Criteria for Allowing New Team Members

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

I'm not sure I agree with minimum grade requirements - I was a terrible student in high school, and got more out of this program than probably the rest of high school put together.

Yeah, I have similar thoughts. If a kid's so done with school they aren't bothering to get good grades, why would kicking them out of FRC help? I've known some kids that it's happened to before, and it's a darn shame. I'd much rather have someone getting Cs and learning a ton in FRC than getting As and bored in school. Especially because one of the great things that this program does is show kids why what they're learning in school is actually useful (and that there's more to look forward to in college).

Of course, there's also no reason why you shouldn't be able to both spend tons of time at FRC and get good grades...

[Taylor]

On our team, anybody can be part of it, but in order to travel with the team, members must have a C- or better in all classes.
Sure, robotics inspires greatness, but school always comes first. We've found that system focuses kids on true priorities.
Our policy.

[Max Boord]

I understand both sides of the grades arguement. personally however, I don't think its a good idea. For one a good part of robotics students are taking honors or AP courses making there gpa inaccurate (HPA fixes this). But even then, students that have choosen to help out more in the shop as opposed to doing homework should not be penalized by being kicked off or suspended from the team.

I may be biased because I did horrible in school durring build season. Still, my choice to attend every single build meeting should not be an offence worth getting kicked off for. Instead I think team leads just need to remind the student thst he is failing _____ and should probably work on improving that.

[Jon Stratis]

For us, the only requirement we have is grades - that's a school-mandated requirement for all extracurricular activities.

As others have already indicated in this thread, the amount of time spent in an extracurricular can have a negative effect on your schoolwork and grades, it's important to find a suitable balance. Quite frankly, when you graduate and go to college or find a job, your grades are going to be more important than saying your on a FIRST team. A good college isn't going to sit back and say "well, FIRST makes up for the 1.5 GPA...", and a potential employer is going to look at it and say "1.5 GPA? This kid obviously doesn't have much motivation or commitment."

When it comes to grades, our faculty adviser keeps an eye on them for every student, and we try to intervene before it gets to a point where they have to leave the team. Hopefully by having a limit like this, the team can help motivate students to do better in their classes, when they need such motivation!

[rsegrest]

For the students questioning the grades requirement

This...

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

For us, the only requirement we have is grades - that's a school-mandated requirement for all extracurricular activities.

Our team is in a No Pass No Play state. We follow all UIL rules which I believe are the same in most states; if any grade falls below a 70 the student is not allowed to participate in extracurricular activities until the next grading period in which the student is passing all courses. It is an unfortunate fact of our team being associated with a school. It's just one of those rules many of us are required to follow.

Oh and this is what it should be:

On my team the minimum grade requirement is essentially an excuse for the team to help struggling members out. We have all types-- A students, students that would drop out, and everything in between. We try to help our students succeed in all academic aspects of their high school career.

Good Leadership and Teamwork CadandCookies!!

[Bryan Herbst]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

Quite frankly, when you graduate and go to college or find a job, your grades are going to be more important than saying your on a FIRST team. A good college isn't going to sit back and say "well, FIRST makes up for the 1.5 GPA...", and a potential employer is going to look at it and say "1.5 GPA? This kid obviously doesn't have much motivation or commitment."

I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. I agree that grades are very important for getting into the college you want, but I think that employers have been relying less and less on GPA to evaluate new hires. I also think that colleges are behind the times in this regard, but that's a different topic.

The company I work for probably wouldn't have noticed if I had left my GPA off my resume (and they certainly never asked about or requested a transcript). From what I've heard from other recent grads, this is becoming somewhat of a trend. Google has also made the news lately by stating that "GPAs are worthless as a criteria for hiring.".

Obviously a *bad* GPA can hurt you. You are definitely correct in that a 1.5 GPA could be difficult to get passed. However, I think that whatever poor habits led to that would also show in other ways as well.

In the context of this discussion, I'm definitely a fan of a GPA requirement for the team. Team 2052 has a grade requirement for attending competitions and lettering, though our school only provides us with a list of how many classes the student is failing, and a pass/fail (no GPA or per-class grade list).

We also are more than happy to work with students to make exceptions. If they tell us that they are failing one class because they missed a test and that they are making it up in a week, we are more than happy to accommodate them.

[RunawayEngineer]

Originally Posted by Tanis

I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. I agree that grades are very important for getting into the college you want, but I think that employers have been relying less and less on GPA to evaluate new hires. I also think that colleges are behind the times in this regard, but that's a different topic.

The company I work for probably wouldn't have noticed if I had left my GPA off my resume (and they certainly never asked about or requested a transcript). From what I've heard from other recent grads, this is becoming somewhat of a trend. Google has also made the news lately by stating that "GPAs are worthless as a criteria for hiring.".

I'd be willing to bet that Google still does what all large companies do for their normal recruitment process: put their resumes through computer filters that eliminate based on benchmarks - GPA included. You have to have a decent GPA for your resume to ever be seen by human eyes.

[Jon Stratis]

I can tell you back in the day (dating myself here... about 14 years ago!) when I was looking at colleges I talked with a recruiter from * (I don't want to influence opinions of an institution based on a single anecdotal incident in my past). He asked my GPA, and when I told him it was less than perfect (at the time a 3.99998), he practically dismissed me out of hand. He didn't care about the other stuff I had done, and it left me with a very bitter feeling towards that institution.

[Tungrus]

We have open enrollment policy, even allow students from other schools come in. As far as academic performance is concerned, we inform the student and parents that they are responsible for academic performance and students can chart their path in our team, pick activities of their interest. Mentors will guide and train them. So far it has been working good. Students who are regular and show interest, they have picked up leadership reins and have become good leaders. Few times we ask student to do something that he/she hasn't been doing and we either see potential in student or we need some hands to do it.

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

I'd much rather have someone getting Cs and learning a ton in FRC than getting As and bored in school.

If a student is capable of getting A's, and is using FRC as an excuse to be lazy, then they're not doing themselves justice, nor is the program. A students getting C's are not helping them with their future, no matter how many people they learn to work with.

C students getting C's are a different ballgame, but FRC is never an excuse to permenantly deflate your grades.

My personal favourite is when C students get A's thanks to their involvement in robotics.

Full disclosure: Yes during build season my grades do suffer, but that has helped me. I've learned that I have to work extra hard before January and after April to compensate, which actually resulted in a net gain for me. FRC taught me how to manage my grades on top of robotics. How many times have you heard "how can you possibly put this much time into something and still pass your classes?" My favourite thread on Chief Delphi had some awesome advice and techniques to employ if you're struggling with this. http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=57499

FRC is not an excuse to ruin your future, no matter how you sugercoat it.

EDIT: Reading this back it seems like I'm coming off overly harsh towards you Roger. This post isn't targeted at you, it's more of a general statement.