Admissions Process for becoming a team member??

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Posted by Chris Hibner at 04/25/2001 8:22 AM EST


Coach on team #308, Walled Lake Monster, from Walled Lake Schools and TRW Automotive Electronics.


In Reply to: Admissions Process for becoming a team member??
Posted by Angela on 04/24/2001 7:34 PM EST:



Our team doesn't have the money to take everyone that wants to be on the team so we have to limit it to about 25 students. This means that we have to have some sort of screening process.

We try to give our students as much of a taste of the real world as possible. Thus, the process for joining our team is like getting a job at a company. We make students fill out an application with questions such as, "Why do you want to join the team?" and "What would you bring to the team that is valuable?" as well as other, more straightforward questions. We also ask a question that shows if they are willing to put forth some effort (typically it requires a small amount research at the library or on the internet so they have a few days to turn in the answer.)

After the application process, we interview every applicant (just like job interviews). The interview consists of a few adult types (engineers and teachers) interviewing the students one at a time (just like in the real world). We don't judge people based on their interviewing skills, but it helps us get an idea of who would benefit from the program but didn't have a good application.

After the interviews, all of the adults on the team sit down and sort through the applications and interview notes and pick a team. The process can be a little long, but we think it does a good job of selecting a team as well as giving the students some experience of what the real world is like.

(As a side note, once the team is chosen, we also have attendence and performance requirements for going to the competitions.)

-Chris