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@CAPTAIN SINBAD, I am a little late to the party at answering your question, but here are my numbers over the last 30 years.
Agency- SSI 95% of my students pass Open Water. 5% give up, or are unable to meet the minimum standard.
Agency -PADI 95% of my students pass Open Water. 5% give up, or are unable to meet the minimum standard.
Agency -PDIC 75% of my students pass Open Water. 25% either give up or we cross them over to SSI or PADI to complete their course.
Agency -SEI 75% of my students pass Open Water. 25% either give up or we cross them over to SSI or PADI to complete their course.
Agency -CMAS 100% of my students that pass the SEI OpenWater Course receives an CMAS Open Water Scuba Certification.
These numbers are only for the Open Water Scuba Course, and are not 100% accurate. At the end of the day, most students who fail, the 5% in PADI and SSI, usually come back and continue training until they are able to meet the standard. Even the ones that give up, we coach into continuing their training, and most will eventually pass the Open Water Course. So with this being said, I would say it's closer to 98% of all Open Water Students pass in both SSI and PADI. With PDIC and SEI, we always issue dual certifications, as they are sister agencies, thus, CMAS is included as well. These classes are rare for us now, but the added skill sets and physics trip a lot of new students up. For the ones that can not grasp the academics or the skill sets, we refer them, or cross them over the either SSI or PADI, and we complete their certification that way. So these numbers are more realistically around the 98% as well.
I have found it interesting that the ones that completely give up, and I am unable to convince them to continue to train until they get it, are usually spouses of divers who were pressured to take scuba because their spouse did. In this industry we are trained to entice people to take scuba, but I find myself talking a lot of people out of it, after a short interview with them. As much as I dislike watching people give up, I understand the realities of what a person feels. I know there are things in my life that I tried, and immediately decide, NOPE, this is not for me.
Side note: The % of Public Safety Divers that I train and fail, are much higher. Needless to say, I have severely upset several Fire Departments, Police Departments, and Sheriff Departments over the years, including the departments that I have worked for and still currently serve, by failing the higher ups for not being able to meet the standards. I even had a chief of a Fire Department kick me out of his station because I refused to certify him with his firemen, because he failed the written exam, and thought he should pass just because he was the chief. After about a month he called wanting to know what he needed to do to get his Public Safety Certification, and I told him he had to pass. He never called me back.