Bluefalcon...... Good luck, prepare well on the company and do your best.
I am not going to say that Bananaflyers comments are not true, I do not know, but there is much rumour, inaccuracy and people with axes to grind on pprune that are often selling rumours as fact especially ones that start a strong thread with the first post from that username, so try not to focus on it to much Bluefalcon.
One thing is for sure, if there is a deliberate strategy by SAS they would never announce it and someone trying to read between the lines from personal experience/rejection or third party information can often mis-quote.
If you are seeing Declan in Dublin, he is very straight, brutally honest about the ups and downs of the scheme and the realities of working for Ryan, he doesn't try and pretend it's all rosy.
Where I can confirm Bananaflyers information to be outdated at least is the 4 Ryan type rating providers no longer screen and sim check people before Ryan interview them, as they used to, so they cannot sim check as many as they like (if they ever did?). The sim assessment is only offered once someone has been through the Ryan interview and deemed by Declan or a Ryan representative as suitable to the company.
On the interview day I attended at GEcat quite a few of the 15 odd interviewed did not get through and offered a sim assessment,
GEcat sim assessment cost £411 pounds inc VAT for the record.