vecvechookattack, if you turned up at the AFCO with 10 GCSE's and wished to apply for pilot, you would be told to go and do your A levels in order to fulfil the minimum requirement for making a P2 application. The AFCO would NOT tell you to go and do uni of you turned up with the required qualifications. (Unless you wanted EngO or other professional branch of course). If you are half way through a degree, we may ADVISE you finish it, but we would never TELL you to do something that wasn't required for entry. We tell potential applicants what their options are, it is always entirely up to them which path they choose. As far as being the right time, of course pilot is very competitive, but always has been and always will. What I can say for certain is that applications are being taking for pilot and if the candidate displays the correct attributes at OASC, then they wouldn’t have a problem.
As was previously mentioned, as an overseas applicant, you WOULD have had to have spent the last 5 years living in the UK in order to apply. The only exception to this rule (currently) is students taking a gap year. It has been made quite clear to AFCO’s that no other circumstances will be accepted.