Yes, I fully understand and I'm fully agree with you. But ! For example on the easyJet program they search fresh graduated peoples with no much hours of flight ...
For example, in my case, if I make an analysis on my maturity between now at 26 and before at 20 for example, I'm fully sure that I'm now more able to take the lot of responsibillity of an airline flight than before, it normal and happily ! But is it really an advantage for a cadet program selection ?
An other good example is about the GCSEs grades. Imagine at fifteen, school bored me and I obtained my C grades. In spit of my medium level, I was able to continue in an A-level equivalent college in France, in an university of science and computing engineering. Now I am graduated from an european engineering school in Financial computing engineering with an equivalance of a master engineering degree. Is the selection process will understand my academic parcours ? I'm not sure ... And I'm afraid that the computing selection system will stop my application analysis on GCSE levels ...