Is it normal to feel like quitting trades school before it even starts?

Got my HVAC apprenticeship last spring and it took me about four months of grinding, so I know exactly where you're at. What finally worked was stopping the online applications entirely. I printed a stack of resumes and just showed up at shops between 6:30 and 7 in the morning, when the trucks roll out. Talked to whoever was loading vans, asked if the service manager had five minutes. Out of maybe a dozen walk-ins, three took my resume on the spot and one called me back that same week. Big commercial shops get hundreds of applications every spring and toss most of them. Small residential outfits, the ones with 5 to 15 trucks, usally can't afford an HR person and hire whoever walks in and seems like they'll show up on time. Two other things that worked for guys in my intake class. One got in through the supply house, he just chatted up the counter guys at the local parts place until one of them mentioned a contractor looking for a helper. Another started as a parts runner at a residential company, not even registered as an apprentice yet, then got signed up after a few months once they trusted him. Hours still count once you register, so the label matters less than getting on a truck. The guy who told you they hire based on connections was being honest, not cruel. That's just how it works at the entry level becuase there's never a shortage of first-years, there's a shortage of journeymen with real skills. Everyone applying right now is in the same boat you are, which means the differentiator isn't your pre-app certificate, it's that you showed up in person and didn't quit after two callbacks.

As for your roommate, sure, he's making more right now. First and second year apprentice wages are rough everywhere. But his pay is basically fixed for years while yours roughly doubles once you're licensed and then keeps climbing if you get into service work or controls. I was broke for two years and now out-earn every friend who took office jobs at graduation. Don't cut your losses, just change your method. Walk-ins, supply houses, and small shops. Skip the online portals completley.

Been in the sheet metal game 38 years and I've watched this same panic a few times now. Every few years the trades get hot, everyone floods in, then the same kids are shocked it's not a handshake and a badge. Here's a thing the young fella above didn't touch: timing. Most shops hire in late summer and early fall to cover the heating season. Spring is when every new grad hits them at once. Sit tight a couple months and hit the same shops again, and remember the guy's face from the spring.

Also, talk to your union hall if you have one nearby. They run intake windows once or twice a year and nobody thinks to just walk in and ask when the next one opens.

Similar boat here a couple years back, ended up taking a warehouse job at a mechanical contractor just to get a foot in the door. What actually got me moved up onto a crew was showing up with my own tool bag, basics like a good pair of channellocks and a nut driver set. Sounds dumb but the foreman noticed I wasn't standing around empty handed waiting to be handed stuff. Once I was on a truck the apprenticeship paperwork followed on its own. If a shop says no helper positions, ask if they need a shop hand or driver anyway. Easier to get picked once you're alredy in the building.

Don't sleep on your college instructors either. Mine kept a list of contractors who actually called the department looking for first-years, stuff that never gets posted anywhere. I emailed my controls prof three months after graduating and he had me an interview by Friday. Also hit up your local union hall's intake window, it's slow and bureaucratic but it's a totally seprate pipeline from the open shops everyone's hammering. Worst case you're out a morning and an application fee.

I run a two-truck residential outfit and I can tell you what happens on my end when a kid calls. If you sound awake and ask if we're taking helpers, you're already ahead of the nine emails I got that week. Last guy I hired walked in while I was unloading the van, helped me carry a condenser without being asked, and that was basically the interview. Also, on the roommate thing, run the numbers over five years, not one. Apprentice pay climbs every year you're registered, office pay mostly doesn't. Six weeks of silence from your uncle is a long time but one nudge costs you nothing, call him again.