[Kincaid]

In something like Missions, it's all kind of hand-wavey, so training time doesn't really matter in terms of how characters interact with one another.  I generally wait until all/most of the characters are at the point where their training goals are measured in weeks and try to get the story to a point that hitting fast forward won't totally kill it.  It's really a group decision, but folks are generally cool enough to eat a month of lifestyle when they don't need to if it means other people get to flesh out their characters.  If I have the time, I'll try to blue book with less busy characters to fill in the gaps.

[Facemage]

I'm not sure about the street grimoire variations, with which you can change the karma costs. Do they grow the time to get the initiation? Maybe not, but without them the time to get the initiation is given in rules: it is Arcana + intuition [Astral] (initiate grade, 1month) Extended test.

Basic mage have typically intuition 5, and arcana 3. This means that the average times to initiate are 30 days per initiations to get the first 2 initiations.
The third grade is slow. But if you want to do it faster, it is possible to use increase intuition spell and buy 1 arcana skill point more. This means that your pool is 13, on average you can get third and fourth grade again with 1 month.

On average you get with 13 and 12 dices 6 successes => 7th grade will take more than 2 month with probability higher than 50%.

[Rift_0f_Bladz]

In my GM's home game initiations uses use the quest variation so that way everyone is involved, and those not initiating get karma and those who are get reduced/free initiation. By free, I mean the karma cost was the reward. These are usually multiple night long events. Currently my adept is initiating a second time, again taking power points. My third will be centering and fourth will be masking. Plan on picking up Warriors way in there as well to get the power discount, sadly only going to get .75 pp for it.

[Senko]

I'm not sure about the street grimoire variations, with which you can change the karma costs. Do they grow the time to get the initiation? Maybe not, but without them the time to get the initiation is given in rules: it is Arcana + intuition [Astral] (initiate grade, 1month) Extended test.

Basic mage have typically intuition 5, and arcana 3. This means that the average times to initiate are 30 days per initiations to get the first 2 initiations.
The third grade is slow. But if you want to do it faster, it is possible to use increase intuition spell and buy 1 arcana skill point more. This means that your pool is 13, on average you can get third and fourth grade again with 1 month.

On average you get with 13 and 12 dices 6 successes => 7th grade will take more than 2 month with probability higher than 50%.

Except there are people in the thread talking routinely about taking 4/5 and someone who's aiming for eight initiations. That's a lot of time spent studying.

[Rift_0f_Bladz]

Some of that is handwaved in missions setting. For homegames, well depends on table. Which if they use the quest machanic like mine does at times, that can drastically reduce down time. All depends on how much is focus there is on downtime training.

[Facemage]

Except there are people in the thread talking routinely about taking 4/5 and someone who's aiming for eight initiations. That's a lot of time spent studying.

If you buy 8 initiations, you need 13+16+19...= 188 karma. If you use schools and initiatory ordeal, the cost is ~150. And it takes 8-10 months to do it. Your team mate is a decker or sam, he uses 150 karma to rise his skills and attributes. The cost to rise a skill from 6 to 10 is 14+16+18+20=68. It takes 53 weeks (more than 12 months). The cost to rise an attribute from 5 to 6 is 30 and it takes 6 weeks. The training times for sams and deckers are also very slow.