Dealing with rejection - from the rejector's side

In my Anatomy 2 class, I have found myself having become a class leader. With that, a group project was assigned and we could form our own groups. I found a couple of people with whom I felt that I shared similar level of engagement and we formed our group.

Since then, I have had many requests from other classmates asking to be in my group.

First, it's a nice compliment to have people want to work with me. At the same time, it doesn't make sense to make our group so big. 

I'm trying to recall where I heard the following strategy that I used. It may have been from Tim Ferris (tim.blog).

Anyway, I have had to learn how to say no to people. Being a "people pleaser" is something that has both benefitted me as well as create situations where I fail to fulfil responsibilities to their completion. 

My response has been, "We have enough people in our group. A couple of other people who don't have a group have reached out to me as well. Should I connect you to them?"

In this way, I've said no. I want to be helpful, so offering an alternative is still being true to being helpful, an important value to me.