Congrats!
Different gyms have totally different philosophies in coaching xcel (I’m talking about the ones strictly using Xcel the way it was meant, not as a jump to DP). Our xcel silvers ALL compete RO BHS back tuck as one of their passes, our golds all do kips and flyaways. That’s not the case for most gyms competing silver around us for example, plenty just doing the bare minimum skills. The age group for our xcels is generally all around 12-15, other gyms have much younger kids in bronze and silver than we do. At 11, depending on skill level, they’d either get invited to level 2 or xcel; if they have a back handspring, they’d be invited to level 3 unless they specifically want to go to xcel or are majorly missing some other skills.
Even the same gym can disagree on where kids should go - our sister gym evaluated a kid who has never done competitive gymnastics and put her 3 levels higher than we did.
Also just as an FYI for anyone reading who might have a similar question:
1) rec does not tell kids to straighten knees and point toes - the classes are generally an hour long, parents already complain that they spend too long doing drills and stretches and not enough time learning cool things. On team, you can get a kid to work for hours upon hours on learning to roll with their head tucked in without complaints; you can’t do that with that 1 hour a week. When they pick kids from rec to send to team or preteam, it’s generally the kids who are either super fast learners, super strong or naturally precise. My kid is not naturally precise lol.
2) many gyms do not give much information before a spot is offered. So if you found your friend to be more helpful with info than the gyms are, that’s because they’re free to tell you whatever they like and they’re a better source of info on gym culture than the people working there. If someone calls the front desk and asks me for a price breakdown, what meets we go to, etc - I can’t give them that info, they’re generally comparison shopping and will end up bringing it up to another gym. If they ask what skills are necessary, I’ll give them a barebones list of anything that might be -totally- necessary, but preface it heavily with the words “it is at the coach’s discretion and there are other criteria they may be looking for”. I can’t tell people “we won’t move your child up a level (or accept your child to team) because they lack the ability to listen and have no focus” - we have to put out some fluff about not being ready justttt yet. Seriously, no one wants to hear that their kid doesn’t listen.
3) Not directed at anyone here, but seriously, parents who are rude to the front desk or come across as overly aggressive in the journey of like… a 4 year old, we’re going to warn the coaches. They’re going to have to deal with the parent for the duration that kid is on team, and we do give them a heads up.
I like this thread because I know there’s a lot of parents frustrated about why they can’t get a clear answer on what their kid needs, and getting onto team past a certain age can be a very challenging process. Congrats to your girl and I hope she has a blast on her new team!