The issue of who you accept and how much time you give them also depends on how many pilots you need V. how many people want to join.
When I finished on Jet Provosts in '63, we were streamed onto either Gnats for potential aces, or Varsities for the rest. Needless to.say I got Varsities.
Late 70's and I was the chalk and talk pilot on the Nimrod conversion course. At that time,after basic training, pilots were being sent to Hawks, or chopped. The pilots for the Nimrod course were either second tourists from other multis, or pilots who had been sent to the Hawk and not made the grade. I could not understand why those not considered for FJ were not being given the equivalent of the Varsity course.
As well as the normal conversion courses for the Nimrod, we would do quick acquaint courses for senior officers, so that they have some background on the aircraft.
On one of these I asked the SO why we were scrapping people after basic who might make multi pilots, given a suitable course. He had spent some time as a Fairly SO in the training world, so he was a good one to ask.
He told me that when I had joined, the cutoff for accepting someone for pilot training was 100 points on the Aircrew selection board's assessment, the average would have been 110, with one or two up at 125. Because fewer people were applying they had had to lower the acceptance level to get enough recruits. There had then been a juggling act, where if the level was set too low, hardly any of the extra ones recruited made the grade, but if it was set too high, you would be turning away some who might make it. They had therefore come up with the idea that those who got through basic would all be sent to Hawks, and those who didn't make it on the Hawk would be sent to a multi course.
His punch line was " the ones we chop at the end of basic would have trouble riding a f*****g bicycle"
Not long afterwards the effect of the end of the cold war meant that numbers required dropped drastically, so who knows what the entry standard became. ( He assured me that they had made sure that the assessment system itself did not alter)