[Jon Stratis]

In my view, becoming a selective team is one very specific solution to a couple of problems - there are other solutions out there to those problems, though! Becoming selective means you have a smaller team that is (hopefully) more dedicated. But it also means that your message of inspiration reaches fewer people. In my experience, sometimes those students who show up with no passion for it (because their parents made them, for example) discover something they love and become passionate after that first year. Other times, students may not outwardly show much dedication or attention during meetings, but you find out later that the team had a huge influence on what they decide to major in.

Unless you have problems with the size of the team, I wouldn't become selective just to solve a commitment issue. Instead, work with the team to figure out how to better engage everyone and to change your internal team culture. My team had a commitment issue a few years back - our fall program was so poorly attended that the mentors outnumbered the students most nights!. We've since moved past that issue, and our fall program this year has almost been overwhelming for the mentors to try and manage so many students. You trade one problem for another, it seems!