[Al Skierkiewicz]

Every team that has been around for a while has a set of guidelines that works for them. It fits their projected team size, the school rules and population, the needs or resources of the sponsors, and the goals established by the team for the team. Although some ideas might be useful in your environment, they might not be in all teams.
For WildStang, we have long been a graded class in the District. It is considered a 'ninth period' class which can meet anytime outside of the normal school day. However, that also means you must register for the class, every year. Now that makes some implications that are out of our control...
1. You must participate to some minimum in order to receive a grade.
2. The grade you receive does affect your GPA.
3. In some cases, it may be best for a student to drop robotics in order to raise their grades in other classes or reduce the chance of receiving a failing grade.
4. All school rules apply, the District has a co-curricular code that is essentially a 24 hour/seven day policy for behavior even when not on a team activity.
5. There are certain grade minimums (both academic and team grade) to participate as pit crew, drivers or for travel team.
6. Students know their current grade (available on the school websites) everyday.
7. Our team size can be set by the District to what they believe is a manageable and realistic size.
8. Yes, there must be homework.

While I agree that we should strive to involve as many students as possible, it is a huge drain on the mentors of the program to do so. So all of us struggle with providing a balance of quality over quantity. We have migrated to a magic number of about 60 students and that fills everyone's needs and concerns. We have almost 30 mentors and teachers so that allows us to have students in specific roles/sub-teams. Smaller teams must have students work on several projects at once, i.e. Chairman's Award, animation, safety, strategy, PR, fundraising, etc.
If a student can somehow manage to participate in another activity and meet the minimums for grade on the team, we accept that. Currently about half of our students participate on a team, church activity, scouts or music. Many of them participate in fall sports even though we meet all year round so they can spend time during build season. On the electrical team alone, I have multiple students in band or orchestra (some in honors), one on the swim team, one on water polo, one in band and three other school projects, several on track or cross country or both, three working after school, and two heavily involved in church/temple. More than half of the mechanical and electrical teams are taking one or more AP classes. What is surprising is all of these students are exceeding class and team minimums, all are on travel, pit crew or drive team.
The beginning of this season, more than 115 students somehow were allowed to register. We had to cut students for the first time, ever. We were very up front about the plans at the first meeting in August. Everyone was told that there would be an essay, a series of evaluations, observations and participation tracking that would go into the decision that would take place in mid November (mid term). So we looked at grades, homework, participation, essays, etc. And for most it was easy. Nine students didn't hand in any essay, some wrote only a few sentences so they didn't meet the minimum requirements, some missed multiple homework assignments, some had missed more than half of the classes, some had grade problems, some even told us they didn't have the time and would quit anyway. The remainder became heart wrenching to determine. I don't want to go through that again. The lead teachers interviewed each student prior to the final decision. For the majority of students they felt is was just and they would try harder next year. If we had the funds and maybe a few more mentors and teachers, we would love to have a second team.