I was talking to a Virgin Australia Aircraft Engineer who is 23 years old with no flying experience who made it to the assessment day. He said that most of the people he came accross on the assessment day were Virgin employee's (mainly fligtht attendants, people who worked in the flight ops department, and aircraft engineers).
Im not sure what type of academics they are looking at, because he made it to the assessment with a year 12 UAI of 65.
My son applied (currently in year 12) but got an email from a HR manager saying he wasnt allowed to apply because he had not finished year 12 yet.