SephStorm,

Ive been researching the past month on the exact question. I was leaning toward the elearning training (student and pro)..but then I thought the student might be to basic. So then I thought about doing hacking dojo or hackers academy for a month or two, then try for the eCPPT. Im leaning toward hacker academy because you can go to whatever section you want, hacking dojo makes you pass certain areas before you can move on to bigger and better topics. Plus hacker academy is 97/month and hacking dojo is 150ish/month. From what I have read, I dont believe hacking dojo is worth 50 dollars more a month. But thats just me.

I've actually hopped around between 3 of those you mentioned: The Hacker Academy, Hacking Dojo, and I'm still learning at eLearnSecurity.  I detailed some of my thoughts between The Hacker Academy and Hacking Dojo here.  I've since left the Hacking Dojo as well.  Lack of student interaction/participation and the change-up in the instructing I'd say were the 2 biggest factors for me.

I enrolled in eLearnSecurity's Student and Pro courses a couple months ago.  The Student course is really basic.  It really is aimed at the beginner, laying the foundation and giving them the skills to move into the Pro course level material.  Networking basics, cookies and sessions...intro to Nmap, Nessus, Burp Suite.  If you have any experience in those, I'd say you'll do fine jumping into the Pro course (I enrolled in the Student course just to be on the safe side - I'm the type of person that'll rehash the same [basic] topics if I can just learn one more thing hehe).  The Pro course is split up into 3 sections: system security, networking security, and web app security.  My interest in the past has been in networking, so I went through that first.  Picked up some new knowledge, but still went through it pretty quick.  The system security section contains system coding, which I have NO experience in and have had a hard time picking it up on my own, so I opted to go through the web app security section first.  The web app security section is quite thorough IMO.  My past experiences and training have taught me about web servers, etc, but nothing about attacks.  Aside from the material itself, the support is great.  It's all done via a discussion forum that's quite active.  The instructors and students jump on questions rather quickly, which is awesome.

I can't speak for any other organized training, including EC-Council.

From my experience so far and given how I learn, etc, I'd say eLearnSecurity has benefit me the most (and I'm not even through all the material, which makes me very excited.  I love learning...).

You would say the OSCP for your first pentesting course? Do you think someone should take a lower course first, or go straight into the OSCP?

lol its funny, I said FTR, and bought a subscription to THA today. i'm think im through the first through lessons so far, enjoying it. I did better than I expected on part of the mindset of the hacker. I was... scared when I saw some of the number questions, but I managed to stay in there and try them. I did okay.