FRC Blogged - Something New – FIRST Dean’s List Changes

[MechEng83]

Originally Posted by Pault

I don't have any data my back this up, but I feel like your claim that teams don't agree with FIRST on who to nominate is a blanket statement. I know atleast one team that values giving the award to Juniors: my own. Maybe my team is just the exception rather than the norm, but I seriously hope we aren't the only one.

Yes, it was a blanket statement. The generalization is based off reading previous comments in this thread. I fully acknowledge that I don't speak for every team, but circumstantially, I'd argue the majority represented in this thread hold a similar viewpoint.

Also: "It's prestige for the deserving student, vs. prestige for the universities who recruit Dean's List winners" is an extreme generalization. The real situation is "Prestige for the most deserving student vs. prestige and tangible benefits to the very deserving student." Prestige to a university is just a side effect.

I did not mean to imply the junior (or sophomore) would not be somewhat deserving, nor that they would not attain prestige, but rather that they may not be the most deserving. We nominated a very deserving junior last year, so I'm not arguing that juniors shouldn't be nominated, or only seniors should.

I'm not saying I agree that teams should be forced to nominate Sophmores and Juniors. I'm saying that nominating Sophmores and Juniors is something that teams should really consider practicing even if they weren't forced to.

And herein lies the source of consternation: we're being forced to ignore seniors who may potentially be the most deserving student.