[Andrew Schreiber]

Did you ever think that the reason might not be to deny students but to ensure a quality experience for the students that are part of the team? I know on my FTC team we are having to go to an application approach not because we don't want to have the students but because our build space is too small for more than 15 students and because we don't have the mentors to ensure that every student gets the attention they deserve/need.

As for asking students to pay... I see nothing wrong with asking students to pay for their travel. As for paying dues, that depends on the particulars of the team, one of the things I feel would be important would be that the team works with the students to pay the dues through fundraising and other things. On 397 we had no dues but we required students to participate in fundraising. On the FTC team we have dues and require them to participate in fundraising (no way we can get support from a school due to being primarily homeschool students and I am working on finding corporate sponsors to help alleviate some of this burden from the students).

The part that bothers me about this is that you seem to think it is acceptable to anonymously bash another team and how they have decided to run without knowing all the facts about the team.