Re: Team Selection Process???
 

We are giving everyone a chance, but when it comes time to make cuts those wasted time socializing we kindly ask them to leave, unless they can give a strong reason why they want to be on the team.

Re: Team Selection Process???
 

That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. The fact that a team wouldn't allow freshman is pretty unbelievable. If you can't join a team as a freshman, you lose a whole year. It's gonna take you a year to learn stuff anyways, at least, so you basically get your junior and senior years to fully experience robotics.

I'm with John on this. I dont like having requirements, or an application process, but I've never had to deal with having a massive amount of people wanting to be on the team. I can understand why it has to be done though.

Re: Team Selection Process???
 

Wow. The scenario you describe boggles the mind. Truly.

Our system is simple and easy. The core members just work, and when we need help with something we ask whoever isn't doing anything. You don't help, you get the evil eye from everyone and you probably are motivated to do better, but if not you'll probably feel so socially awkward you won't show up again. You do help and we try to teach you.

The hope is that eventually these non-core members will have become proficient enough to start their own project, at which point the "circle of robotics" (ala Lion King) continues ;).

Too many members is an interesting problem. I'd make cuts based on semester Grade Point Average (or the brazillian equivalent, but absolutely NOT cumulative grade point average, as that would be totally unfair). This would have the pleasant side effect of motivating students to work harder in school. You have a set number of people you want on the team each year, then you order all the applicants by GPA and go down the list adding people to the team. If someone doesn't pull their weight, they are kicked out for that season and replaced with the next applicant on the list. I'm sure teachers would love you for motivating students.

Re: Team Selection Process???
 

We get about 15-20 real members that will put forward the effort needed to do well on your team. In the past few years, we have had lots of people join the team in the first couple of meetings, but then drop out after a few weeks. One of the main reasons is because of the stress we place on fundraising. Another reason is because we require a certain amount of time to be put into the meetings and build time.
Our team has a rule that each member must log at least an attempt at a certain amount of fundraising; if they don't the member won't be able to attend the competitions. We have sports players that can't help raise money as much in the fall, but they usually make up for that in the winter. Like already stated, it IS a pay-to-play game and if someone doesn't want to put forth the time needed to get money for the team, we take that as a message that they don't want to really help the team at all.
Another rule that our team has is that each member must log a number of hours equal to at least half of the time that they have been on the team, or they can't go to the competitions. The reason this rule was implemented was because one year, we had a member that never showed up to any of the meetings, fundraising events, or build sessions--and still went to the competition. Worse than that, he decided that he was the one who was going to drive and made a big fuss about it. Aaanyways... We don't "cut" people off the team if they can't show up for meetings though. If the member can make a concerted effort to get to the meetings, and helps in any way they can, we still let them go.
What else...? Oh yeah. We have one last rule that limits the number of members to our team. It's a school-wide rule, but we enforce it much more strictly than the sports teams do. It's the grade rule. Each member of every team at our school must be passing three of their four classes to be on a team, and they must pass every class to attend a team function (such as a competition). Our FIRST team has had to take key members (last year, for example--our programmer, who had a 67, three points under passing) off the roster of people attending the competitions because of grades.
I don't know how much this will help you in your weeding/selection progress, but it seems to make it easy for my team to keep small numbers...whether that's good or bad. :|

$.02