- Reduces YOUR risk of not being able to cope with intensive training, which may subsequently result in you failing, or not gaining employment post-training thus putting you into financial debt.
This is not the pb of the FTO. If you're in, the FTO takes the money and deliver the course (this is the deal). The FTO doesn't guarantee you that you'll be authorized to attend the exams at the end of the course, screened or not.
- Reduces risk to the FTO. On integrated courses of training, there is little room and few resources available to accommodate students who fall behind or need extra training because they aren't making the mark.
This is not risk for the FTO, if you fail it's your fault. FTOs have to keep something like 70% of successful students. If you're not good enough you will not be authorized to attend the exams, and to get extra training, again, you'll have to pay (this is also the deal)
- Reduces risk to the airlines. Airlines who feed off the supply of new pilots from FTOs need some form of guarantee that they can expect new recruits to possess skill-sets and attributes that are sought after by the airline. Allot of airlines today will only consider FTOs have have pre-enrollment assessments in place.
The guarantee comes from the quality of the training and the licenses delivered through official exams. Screening process are not giving any kind of guarantee. Screenings are organized by FTOs and are totally subjective processes not matching any label or standard. Remember, rejecting a student is rejecting a customer...