I agree with Novicef on this. ATPL's were pretty straight forward! A week long course then do an exam, another week course then do another exam and so on. About eight to ten weeks and the whole lot is wrapped up. Even if you fail one you just throw a little bit more money at it and do it a couple of weeks later. One just had to look at some of the numb nuts on my course and see how they would pass with flying colours to illustrate how straight forward these exams really are. I hardly think this sort of academic entry level can be compared with that of doctors, vets or lawyers etc.