In the early 90s when both Eastern and Pan Am went under the competitive minimum for UAL for a white male was in excess of 4000 total with jet time.
True they had a funky simulator that took into account flying experience for the grading.
TP
TP, you were around then. You know it didn't really take into account flying skill THAT much. A person could go to the specific prep, get multiple runs at the profile, and nail it. Even if they were a lower time candidate that wasn't competitive.
A twelve year old fresh off a Nintendo could ace it simply by eye/hand coordination and not getting off the alt/hdg/spd/loc/gs, etc if he had a few practice runs in the modified AST300 (IIRC).