I'm just wondering... Are most of the guys who sign up and/or make it through selection and pipeline re-enlisted or non-prior service?

From what I've read, it's more mental than anything. Sure you want to be in excellent shape. It's heart thats gonna get you through selection and the pipeline.

I realize that, I'm just wondering if there is a correlation between if they make it and if they have already served.
I guess what I am wondering is guys coming straight out of basic vs. cross-trainees.

None, I don’t have the statistics, but attrition percentages for initial entry GTEP enlisted applicants and retaining applicants are at best equal. That the enlisted retraining selection process is incorporating a two phase administrative and personal interview selection process strongly suggests to me the retaining applicant SIE/Failure rate is higher than the initial entry GTEP enlisted applicant.

Passing the PAST, ASVAB test scores, and other pre Indoc assessments have limited success predicting ability. These achievement only seperate those who have the best potential ability to succeed in getting trained in the time given and subsequently performing duties of AFSC adequately from those having the least potential ability. Thus Indoc which actually requires performance to demonstrate resiliency against progress checks. The minimum cut scores for PAST and other progress checks at Indoc are all based on duty tasks and skills the mission ready PJ is typically expected to be prepared to perform at all times.

Thanks for the detailed reply Yukon. It makes sense, I guess it just matters person to person. That's what I thought, but I didn't know if there was actually one side or the other that was making it through "easier".

It is a great question. AETC, the career fields, Instructors, Operators, pretty much everybody, has tried to find a predictor that indicates which Candidates will make it and which ones won't. I know an O-6 who cited a study done at US Army Ranger School that concluded that 90% of those who successfully graduated that course had a certain hormone (I forget the name) in their blood. That's about the closest thing to a medical predictor I've heard of. Psych exams and interviews are another criteria used for selection of top of the line Special Operators, but they are too expensive and time intensive for use on the wide scale needed for service entry programs. Perhaps tests such as these will be modified in the future but that is still being looked at.

All of us Trainees who were going through PJ/CCT Selection School back in the 90s had our pet theories, as I'm sure every Trainee from the dawn of time has had. Guys would say things like, "The Team Cartoonist never makes it." or, "Guys from Detroit never make it." or even "Short guys don't make it" and "Tall guys don't make it." We had a 90% washout rate, so no matter what you said, you had a 90% chance of being right!

Even guys who made it through Selection and got eliminated for one reason or another and then re-trained back into CCT or PJ didn't always make it the second time through. Even those who succeeded on a second go round will tell you it wasn't easy the second time and they had their own doubts as to their success.

One of my assignments on casual status after graduating was to organize two years worth of records of guys who had made it and those who hadn't. I organized them as instructed but also tried to find some common threads in passing and failing. All I could really come up with was that 100% of those who made it didn't quit, about 80% of those who were eliminated did quit, and 20% of those who were eliminated actually double failed a PT or water Confidence event.
I couldn't find any correlation by age, height, weight, education, rank, time in service, or PAST scores.


So, nobody has cracked the code on who makes it and who doesn't. All I can say is "Never Quit!"
MC

Well... in all honesty, there are more NPS trainees who graduate simply in light of the fact that more NPS trainees enter training than do prior service. Beyond that there is no evident corrolary between any of a range of attributes that corresponds to successful completion of the course escept for the motivation of the individual. I was a short, skinny, 19 year old kid of average strength and I managed to make it through, so I believe that anyone who truly desires to do so can complete the course successfully, but you have to want it, and want it for no other reason than the internal realization that this is what you are made for. On my indoc team there was a certain nucleus... a sort of epiphysis of team members who were on the ball from day one... I gravitated toward them, they looked out for me and I them... the nine of us graduated. You have to be part warrior part philosopher.

Guard MC do you have a link to the study by the O-6? I am actually suprise the guy didn't try to sell the hormone like a supplement! Call it "SF enhancing hormone! Just one pill a day!" It sounds very interesting. Thanks

Sorry, I never even got the name of the study. The O-6 didn't do the study, he had just read excerpts from it.