My 13 yr. old DD decided she wanted to try for a D1 scholarship after competing her first year in L7 this past spring. Her education is more important than gymnastics so while she wants to excel at both, she will be fine if she doesn't hit her gymnastics goal. She knows all of her L8 skills and has been working on L9 skills. One of her frustrations is losing skills she has acquired before the season starts because she has had to focus on the competing level skills in order to continue scoring well. The current plan is to continue training the L9 skills and compete the L9 skills as a level 8 in 2016, and only move up to L9 if her L9 skills allow her to be competitive in L9. Is this a good plan, or does anyone have other ideas to consider? Our coaches have NEVER had a gymnast do only 1 year of L9, so if she doesn't try something like this, then she wouldn't be a level 10 until she is a HS junior (too late for a D1 school to be interested in her unless, of course, she does amazingly well at JO Nationals her junior year). Thanks for any insight you might have for this situation.