Recruiting Students

I begin a three part series on recruiting students for AVID elective (I sound so journalistic). I have been reading a non-fiction book about major league baseball's attempt to pick the best athletes in their draft. The book by Mike Lewis is entitled Moneyball. The author follows the Oakland A's in particular, a small market team with limited resources, they have to find the best overlooked players to be competitive (kind of like AVID teachers trying to find kids in the middle).

I'm paraphrasing an excerpt from the book....It's not about what they look like or what they might become, it's about finding out what they've done in their past that gives indicators about their future.

That struck me as very AVID-esque. I rewrote some of our recruiting material. Over the next few weeks I'll share it here. If you're desperate for the whole package, email me and I'll gladly share.

Student Application
We warn kids on the application that the things we are asking them are the same kinds of things we are asking of teachers. Vast differences could be held against the student. We also warn students that neatness and lack of mistakes are most impressive.

Here are the questions we ask for the written application:
1. Do you want to go to college? Why?
2. Why do you want to be selected for AVID?
3. What is your GPA? Why?
4. If we asked people in your class about how you work with others, what would they say?
5. How often do you get in trouble? Why?
6. How often do you read books? Why? How many books have you read this year?
7. When you are assigned a project, how do you work? What is your pace?
8. How often do you finish assignments (always, sometimes, never)? Why?
9. You are working on a math problem. It is hard and you are not getting the correct answer. How do you react?
10. When do you turn in most assignments (on time or late)? Why?
11. If someone held your binder upside down and shook it, what would happen?
Why?

We have recruited too many students because of who we wanted them to become much to our mutual frustration. Getting better means more success.