Criteria for Allowing New Team Members

[cadandcookies]

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.

[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.

[Shrub]

Thank you all so much for the response! I actually wasn't expecting this much. x) in our teams case, grades thankfully aren't too big of a deal and everyone ends up passing, even during build season or when a lot of school is missed during comps.

Originally Posted by Wiifi

I'll stop by your pit Saturday to discuss this with you! Alternatively you can find me in the pink fedora with a FIRST Senior Mentor shirt on. I'll most likely be around the FLL/FTC demos and the GOFIRST/Alumni table for most of the day but I also plan to go and talk to all of the teams.

Thank you! I actually might be scouting but our safety captain will be part of the FTC team if you want to talk to him too. I'll have (hopefully) an LED flower crown and a sash full of buttons.

[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.

[thegnat05]

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.

I agree with this as well. I, along with some members of our team, are not A honor role students and we do get a lot out of FIRST. Maybe even more so then from our classes. I know that the athletic teams at our school have a grade requirement in order to compete in meets or play in games but FIRST is a different program then normal sports. It really is a "sport for the mind" and kids learn skills that will help them in life more so then just a sport. I think that not letting your grades fall because of being in robotics is important but I don't think it should be a requirement to join the team.

[wasayanwer97]

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.

I understand this view, but I think any student's first priority should be school itself. Almost all sports at our school have minimum grade requirements, so why shouldn't the sport of the mind? As much as FIRST can teach a student, graduating is a far more important goal.

A large part of what FIRST has taught me is how to balance and prioritize. I understand the struggle of keeping grades high or even passing, especially in the heat of build. The ability to draw the line where I need to stop doing robotics and focus on school is arguably one of the most important skills I've learned.

[Riverdance]

We have no policies regarding who can join and who is allowed to attend our meetings (for example, one of our member's girlfriend is known to drop by meetings and competitions on a regular basis and help us out, even though she's not an official member of the team). However, we take attendance extremely seriously and various aspects of the team experience are off limits unless you meet a certain attendance criteria.
To be considered officially in the records as a member of the team, one must have cumulative 60% attendance at team meetings (Sundays, competitions, and extended meeting times are extra credit, so some members might have in the ballpark of 140% during build season). There also used to be a rule that members with less than 60% attendance would at least have to arrange their own ride to competition, but with a recent lack of scouters that rule has been left relatively unenforced.
Running for a management position or trying out for the drive team requires an attendance rate of 85%, which is rather inflexible. Rarely are there exceptions granted to this rule, whereas the former is pretty flexible. Exceptions may be given to the former if you were very sick, grounded, or an extremely dedicated member who had an intensive prior commitment. (I'd also like to add that while you might get an official exemption for showing up late to every single Sunday meeting because you had oboe private lessons, you will still be made fun of and asked to remind everyone what time this meeting starts.)