C1 Truck Driver Training Indianapolis

I unfortunately had the rare opportunity to attend two driver schools in Indianapolis, Roadmaster for one week and C1 for three. My idea is to give a comparison to help potential drivers decide which school would better suit their needs. I will try to be as unbiased as possible. Obviously I cannot speculate on Roadmaster for the final two weeks of class, but I have been in close contact with a couple students I met while there so I will do what I can.
(what happened at Roadmaster and why I left: http://www.thetruckersreport.com/truckingindustryforum/threads/roadmaster-indy.288631/ )

I'll begin by saying that the class at Roadmaster was significantly smaller, around 8 students while C1 had 18 students in my class.

CLASSROOM (week 1)
Roadmaster and C1 are somewhat similar in the classroom. At Roadmaster your training is straight from the state manual, which could be good or bad depending on how you learn. The class will read each section of the manual and highlight key terms the instructor tells you will be important. At C1 the classroom is more structured and built around actual lesson plans. The instructor at C1 is incredibly knowledgeable and emphasizes safety. He has a few stories that will scare you but he's real and he tells you exactly what you need to be safe on the road. The class is also much more efficient, as the instructor doesn't have much patience for bulls##t and you learn more because of it. Stuff that isn't on the state written tests is covered. All in all, the in class training is generally up to you to learn. At C1 the information is covered in more depth but at Roadmaster you get the bare bones to pass the test. Either way you'll learn what you need to.

RANGE (weeks 2 & 3)
This is where my experience with Roadmaster ends, I will go off of what I've been told by my friends who stayed with the school but this is not firsthand and I feel like that should be known.
I have however seen firsthand how the range is set up at Roadmaster, there is one area to practice your skills; straight line, offset, and parallel. While there were only 8 students in my class, there are around 30 on the road and range every week at Roadmaster due to people failing at state and getting backed up in the system. So one range for 30 or so people.
C1 has 6 or 7 ranges with instructors for each range. There will be 3 or 4 students to an instructor every day and I personally had two days where it was just me and one other student. What really sets the range at C1 above Roadmaster is the fact that each range is set up EXACTLY identical to the range you will test in at state, even the size and color of the cones is the same.
The trainers at C1 will walk you through the turns one by one and tell you exactly what to do. If you listen to them you'll be amazed at how easily the truck goes right where you need it to. They will continue to walk you through the skills until you start to pick it up on your own and then they'll slowly let you build your independence until they are just sitting there blowing a whistle if you're about to screw up really bad.
At roadmaster, I'm not sure how they train you. Haven't heard much about it.

ROAD (weeks 2 & 3)
C1 takes you straight to the streets your first day out of the classroom, and it's generally not going to go well. They're not expecting you to do well, more or less seeing how many times they have to repeat themselves and how quickly you pick it up. The more you progress the less they instruct until you're taking simulated state tests on actual routes the state uses. By the time I took my test with state, I had driven the route they had me on 4 times, I knew which turns to take before my observer even called them out. My first day of driving, I drove for 1 hour, my second day I drove for 2 hours straight one on one with an instructor. Every day after that I drove for between 50 minutes to an hour. C1 has 6 street trucks.
Roadmaster lets you drive for 20-50 minutes a day according to my friend in the class. There is apparently only one truck that is street legal, I'm not sure if this is a circumstantial thing and they're fixing other trucks or not but that is how they're currently training my contacts in the class.

COST
I paid out of pocket for both schools.
C1 cost me $3,995.00 total. This is all I paid including medical and drug screen.
Roadmaster told me I would get a $2,000 cash discount, making their tuition $4,995 + $110 for my medical and drug screen. As it turns out, the $2,000 discount only applies if you go to work for Werner after graduation. (why I left the school and got my money back for a violation of enrollment contract)

All in all, each school will get you your CDL. If I were to give a personal recommendation I would recommend C1 10/10 times, but that again is just my experience and it is limited.

Finally, today marks two weeks and three days into the three week course with C1 and three students including myself have already passed the state test, meaning we have our CDL's and we're ready to drive. I asked my friend at Roadmaster how many students have graduated with CDLs so far and he said NO ONE. Just so you know why that's such a big deal to me, Roadmaster is a three week class just like C1, BUT the class I was in and the class my friend I'm talking to is in is on their FIFTH week of school and no one has passed the state test yet.

Another fun thing about C1 is their CDL ACE Club, which is really just a red hat you get upon graduation for passing all tests first try. If you don't pass everything first try you still get a hat, but it's black. Just a cool little thing they do. I got my red hat today and couldn't stop grinning about it to the point that I was pissing the 5 weekers off haha.

 

I can't say for sure. The guy I'm talking to who's still at the school failed one time on his parallel and another for hitting a curb.
My next step was going to be OTR with Prime but they won't let me have a few days off for my brothers wedding in September, which I understand during my training period. Currently I'm throwing applications around and seeing what kinds of offers I'm getting. Looking at Melton, TMC, and System Transport for flatbed but I'm also wanting to try tanker. Just not so sure hauling tanks would be good my first year on the road. I have Tanker, Doubles/Triples, and I'll take my hazmat test later this week.

 

I did look into Sage and I've heard good things about them. Still went with C1 for the location and how quickly they were able to get me into classes. When I talked to Sage they were $600 more than C1 though.