I thought the scores were harsh at DD's in-house meet and am hoping for better at the real meets. Curious if others have found judging to be harsher at in-house than at regular meets.
WAG tough judging at in-house meet
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Ours were either judged super easy this year OR the first meet was judged very harshly. We had something like 10 girls over 36 at the mock meet and only 3 at the first meet! Although I tend to think the scores at first meet were kinda harsh because out of 147 level 3s, only 18 were over 36.
Our mock meet definitely has much harder scoring. On purpose. But it is not an official meet. They take max deductions on everything. My dd got scores in the low to mid 8's at the mock meet and scores in the low to mid 9's in her actual meets.
In my experience, certain meets/states have consistently higher scoring while others consistently lower scoring. I don't know that a judge would be tougher because it's "in house", though. One thought is that is this the start of the season? Scores are usually lower in the beginning and continue to rise til States.
Our HC asks the judges to be especially tough at our in-house meet, so our scores are typically a little on the lower side. However, we also usually have about a month after our in-house meet before our first invitational to work out the kinks- so that could also contribute to the scores seeming lower. Our first invitational has a tendency of being very generous with scores and it's good for the kids to have the in-house meet to sort of ground them and not set them up to expect 9.5+ scores for every hit routine.
Lower scores at an in-house meet are a good thing. You don't want your gymnast going into a meet having scored 9+ on all events, only to received 7s or 8s at their real meet. The lower scores help to motivate them to work even harder at their first meet, and they are expecting lower scores but get higher ones. Much better than expecting higher scores and getting lower ones.
Our in-house meet is always notoriously hard. They deduct every possible thing. Girls who routinely score in the 36-37 range get 33’s. Good times! 
(they all did much better at real meets...)
(they all did much better at real meets...)
Man I wish that was true for us! The scores my kid got at the mock meet held true for her all season....bah.Our in-house meet is always notoriously hard. They deduct every possible thing. Girls who routinely score in the 36-37 range get 33’s. Good times!
(they all did much better at real meets...)
- Jan 4, 2008
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The only fair way to judge is harshly. If a judge is not harsh they are choosing to ignore some deductions. This is where the fairness is limited because thenjudge is picking and choosing which deductions he/she is opting to omit. The end result may not be a true result, as those making certain mistakes are given a break, while those making different mistakes are not.
It is not necessarily that they are ignoring certain deductions. There are a lot of "up to" deductions and if it is a matter of degrees and it is close to the cut-off between one deduction and another, some judges give the benefit of the doubt. Others err on the side of caution. At some in house meets, the judges are told that on an "up to" deduction, always take the maximum regardless of the degrees.
While I agree judging “harshly” is the fairest course, it’s just not a reality. I had a judge tell me the other day she doesn’t deduct for bent arms on a front hip circle because “it’s necessary to bend the arms to do the skill.” Now, mind you, this was regarding a routine that had severely bent arms, not just the slight bend that is allowed. So, if a girl bends hers 90 degrees and a girl does the slight bend, neither are deducted!
We have a relatively small community of gymnastics here - so, while I wouldn't say that our in-house clinic scores are higher or lower, there are definitely judges that score routines higher than others. Everyone at a meet waits to find out where one particular judge (let's call this judge Judge A) is working, and the we all mentally adjust our expectations down by .5-1 point for that rotation. For instance, last year my DD consistently scored 9.4s(ish) on floor. Until Judge A ended up judging floor. Then she got an 8.8 and it still took 1st place. This year Judge A is attending the in-house clinic, so I expect to see lower scores on average.
Lol, we have a judge that we LOVE on vault, but HATE on floor and bars. On beam, she goes either way - she gave YG her 2 highest beam scores ever (at the time)... but most of our team got lower scores those 2 meets.
I agree. In my area, Xcel judging tends to be very lenient which leads to the problem of little to no differentiation between good and great routines. A mediocre routine with no major errors, hitting all requirements, but some significant posture/presentation/form issues will score a 9.3 while an exceptional routine that hits all requirements with textbook form and presentation will get a 9.5. As a coach of both types of kids, it's frustrating from both angles! Kid #1 who is sloppy as all get out and I have been nagging endlessly to clean up gets a 9.3 and is pretty thrilled, thinks I'm obviously a crazy tyrant and just keeps on keeping on the way she is while kid #2 who has worked her butt off to have an exceptional routine and wants to know how to make it better gets the same score all season long despite improvements along the way. This is mostly an issue on beam/floor.
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