You just asked a whole bunch of questions. First your recruiter can arrange it so when you sign up, it's in your contract that you will go to airborne school. You can do like he says and volunteer for it after your AIT completion. However these schools often fill up and they tend to take Active soldiers first as they will actually be put into airborne units that will use the jump status. Also they tend to pick only a handful of the top of the class and you are competing against roughly 150-200 people.
As for Ranger school, that is almost impossible to get into if you are NG or even Active Army for that matter. First you have to have an MOS that allows you to go into it, and then you have to have a recomendation put in for you to even go. For instance, my MOS is 31b, mp and we are no longer allowed to go to ranger school, the reason being is that we don't use any of the lessons taught in that class to the point where it justifies sending us. Now something like Scout or Infantry would get priority.
From what I have heard it's alittle different with the NG because with Active the person paying for the slot is the Army and that is no problem. However with NG money seems to be an issue for paying for soldiers to go to various schools. That may be another handicap because what NG unit is willing to send a soldier to a school just so he can have a tab on his uniform?
The schools that last longer than a year exist, however they are mostly AIT schools and some of the more advanced schooling. Most of the Army is set up so that a general moron could pass any of the testing on a basic level. If that were not the case, then the concept of a "waiver" for enlisting would not be necessary. So all of these schools like airborne, air assault, pathfinder and even ranger to an extend are just like basic in my opinion. If you go, you will pass as long as you have the mindset to pass and don't ever give up. Take airborne, they run you all over the place, however you go after AIT so you are in good shape (Not always when you go, but in this case it is) So all you have to do then is land your jumps out of the plane, alot of people get injured this way and don't make it, but the mental aspect is insignificant to the cause here. Air assault is just tricky at the end for your testing, but you get a 2nd chance and even then they sort of guide you if you make a small mistake.
Advice = have your recruiter put it in your contract, and make damn sure you read your contract before signing. Also wait until Oct to sign up as by then the numbers will be in and we shall see how messed up the Armed Services is. At Fort Hood in May and June the outprocessed 3,500 soldiers who left the Army. Something tells me huge bonus's are coming.