[Wendy Holladay]

Very interesting exercise, a few new thoughts on the venue aspect first. In Atlanta, the DL ceremony was outside. Bad idea and very hot. The room at St. Louis was a huge improvement. As to having the finalists stand in a special area, ours liked being with their team during the ceremony and making the walk thru the crowd.

As to time, I noticed almost all the winners were wearing driver's buttons. That says, the finish time should be 12:30, to give everyone time to get to their matches. Or just allow more time for the ceremony and have the matches start at 1:30.

As to student A-F, getting into one of the prestigious schools is never a guarantee. Most get 15-18k applicants for 1500 slots. One of the reasons a very few get into so many prestigious schools is example, Intel Science Search. Everyone knows what that award is about and an outside committee (not a group of admissions officers) did the very difficult job of selecting, so admissions offices think very highly of that award. I think this award was created to be the equivalent of Intel Science Search. So again, its about Juniors and getting the FIRST brand in front of as many as possible.

Also I think its extremely important to read the criteria, just as it is to answer in a college essay the question asked. The award, like Woody Flowers, stresses technical expertise as well as outreach. While non-technical students can carry FIRST forward, the ones "most likely to" tend to be engineering. I would modify this to include the big 4 sciences, but that is another topic.

As to the bad freshman year, I think admissions officers and awards selection people, love a "turnaround" story. Its more compelling than "I was always a 4.0 person". As to perfect SATs, many with 2400s don't get in to the prestigious schools and I work with a women who had a 510 on her english SAT and went to MIT.

Again everyone should understand how financial aid is awarded. When someone gets a full ride to Harvard, that means their parents were poor. The prestigious schools give no merit scholarships, everyone is merit.

FIRST does list the DL winners on their site, under the CMP page
http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...frc-cmp-awards

right below Chairman and Competition winners. All 10 names and their teams are listed.

As to building up resumes with awards, we do it where I work all the time. I think to say, some don't need awards because they have so many is not a valid statement. In general, awards are always a positive, even if you don't win. They are out there to inspire and motivate.