Team applications: Yes, or no?

[Alexa Stott]

To further add to my previous post: our mentors do conduct interview of team members at some point during the year. This is to help find out their expectations, let them know what the team expects from them, what their interests are, etc. so we can fill them into a role. It also lets the coaches know who is the most serious about it, who is there to sort of hang out, and what they can expect from each student. These sorts of things, as well as the actions of students during the build season, all factor into determining our travel roster. All students, so long as the meet the requirements for being on the team, attend our home regional (or district events/championship as the case is now). Our team tries to offset the cost of travel so each student typically pays $300-$400 to go to, say, the Orlando or Las Vegas Regional (Hawaii was much higher, for obvious reasons). Thus, students who are truly committed to the team and put in the most time are rewarded by being able to go on a trip with the team. I don't think we've ever had an issue keeping this number reasonable and it keeps us from preventing students from being on the team if they want to be.

[JohnBoucher]

Yes to applications.

We detail specific obligations that the students will have on the team(grades, GP, community service) and use it as their understanding and acceptance of the teams rules and conditions. It is the last page of our handbook and a parent must also sign indicating that they understand what the team expects from the student.

Yes, we have had to use the signed application to remind students what they agreed to do.

[neshera]

It sounds like there may be two categories of teams here:
1) Need every possible available body, don't need to refuse anyone's participation
2) More students want to be on the team than the team can handle appropriately

For #1, recommend: No application, just an info sheet.
Keep track of time spent on the team; obviously this includes time at the shop, but should also include communitiy service hours, time at demos, time spent building the webpage, time spent contacting potential sponsors, etc.

On our team, we pay for the students' hotel room, some meals at Regionals if they have put in the required hours. If they fall a little short, they have to pay their own way. If they fall a lot short, they are not given an excuse to miss school to travel to/attend the Regional. You don't have to set the bar too high, but enough to "weed out" the student who just wants the occaisional Friday off school.

For #2, we really have little experience in this realm, so I ignorantly recommend: HELP START ANOTHER TEAM

[Cal578]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

Then we have performance reviews - one at the end of week 2 and one at the end of week 5. Students are rated on productivity, seriousness of purpose, and effort (to name a few). The week 2 is to put the slackers on notice, and the one in week 5 determines if they travel with the team or not. The standards can be as low or high as your team leadership likes, but there MUST be a rubric (score sheet) so all students know exactly what is expected of them.

The different purposes of the week 2 and week 5 reviews is a great idea. I would like to learn more about the standards you set, how you measure performance against the standards, who implements it, how you enforce it. Also, how do students react when they don't meet the standards at week 5, and how do their parents react?

If this is too much detail to post here, feel free to email me.

I'm asking all these questions because I think our team could improve in this area. The other posts in this thread have also been helpful. Thanks, everyone!

[Carolyn_Grace]

As a student on the Killer Bees I had to fill out an application, collect two recommendations (one from a teacher at our school) and be interviewed by two mentors on the team. It was a great experience. I learned more about the program before I became involved, the mentors were able to get an idea of my personality and what I might be interested in doing on the team, and I was able to ask questions before making a final commitment.

It was also the first application and interview process that I went though, which turned out to be a very useful experience for later in life (well, later that year actually...) when I applied for jobs.

On the mentor side of things, interviews have always been one of my favorite aspects of this program. The applications and interviews are an awesome way to get to know potential students, but we even interview our returning students, and that is sometimes the most rewarding. We ask them questions like the following:

• What was your favorite part of the build season (and/or competition season)?
• What was your favorite event and why?
• What was your least favorite event and why?
• What did you accomplish this year?
• What do you want to accomplish next year?
• What can we do better as a team?
• What can the mentors do better to improve the team?
• How can you take a leadership role next year?
• etc....

It's a great way to get feedback and assess what we need to do differently (or the same!) for the next year.

My impression is that 33 students generally enjoy the interviews and see the benefits of filling out an application. At least I haven't heard any complaints about it so far.

(side note: the two mentors that interviewed me as a student are now two of my favorite people in FIRST. I still remember that interview: me dressed in my softball uniform and meeting these two people who ended up making such a huge impact on my life...pretty awesome. )

Thanks all for posting your thoughts. While there seems to be no unanimous answer, it looks like an information sheet of some kind is very useful. I look forward to the new responses. Thanks!

[Caleb Sykes]

My team only has 15 members or so, and I would love to have an application process, but right now we cannot really afford to lose any potentially helpful members of the team. Over the summer and into the fall, we are going into an aggressive recruitment phase to expand our team size. My question is, should we enact an application/interview for this upcoming year even with this uncertainty about size?

[nlknauss]

Originally Posted by inkling25

My team only has 15 members or so, and I would love to have an application process, but right now we cannot really afford to lose any potentially helpful members of the team. Over the summer and into the fall, we are going into an aggressive recruitment phase to expand our team size. My question is, should we enact an application/interview for this upcoming year even with this uncertainty about size?

Remember that an application doesn't have to be used to filter out potential members. You can use the application to learn so much about the interested students and what they hope to accomplish as a member of your team. I think that Carolyn's post above on Team 33's application does a great job of outlining a possible application you can use.