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Tmacs

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For those with college gymnasts, how many years at L10 did she do? How many repeated L8/9 years? Just curious because our gym has a fairly small, new batch of L6/7s who all want to do college gym but are all on the older side... 11/12... they are super well coached and score high with up trained routines so very few have repeated levels yet. Just wondering if older gymnasts who will get to L10 by grades 10 or 11 (a few by grade 9) have still made it to college gym programs and done well?
 
There is a pretty detailed thread in the anonymous section about college recruiting, insights and tips that you should probably review and would answer your question. With NIL there are more opportunities for walk-on spots at D1 level and there are always exceptions, but for a scholarship D1 athlete, I think most on here would tell you one should be a L10 by freshman year of high school at least. D1 colleges start making offers the end of your sophomore year, so having at least a year of solid L10 performance prior is probably a minimum.

Now made it onto college programs and done well? In that regard I would say the best predictor is winning L10 nationals but even that is probably more variable with event specialists, team culture, degree program, etc. But just being on a squad is a huge huge accomplishment.
 
There is so many variables that go into an answer for these types of questions including what type of programs are they looking for (top 10 vs lower ranked) whether they are looking for a scholarship vs. walk on spot, how well connected to college programs the club coaches and/or parents are. High scoring routines matter more than at what age/grade they get to L10 in general. If you want to do a little digging, you can look at the rosters for various college teams they might be interested in and cross reference with mymeetscores to give you an idea of number of years and scores. In general, top 20 programs will have more of the former elites and 5+ years L10s going to nationals multiple times - excellent all arounders. The lower ranked you go, the more you will see 2-3 year L10s with lower scores overall and more "specialists" where they excelled in one or two events in JO, with lower AA scores
 
One can certainly get to L10 in 10th (even 11th or 12th in rarer cases) and get recruited. The challenge is that even if getting to L6/7 is smooth, it gets bumpier getting to L10. Mine had a pretty smooth ride to L9 and made it by 6th grade with no injuries or repeated level, but the years that followed have been much, much tougher, which is not unusual. In your situation I’d say keep plugging away as long as they love it and know that there are many ways things could work out (or not) for college, so enjoy the ride! I hope this helps and good luck!
 
For those with college gymnasts, how many years at L10 did she do? How many repeated L8/9 years? Just curious because our gym has a fairly small, new batch of L6/7s who all want to do college gym but are all on the older side... 11/12... they are super well coached and score high with up trained routines so very few have repeated levels yet. Just wondering if older gymnasts who will get to L10 by grades 10 or 11 (a few by grade 9) have still made it to college gym programs and done well?

My daughter is a senior... this is her 7th season as a L10... was a L10 as a 6th grader. She never repeated a level except for L10. This path ended up being great for her... but it was a very rough road. I would not recommend it.

As far as recruiting... 3 full-ride offers... 1 to a SEC school. At this point... we now have had 5 more schools showing heavy interest... 3 very early on that she declined officials to that most likely would have offered too. The early L10 / Hopes stuff put her on the "radar".

As a coach... if there is a fork in the road again... I will not be taking another gymnast the same direction as I coached my daughter. There was a fork in the road with her... we didn't take either path... we just made our own.

To answer your question... hitting a quality L10 by 8th grade or 9th grade is ideal. Having a good L10 year (like making nationals) as a 10th grader... not bad either. 11th and 12th grade are not ideal... but definitely not impossible.
 
All I can say is it's interesting how much things (and ones perceptions) can change over the years.

I think the "problem" with not reaching level 10 until 11th or 12th grade is that it's not enough just to make it to level 10. You have to be successful at level 10. And, despite how on track things can look or how well one has done in the other levels, it's just not that easy. Mental blocks, injuries, burn out, challenging skills.. it's all just so hard for everything to come together and have an amazing first year level 10 experience. Our coaches even said that they want them to hit level 10 by 7th/8th grade so that they can have a few rough years and still be in a good position by summer after 10th grade for recruiting. But if you reach level 10 in 11th or 12th grade, than everything has to just work out perfectly. You have to be ready with the skills and execution and you have to be healthy and not get injured before or during the season. I know it can all happen of course, and it's great when it does. But it's not easy for sure.

On a personal note, my daughter made it to level 10 in 8th grade. She hurt her ankle (for the 3rd time) before her season, never managed to compete floor and had an ok season otherwise. This year, she was looking good up until she hurt her knee weeks before her fist meet. She was out for ~6 weeks, missed the first 2 meets completely and only competed a handful of events at the rest. Now she has a mental block on bars and is struggling on floor. She's very discouraged and losing motivation. She never repeated any levels and did very well up until she broke her ankle for the first time before level 8 (missed almost that whole season too). She technically still has time for things to work out, but college is seeming less likely tbh. This sport is just really hard and unpredictable.
 
Just wanted to say it’s a little wild that 11/12 is old for level 6/7. My daughter is 11 in level 7 and has never once been out of junior A, at states she’s going to be in the 4th youngest age group out of 24 groups.

They have time as long as they don’t get stuck at level 8 and 9, we know a lot of people who are in their 3rd year of 8 and they’re going to quit after season because level 9 isn’t getting any more likely and the jump is huge
 
There is a pretty detailed thread in the anonymous section about college recruiting, insights and tips that you should probably review

Here is a link to that thread...

 
Just wanted to say it’s a little wild that 11/12 is old for level 6/7. My daughter is 11 in level 7 and has never once been out of junior A, at states she’s going to be in the 4th youngest age group out of 24 groups.

They have time as long as they don’t get stuck at level 8 and 9, we know a lot of people who are in their 3rd year of 8 and they’re going to quit after season because level 9 isn’t getting any more likely and the jump is huge
Yeah- I don't think it's too old- just more challenging to make it to L10 for multiple years. But the way they are being coached makes repeating less likely as long as they remain injury free. Most are leveling up skills in their routines so that they are extremely comfortable and confident competing at each level. It's a fairly new rebuilding of a program so it will be interesting to see what happens with these 5th, 6th, and 7th graders over the next few years.
 

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