Wow! Congrats to your daughter. DD competed one year of silver and then went to gold, and the biggest difference was probably vault. She struggles with vault confidence issues but going from the resi mat to the table was challenging for her. I would also say jumping to the high bar, and they...
Family from overseas are in town, so seeing them at my in-laws house tomorrow and on Xmas, and then heading to see my family for the rest of the week while DS is home from college and DD is on winter break
Yep, state and regionals for Xcel, I know in our region (r6) it is very hard to get to Xcel regionals. Top 10-20 per level end up going. And definitely not. Some Xcel girls actually end up have much nicer form then DP girls, and there's much more routine flexibility.
I believe if you are over 12 (which you are) you can petition through USAG... we looked into it for my DD who is in Xcel. I would recommend Xcel if you don't want to petition. Not less competitive and not recreational. You would easily fit in in Xcel Gold.
First meet was yesterday and it went great! This was hopefully DD's last XG meet, and she got a 36.25 (PB) in AA.
Vault- she only did one vault and balked on the second one but opted not to do another one. Still got an 8.9 which is good for her.
Bars- 9.125 which is not her highest score but...
Age groups are equally split up by the amount of girls in a session. So if there say 30 girls in a session, it would be 3 groups of 10 Ch, Jr, and Sr. The bigger the session the more complicated the age groups are. Ch A Ch B Ch C, Jr A Jr B, etc.
It depends on the scratch date/entry deadline date. Some meets just have a preliminary schedule despite not having all entries, but usually a few days after the scratch deadline at latest, but we haven't been to a lot of larger meets. I know Rochester Classic which is pretty big this year...
You would have to move (or commute), or convince gym owners to add an elite program. I know our gym is strictly no elite, but a gym about 1.5hrs is a big elite gym. So if my DD wanted to do elite (which she wouldn't just hypothetical), we would probably commute or move a little closer.
This happened with my DD as well. I strongly recommend you get it checked out if she still complains of pain. Her doing soccer is putting her at more risk of injuring it more. Stress injuries often don't have bruises and a lot of times don't swell too much.
A judges cup meet will provide a critique sheet, but most meets will not. The cop that JBS linked provides all deductions but is also very much hard to understand.
You have 3-4 years, you could possibly land yourself a spot on a team, if you make it to Level 8/9/Sapphire. Or you could also be a part of an acro or tumbling team, and definitely a college club team no doubt.
Probably not D1, but maybe college club team, or if you become a strong tumbler, acro or tumbling, but you could possibly be a part of a D1 team as a manager if you get an opportunity!