**Blog Date: **
Monday, September 23, 2013 - 11:37
I hear you. The change I announced Friday allowing only Sophomores/10th Graders and Juniors/11th Graders to apply for the *FIRST *Dean’s List Award excluded Seniors/12th Graders whose teams rightly expected they would be able to be nominated in the 2014 season. It was not my intention to suddenly exclude this segment of planned nominees. This was my mistake, and I apologize.
So, for the 2014 season, Seniors/12th Graders may continue to be nominated for the *FIRST *Dean’s List Award. The restriction to Sophomores/10th Graders and Juniors/11th Graders will be implemented in the 2015 season.
Regarding different countries having different application deadlines for colleges, I don’t think it would be fair to attempt to compensate for this by allowing Seniors/12th Graders from one country to compete against Juniors/11th Graders from another. Something else to consider – while students in Canada, as an example, are applying to colleges while they are in the 12th grade, keep in mind we don’t start making the *FIRST *Dean’s List Award selections until the last week in February, and this continues through the FIRST Championship in late April. In some cases, even in Canada, depending on the college and program being applied to, this is still too late for a 12th grader to include in her or his application. This may not be too late for scholarship applications, but setting the *FIRST *Dean’s List Award selection not later than the 11th grade as a standard makes this recognition available broadly to all for college and scholarship purposes.
I’ll blog again soon.
Frank
The people have been heard! A good compromise for changing to only sophomores/juniors, but waiting until the current seniors have graduated after this coming season so they still have the opportunity as well. Another +1 for Frank. (What’s his score now? )
This might be my favorite thing Frank has done. He realized he made a mistake, apologized for it, and fixed it. No excuses and no lengthy process. Thanks again Frank.
Good compromise. I still don’t agree with the exclusion of seniors (no reason to rehash in this thread), but this makes the transition easier to swallow. +1 to Frank’s very high score.
Nice! I am so glad that they listened to the concerns of the FIRST community. As I stated in the previous thread (along with others), the right call was to wait until the 2015 season so people wouldn’t be blindsided and could nominate the people who mattered to their teams. Frank I have told this in person you are the best!:]
I’m not against this, but it seems like a really fast knee jerk reaction. Just like seeing the referees deliberate for 10 minutes at the end of a finals match - while nerve-wracking on the delay, makes me feel like they have taken a good amount of time to make the correct and appropriate decision, I sort of wish Frank had taken more than a weekend to release the “change of heart.”
When Dean’s list was introduced, we had something like 2 weeks to select our nominees and write essays, and we did it. This time we now have months and months of notice, and people are complaining that its not enough. Next year people will complain a year is not enough notice…
And Im waiting for the juniors to start whining that they are going to get caught in the mess because their seniors will be nominated this year, and next year they won’t get the chance…
I hope Frank’s openness doesn’t continue to mean everyone that whines on CD gets their way, because there is a much much bigger community out there that this affects.
But 2015 implementation I suppose is a reasonable compromise that may at least quiet some of the masses of complaining.
Wouldn’t a simple solution be for teams who are in this position is to nominate one senior and one junior? It can inspire each class to step up and be leaders among their peers.
This is a very good solution; teams who held off on nominating a member(s) of the Class of 2014 can still nominate them this season, while everyone now knows this is their last chance to nominate students from the Class of 2015.
Kim, I couldn’t agree more… although IIRC it was more like a week that first year. Very rushed, but very worth it to give these students their much deserved recognition.
FIRST has been saying for the last 2 years that it was “strongly encouraged” to nominate juniors for this award. It seems to me that teams should have been looking at that as an indication that preference would likely be given to juniors over seniors and likewise they should have made those corrections to their nomination process over the last 2 years.
Let’s not forget that FIRST should get to determine the purpose of their awards. They are clearly stating (as they have for the last few years) that they view this as something to help dedicated students on their college applications. Teams can (and should) provide their own recognition of team seniors who have been dedicated to the team.
My fondest memory of this award is still seeing a senior who had no idea she was even nominated get announced as a winner. Anecdotal and non-consequential in the scheme of things, but this change is a hard sell for me.
The “surprise” factor is one thing I talked with a few other mentors about over the weekend… Our team has always had DL nominations be entirely at the mentor’s discretion. As a result, the students have never known who was nominated (until we tell them after the event), and it came as a huge surprise to one of our students who won last year. With the interview portion being added this year, there won’t be that surprise any more.
[From thread: “Improvements to the Dean’s List. Your Ideas?”](Improvements to the Dean’s List. Your Ideas?)
Here is my plea. If FIRST chooses to make a drastic change to rules involving a preference in age of the student, give teams a year of advanced warning.
Cool to see something I suggested in 2012 was implemented Well done, Frank!
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Well done, Frank!