Apologies if my tone was misinterpreted by some. I have nothing against people trying whatever they can to get themselves noticed. There comes a point though when persistence can become a nuisance. You have to be careful. My post about people still applying was an attempt to stop people wasting their time. Believe it or not I am still receiving applications today!
On the point of applying after the deadline in case someone drops out, please remember that we had a huge number who applied before the deadline. In fact, we did have one drop out and a shortlisted candidate was invited to the assessment as a replacement. We were able to choose a substitute from within those applicants that submitted their emails before the deadline. It is a cruel world sometimes but we just set the limits and then sort through the applications.
It is equally frustrating for us when there are so many applicants. We had to choose 26 and using various criteria we narrowed it down. Just because someone wasn't selected doesn't mean that they wouldn't have been able to complete a B757 type rating. It just means that we had to reduce the numbers to something we could cope with on the day. After Saturday there are going to be some more disappointed candidates who are not selected for the sim assessment and after the sim assessments there are going to be more disappointed candidates who don't make one of the four places available on the course.
You can't win them all and the enthusiasm that many of you show is commendable but you also have to learn to live with not always making a success the first time around.