I just finished the ATC School at Fort Rucker, AL
The school has changed much in the last few years. Your son will be there for a min of 4 months but most likely 6 to 8
The school has excellent instructors but if your son does not apply himself he will not pass the first time around. the best advise I can give him is to study study study, and skip all the bull shit he can get in there, yes he can go out on the weekends to Panama City FL, San Destin, FL, Dothan, AL and many more, and most people that do fail the class.
He will have a lot of freedom compared to Basic and that is where many people go wrong.
Your son can bring just about anything he wants to this school. Cell phone, computer, home surround systems, personal cloths, ext, just no food, drinks, drugs, alcohol in the rooms,
Personal cloths have to be turned in when he arrives and will get them back probably on week 3 if he passes the pt test. And he will be moved from phase 4 to 5.
if he is going into the active army he can probably add on some more time because national guard go through the course faster due to the states, and the active will just wait for an opening to get into class.
One guy I went to the school with was active army and he was there before me and he just left 6 months after I did so he was there for 10 months.
Once your son is there for about 8-12 weeks he might be able to qualify for what is called 5+ so he can drink, smoke, drive a car, leave every day after class at 530pm but he needs to be careful,
I saw people get kicked out of the course and now have a felony on their records, people get arrested for OUI, supplying to minors, get caught with drugs, and so on. The list is long so he needs to watch himself and not do things to be cool. They will most likely not kick him out for most of the things but if he gets into trouble or fails the course he will get reassigned to most likely Infantry.
If he fails a course or section he will have to retake that section and I have seen people wait two months to get back into that class. So don?t fail
Take the full amount of time when taking the test you have two hours for the test so take the full two hours and pass, go through the test and answer every one you know 100% the go back through the ones you don?t know, if you don?t know the first question it will most likely be answered later in the test, so that is why I say only answer the ones you know first then go back, you may need to do this a few times.
The best advice is study, don?t get into trouble, stay fit and he will pass the first time.
Good luck.