Creation of teams in professional and student contexts has been well researched and written about. The research landscape can be divided into instructor selected and student selected teams, both of which have advantages and disadvantages. The purpose of this paper is to combine the two techniques for creating teams in an effort to maximize the advantages and minimize the disadvantages, all while achieving high student satisfaction. The paper explores a technique for creating student teams to maximize student satisfaction in a high pressure project using two antecedents: (i) prior academic performance in the same major and (ii) compliance with student's preferences for their peers. Student satisfaction is measured by a survey developed and used for a similar project (Mahenthiran & Rouse, 2000). Results confirm that academic performance is a clear predictor of student satisfaction; however the act of students selecting their teammates has a very small impact in their level of satisfaction in the team. The causes of this outcome are discussed along with a few limitations of the study and implications.