[Kristina]

Team 691 has an application and interview process. Nowadays, it's mostly to figure out where to place people, as I was told that everyone who applied got in. However, this wasn't always the way. The fact that we actually have a class for robotics unfortunately does limit how many people that we were able to take in. I think over 200 people applied and there were only 35 spots in the class. Back then it was the advisor picking the team and he said about something about choosing people he saw the "spark" inside of them. Everyone who didn't make it into the actual class was very welcome to come to all the build sessions and all the meetings. I mean, essentially everything for the team was done outside of the classroom and the only thing done inside of it was just managerial and leadership things and that was pretty clear. So many people who were not in the class did eventually help out during the 6 week build season and were very dedicated. In fact, many people who were chosen to be in the class and didn't do any outside work probably later regret that they got in because they received a low grade whereas the people who went to build sessions on their own who weren't in the class got the true "FIRST experience." Robotics was truly a lesson that many didn't learn until college: You get out what you put into it.

The question about GPA, it's always a very tough one. We were a club that was a class at school and thus had to follow the rules of other classes that were similar (band, choir, sports teams, ROP, ROTC, etc). This meant that you had to have a 2.0 GPA. Before I get a lot of flak for this, I do see the reasoning of the administration. Argue with me all you want about FIRST being the real hands on learning and classes just being busy work but I'm just trying to look at it through another perspective. 2.0 is a C average and if people aren't pulling that without an activity like robotics or a sport, how will they pulling hours and hours with their team. As idealistic as it is to say that we should gauge people's success in high school by how many real world skills they've learned, there's no way to measure it. Grades aren't the best indicator by far, however it's what we have now. It's just like getting into college: Grades, SAT scores and 500 word personal statements might not show the true dimension of a person suited for a college but how else would they do it? It's not an ideal system but it's a realistic one. Furthermore, with a minimum GPA, I know many involved with robotics, sports, or other activities of the like that were pushed by this requirement to do better to make it on the team. Just another way to think about it.

So the goal of FIRST as I have come to believe it is to inspire students in science and technology, and despite the minor ramifications imposed by the school and the leaders of the team, I still think we are able to achieve this. We have never had to deny a person because of interest: business, animation, building, programming, we cater to that all. Although there is the GPA requirement, we still have quite a span so it's not simply the academic elite. We have people in the AP/honors classes as well as many who aren't. We don't need to use a pseudo kind of affirmative action to get a mix of races and gender, as I recall that not even coming to mind when I was doing interviews. In fact, I think the only recruitment that was active was simply to get more management so students would be responsible for all aspects of the team.

There's more I wanted to write, but I'll leave it at that at the moment. I just want to emphasize that although there was a selection process to get into the actual robotics class, there's no way we could stop or even want to stop people from coming on their own time while we were building and doing other things for the team. Thus, I think it was a fair process and in the spirit of FIRST.