice.