Here are some comments and suggestions (I'm sure others will disagree with
parts):

The school should use a written syllabus, and you should have a copy. The
training should be broken down into phases, typically:
1. Basic airplane control
2. Basic navigation
3. Approaches and holding
4. Cross-country flights
There might occasionally be good reasons to deviate from the syllabus, but in
general you should be proficient in each phase before moving on to the next.
Beware of an instructor who has you doing ILS approaches on the 2nd lesson.
Doing an IFR cross-country early on can be useful to let you see how things
work, but your role will be more as an observer than as an IFR pilot.

Make sure you have a copy of the Instrument Rating Practical Test Standards
(available at http://afs600.faa.gov/AFS630.htm). Refer to it frequently
during your training, not just at the very end before the checkride.

It's better to do cross-countries with three legs, instead of retracing your
initial route. For example, instead of Houston-Memphis-Houston, do
Houston-Memphis-Little Rock-Houston.

You shouldn't need to do "loads" of short cross-countries. The syllabus I use
has four cross-countries, including the "long" 250 nm one, and together they
take about 10 hours. If you need a lot more, it's probably because you didn't
spend enough time on the earlier phases.

Go to a range of airports, both towered and non-towered.

I think that there's little value in long cross-countries - you don't learn
much droning along at cruise for three hours. The main value is in the flight
planning and dealing with different conditions. If you do decide to do a long
flight, try to get a day when the weather's not uniform along the route, and
pick a route with varied geography. I guess you have to go pretty far from
Houston (and not towards Memphis) to see some mountains.

Barry


The FBO where I bought the headset- Mercury Flight Systems- seems to have a
solid, while expensive, approach to the IFR experience. Rather than making
loads of short XC's, they seem to stress longer ones;
Houston-Memphis-Houston being one example. Obviously, there will be a lot
of shorter excursions in the curriculum, but I have to say that the idea of
flying under an instrument flight plan on major excursions is a challenging
surely and valuable experience. These people seem honestly concerned with
making me a proficient IFR pilot rather than simply preparing me for the
checkride, which is the general impression I got from the operation where I
obtained my initial certification. Any comments on this would be greatly
appreciated; being trained to pass the PTS is one thing, and thoroughly
understanding it is another, IMHO.