Hiring Bid Air Traffic Control Specialist - Trainee: FAA-ATO-18-ALLSRCE-57792

[J-one-s]

They used to have a really difficult evaluator that always seemed to knock off points for "controller judgement"... Kind of vague sometimes. He washed a LOT of people out... He took his own life a few months ago.

 

[Flashy Vectors]

They used to have a really difficult evaluator that always seemed to knock off points for "controller judgement"... Kind of vague sometimes. He washed a LOT of people out... He took his own life a few months ago.

He was a tower evaluator. Enroute evaluators seem to be fair no horror stories. Biggest problem I see with evals are with tower. You do them with another student so if they start tanking it’s pretty hard to recover. At least that’s what the last class told me that did evals

 

[Stinger]

He was a tower evaluator.

No. He was enroute.

 

[Green101]

So I have been using the ATCprep software and it has a math word problems section, no one has mentioned those in the thread so far. Am I safe to assume there are no math word problems on the AT-SA?

 

[GulfBravoPapa]

So I have been using the ATCprep software and it has a math word problems section, no one has mentioned those in the thread so far. Am I safe to assume there are no math word problems on the AT-SA?

ATSA Compilation

 

[Maintainvfr]

In the memory part, were there any numbers that were greater than 9? Like A=16 B=6 C=17?

Also, does anyone know what the pass rate is for the academy?

I don't believe it goes above 9, but I could be wrong.

Academy terminal pass rate is better than enroute, not sure exactly what terminal is, but when I worked there enroute ranged from 30-70%. I saw some classes pass 0. I've even heard of 16/18 passing and better. It's never a really steady number.

You can't get the same evaluator twice, some are harder than others. I firmly believe a large percentage is based on luck/order in which you get individual evaluators. Eg. If you're not really good at non radar and get an easy evaluator, thats a good small boost of points.

Pass rates are in the FAQ academy section, MJ just added 2018 recently. This year so far, terminal 62% en route 68%

 

[Kylekjm]

When you’re taking the ATSA do you choose the order of which “games” you do first or is it already preset once you start the test?

 

[ABACUS]

When you’re taking the ATSA do you choose the order of which “games” you do first or is it already preset once you start the test?

It’s in an order

 

[Kylekjm]

It’s in an order

I’m not sure if you can say due to the rules of the test but what is the order of the test? Want to make sure I am practicing in that order on ATCPrep.

 

[ABACUS]

I’m not sure if you can say due to the rules of the test but what is the order of the test? Want to make sure I am practicing in that order on ATCPrep.

I don’t remember at all

 

[ATCHopeful]

I’m not sure if you can say due to the rules of the test but what is the order of the test? Want to make sure I am practicing in that order on ATCPrep.

It's the order that's on the ATSA compilation page here on PointSixtyFive.

 

[Kylekjm]

It's the order that's on the ATSA compilation page here on PointSixtyFive.

Awesome. Thank you.

 

[Green101]

I read somewhere at one time that if you fail the AT-SA twice you can never take it again. Does anyone know if this is true or was it something they did with the AT-SAT only?

 

[Deejay4rmDaBoot]

I read somewhere at one time that if you fail the AT-SA twice you can never take it again. Does anyone know if this is true or was it something they did with the AT-SAT only?

Rhetorical question bro, failure isnt a option. Get that thought outta ya head

 

[DVdoogle]

I read somewhere at one time that if you fail the AT-SA twice you can never take it again. Does anyone know if this is true or was it something they did with the AT-SAT only?

FWIW, I read on some other threads of guys who were on their 3rd, 4th and even 5th iteration of the application process, although I don't know if that was for AT-SAT or ATSA. That being said, I wouldn't worry about it. Focus on the task at hand and you can't say you didn't give it your best.

 

[Shakakhan]

9/5/18 numbers update:

HR qualified 3,168 of the 6,377.

Is this confirmed? Seems odd that over half of applicants didn't qualify. They would have to give most of those people TOL if they are hoping to hire 1400 considering that some will decline the TOL, some will fail background/medical, and some won't pass academy.

 

[ABACUS]

Is this confirmed? Seems odd that over half of applicants didn't qualify. They would have to give most of those people TOL if they are hoping to hire 1400 considering that some will decline the TOL, some will fail background/medical, and some won't pass academy.

If I recall, the FAA wa slooking to hire 900ish controllers this fiscal year according to the workforce plan and I think that accounts for the background/medical/academy failures.

 

[Kylekjm]

Does anyone have the number for how many people are scheduled to take the test?

 

[J-one-s]

Is this confirmed? Seems odd that over half of applicants didn't qualify. They would have to give most of those people TOL if they are hoping to hire 1400 considering that some will decline the TOL, some will fail background/medical, and some won't pass academy.

yes, confirmed. Those numbers are straight from the FAA. 6825 applied. the system automatically booted some out, leaving 6377. HR went an extra step and qualified 3168 of the 6377. due to negative media coverage and politics regarding the BQ(which qualified applicants without HR going through them), the FAA did away with it, and the FAA knew they would have to manually qualify applicants, so they cut off the bid posting early. normally about 10,20,30ish thousand apply and the FAA didn't want to go through that many applicants.

edit: the FAA says supposedly they can only put 1400 through the academy per year(not to be confused with how many they can hire per year) in 2016 they selected 3027(basically two years worth), last year they selected 1277. im guessing around 15-20% wont show up for the test, considering the last few years 30% didn't ever test. and another couple hundred wont pass at all, so yeah they MAY take all the passes, then again they may be picky and take very few...they might take less now and next year hire for 2 years worth. you never know.

 

[DVdoogle]

due to negative media coverage and politics regarding the BQ(which qualified applicants without HR going through them), the FAA did away with it, and the FAA knew they would have to manually qualify applicants, so they cut off the bid posting early. normally about 10,20,30ish thousand apply and the FAA didn't want to go through that many applicants.

Either way, sounds like we got lucky considering there are a lot less applicants than normal? I'm cool with that!