[Chris Fultz]

First off, pay attention to the people who advise you to focus on college first, robotics second. there are lots of burned out college sophomores who wish they would have focused on school work more.

For 234, we have an application and interview process, and we do it for several reasons. We do not do it to create an "elite" team.

* students must take the time to fill out the application and answer a few questions. that shows an initial interest in the program.

* second year and on students must create a resume. they highlight their first experience and other info that they think we would like to know.

* students are interviewed by mentors. we get to know them. we explain the program, the time involved, other aspects of the team. we try to find out where their interests lie. first time students have it very easy.

* second year and on students have a 'tougher' interview. we talk about their past season, what they have learned and contributed, and what they plan to contribute in the next season. If there are concerns or issues with participation level, performance, behavior, etc. they are discussed during this interview. (I wish many professionals could deal with these interviews the way these students do.)

We have had several former students tell us that after going thru our team interview process, that college interviews and job interviews were relatively easy. they thanked us for giving them the skills and confidence to go thru the process.

Sometimes (rarely), students don't make the team, but it is not because they are not smart enough, or don't know how to weld or have some other skill. It is usually because they are not been willing to make the time committment, or there are grade issues to where the student cannot be involved in a school activity, or there were significant behavior issues, or they were simply involved in too many other activities for FIRST to fit in and we asked them to make a choice. We are over-accomodating for students who are borderline and work hard to keep them on the team.

One advantage of this type of process is that we have a very high retention rate. Students who are on the team in December are still there in April, because they know what is expected of them, know they have to attend and participate to be considererd part of the team and travel, and they feel a real sense of ownership on the team because they have worked to be a part of it.