My coach has told me and another team member that he and another Mentor are going to nominate both of us for dean’s list this year. We were both very excited, but then he had both of us write our own essays.
He said that we both did a great job and then had me switch the pronouns of my essay to make it look like he wrote it.
I wasn’t sure if this was normal for Dean’s list nominations, but I wanted to double check if this was the actual process before being annoyed.
I thought the original concept of Dean’s list was to recognize all of the amazing things that specific team members have done, by writing their essay and nominating them.
According to FIRST in the 2023 Awards Guide mentors are supposed to write answers to the essay questions. I will note however that the questions during the interview (at least in FiT) are almost exclusively based on the essay questions, so if a mentor writes it I would highly recommend that you see the essay before it is submitted.
I have never heard of a kid literally writing their own. We have the students answer most of the prompts about themselves to help us have a starting point though.
It’s not the way we do things on my team. I write the nominating essays as the lead mentor, though I have the students applying for the award complete a questionnaire that relates to the essay prompts. I know another team where the senior students write the nominating essays. I don’t think you are at a disadvantage for having to write your own nominating essay, but I also don’t think that’s the intention of the nomination process.
On my alumni team, students would write their own essays as part of an internal application process. Students who wanted to be considered for the award would write an essay/answer questions according to the same specifications that the mentors were tasked with. The mentors would use this to help their decision about who to nominate.
While the mentors did not turn in the exact essays the students wrote, they were certainly inspiration for them and helped to generate ideas for items to include.
I think it’s normal and acceptable if the mentors ask you to help generate content for the essay, and that may take the shape of you writing a draft, but you don’t think it’s common if they submit it with your words only and not theirs.
Realistically no one knows your accomplishments better than you. Like Jared, I have required students to answer the questions to self nominate for the award. Helps as a filter for selection and a starting point for the essay.
It does feel weird that they’re just going to submit your work, but remember that most mentors are doing robotics on top of their day job and likely don’t have the time/energy to write an award winning essay.
Our process. Mentors decide on the candidates by a consensus process. The worthy candidates are known to us because they stand out. We see how they perform and how their peers respect them. Some years are harder narrow down to 2 than others. A mentor generally interviews the student and writes the essay.
Have sort of a essay application as part of the process isn’t a bed idea. But. Actions speak louder than words.
First, congratulations on your upcoming nomination! For several reasons, we followed a process similar to what you described this year for our nominated students to create drafts.
First, as others have mentioned, you probably know your accomplishments best, particularly if the mentor(s) recognize you as a good candidate but don’t work directly with you often.
Second, we want our students to be prepared to advocate for themselves. Writing your answers or a draft is a good way to prepare for the interview. It forces you to consider the questions and reflect on why you are a good candidate.
Finally, as a mentor who is not a teacher, I don’t know what every student’s academic accomplishments, other extracurriculars, post-school desires to engage with FIRST, etc., are. I am sure most nominating mentors have similar blindspots to some of the questions involved in the nomination.
If you haven’t already, I’d encourage you to talk to your mentor(s) about why they asked you to take this approach. They recognize you as a leader on your team, and I’m sure they would appreciate the questions!
As a previous Deans List nominee, a mentor wrote my essay, but had me look over it and took in feedback from me before submitting it. As a current senior, I volunteered to write / help write this year’s nominees essays, but it was never forced.
After reading into this thread, I understand using student-written essays for inspiration, but never to copy directly and use. Making the nominated student write their own official essay without some level of mentor input seems unusual in my opinion.
In the fall we ask all our Juniors{1} to fill out some basic biographical info. At our Mentors’ Meeting in mid December, mentors speak about candidates{2} and we come (some years more easily than others) to a consensus. One of our mentors, (herself a former finalist), solicits “stories” about the candidates from the other mentors and writes the essays. We announce our choices at our Robot Reveal event (held the Sunday between Build Season and Competition Season). {3}
Notes:
{1} We have many outstanding students, so it would be a rare year for us to choose a sophomore — the feeling being they will be even better next year as a junior.
{2} We are also blessed with many incredible mentors, and thus many specialize and know the most about students from their subteams. This sharing helps us see sides of our students we may not see directly.
{3} Our process works well for us and our circumstances, but as always, YMMV.
As a smallish team in a small town we tend to know our students pretty well. Mentors write our DL essays then have the students take a look. Parents too sometimes. I could see students writing their own as sometimes working well sometimes not. Lets just not start using AI. Makes palatable mush where you want to be distinctive.
How we generally do it is that the mentors nominate the student(s), and then 1 to 2 of them work with the nominees by having conversational interviews to collect information to be used, and to narrow in on a narrative.
From there, they write the materials up, and then review them with the nominees. This is really important in my opinion, because last year as a DL nominee, I was able to provide a great deal of feedback, and was much happier with the revised version they then provided.
We also have the mentors work with the nominees, or at this point Semi-Finalists, to prepare them for the interview.
From my perspective, this process was effective, as I would not have been able to construct the narrative about myself that the mentors did. In my opinion, a lot of times, others are able to see more about ourselves than we can.
That is the mark of a good leader - being able to see the potential and capabilities in people that they themselves cannot. Definitely inspired me to look inward more effectively, and to understand how the whole team fits together based being able to see the beneficial interactions of individual’s strengths.