Team applications: Yes, or no?

[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.