Women Excel vs Normal levels

[Barsandfloor]

Is excel the same as normal levels? What is better to move up in for a 13 year old who would be in excel platinum but wants to work hard to get to college gymnastics?

 

[MuggleMom]

There are two paths JO (Junior Olympic) and Excel. The Bronze, silver Platinum etc are the Excel levels and levels 1-10 are the JO levels. JO doesn't mean "Olympics" (Olympics are for those on the Elite path which is separate from JO and a whole other convo). Most kids competing for colleges were level 10 before their Senior year of high school. Most kids that get gymnastics scholarships (though not all) were Level 10 for several years before graduating high school. I dont think there are any Excel gymnastics that have gone on to compete for NCAA gymnastics. There are some club level teams where lower JO level girls and Excel girls have continued gymnastics and competed. Excel Platinum would be equivilant to Level 6/7 from what I understand (possible 8 on some events?) I would think if she really wanted to try for College gymnstics it would be difficult but it would better to transition over to the JO track. You would likely need to petition to level 6 or score out of levels 4 & 5 then you could start optionals and see if you can progress to level 10 by Junior or Senior year. We had a girl at our gym who didnt start gymnastics till 11 and ended up with a scholarship so it is possible just difficult.

 

[MeetDirector]

As I was typing, MuggleMom's response hit. So - what she said!

 

[raenndrops]

There are two paths JO (Junior Olympic) and Xcel. The Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum etc are the Xcel levels and levels 1-10 are the JO levels. JO doesn't mean "Olympics" (Olympics are for those on the Elite path which is separate from JO and a whole other convo). Most kids competing for colleges were level 10 before their Senior year of high school. Most kids that get gymnastics scholarships (though not all) were Level 10 for several years before graduating high school. I dont think there are any Xcel gymnastics that have gone on to compete for NCAA gymnastics. There are some club level teams where lower JO level girls and Xcel girls have continued gymnastics and competed. Xcel Platinum would be equivalent to Level 6/7 from what I understand (possible 8 on some events?) I would think if she really wanted to try for College gymnastics it would be difficult but it would better to transition over to the JO track. You would likely need to petition to level 6 or score out of levels 4 & 5 then you could start optionals and see if you can progress to level 10 by Junior or Senior year. We had a girl at our gym who didnt start gymnastics till 11 and ended up with a scholarship so it is possible just difficult.

*Xcel not Excel ... sorry, pet peeve, lol. (I hate when auto-correct tries to change it and have been known to yell at my tablet).
Xcel Diamond is more possibly Level 8-ish on some events.
And I think last year, I saw that a former Xcel gymnast was on a D-3 team when I was looking up all the gymnasts I saw in some college meets.

 

[thefellowsmom]

Yes, this would definitely be a hard road but if they are willing to put in the work and dedication and they want it more than anything else in their life, then go for it! Everything Muggle said is right on. One thing that I would add is that Div III has girls at a little lower level. I know two level 9s that will be on D3 teams next year. If college is the goal and you have a great coach that is on board with creating a program that will track to high levels quickly and will do the work of helping with the college recruiting process anything is possible. But yes, this is a very non traditional path and a very late start.

 

[MuggleMom]

Sorry about Xcel vs Excel I work in Excel daily so thats going to be my excuse lol.

 

[Mmd7999]

There are two paths JO (Junior Olympic) and Excel. The Bronze, silver Platinum etc are the Excel levels and levels 1-10 are the JO levels. JO doesn't mean "Olympics" (Olympics are for those on the Elite path which is separate from JO and a whole other convo). Most kids competing for colleges were level 10 before their Senior year of high school. Most kids that get gymnastics scholarships (though not all) were Level 10 for several years before graduating high school. I dont think there are any Excel gymnastics that have gone on to compete for NCAA gymnastics. There are some club level teams where lower JO level girls and Excel girls have continued gymnastics and competed. Excel Platinum would be equivilant to Level 6/7 from what I understand (possible 8 on some events?) I would think if she really wanted to try for College gymnstics it would be difficult but it would better to transition over to the JO track. You would likely need to petition to level 6 or score out of levels 4 & 5 then you could start optionals and see if you can progress to level 10 by Junior or Senior year. We had a girl at our gym who didnt start gymnastics till 11 and ended up with a scholarship so it is possible just difficult.

You can petition to level 6? My daughter has always competed Xcel (bronze silver gold). She is currently working on scoring out of 4 & 5. I didn’t know a petition was a option. Where do I go to learn more about the petition process?

 

[wandrewsjr]

You can petition to level 6? My daughter has always competed Xcel (bronze silver gold). She is currently working on scoring out of 4 & 5. I didn’t know a petition was a option. Where do I go to learn more about the petition process?

Gymnast must be 14 years old or freshman in high school to petition. It is done by the coach to your USAG State Administrative Chairperson.

 

[gymsandc]

*Xcel not Excel ... sorry, pet peeve, lol. (I hate when auto-correct tries to change it and have been known to yell at my tablet).
Xcel Diamond is more possibly Level 8-ish on some events.
And I think last year, I saw that a former Xcel gymnast was on a D-3 team when I was looking up all the gymnasts I saw in some college meets.

Do you happen to remember the name of the gymnast? Working with a former level 9 turned Xcel Diamond (gym's choice, not hers) who would really like to do college gym. She's got NCAA 10.0 SV on at least 1 event, may have 2 by the time she graduates HS. Working to find lower level schools that will actually look at her and see the potential of taking a kid with her skills who is currently only practicing 12 hours per week but will surely progress well with increased practice time and resources.

 

[NutterButter]

An Xcel girl from my DDs gym went on to compete D3. She was a standout on one event though. I think there’s another one from her gym heading to D3 as well in the fall. My DD was a L9 and is heading to D3 in the fall. So, it is possible even though all of my examples are exceptions to the norm.

Another option for your daughter might be to compete on an acro team especially if she has strong floor skills. Lots of small colleges have teams. My DD received emails from coaches asking if she was interested in an acro team.

The challenge with Xcel to NCAA will be bars and vault where the difficulty needed for NCAA skills just isn’t competed/trained in Xcel. As the others have said - moving to JO will be best if she has college aspirations.

 

[gymsandc]

Thanks for the response! I'm actually her coach, not mom.

I have looked at rosters of all programs to find the ones that have recruited/allowed walk ons from level 9 and those are definitely the ones we are targeting! We are looking at acro schools as well, and have definitely had some interest from those--including some top-ranked programs! Currently, those are a "backup plan" as her dream is to be a floor specialist (or compete floor, beam, and vault) in WAG. She had 3 strong level 9 events and one "behind" event as a 9 (bars), and was a level 9 regional champ on FX. Even so, a school with no bars depth could probably train her, as she does have really good, clean basics & the min NCAA requirements (9.4 SV, not the 10.0) even with no desire to swing bars in college.

She wipes the floor (literally) with other Xcel Diamonds while pushing the limits of allowed difficulty--woudn't be surprised if she scored 38s all of 2021 season. For example, this past season she competed RO 1.5 punch front pike (but has it with a layout), front lay front pike (also has front lay front lay on floor & front lay front full to resi), and FHS layout full. She's got a rudi to a resi, double tucks/pikes to mats in pit + double lay to open foam, & more dance difficulty than we can possibly fit in one routine. Unfortunately, COVID cut season short, or we would have put more of it on the floor for state/regionals because she was ready.

As far as bars & vault: I touched on bars, definitely don't think that is a realistic goal (or even something she wants), but vault she is not far behind NCAA level on. She has competed a laid out yurchenko in the past (though we just use her yurchenko pike in Xcel meets) and we work twisting in the open pit. For a team really desperate for vaulters, she could be a real contender to start competing a layout and eventually twist.

I think the biggest thing for her would be finding a set of coaches who want to see their athletes gain difficulty over their college careers and enjoy teaching upgrades. She is clean, has great basics, and is nowhere near her full potential yet in terms of difficulty. Super strong, great teammate, always the hardest worker in the group.

 

[raenndrops]

Do you happen to remember the name of the gymnast? Working with a former level 9 turned Xcel Diamond (gym's choice, not hers) who would really like to do college gym. She's got NCAA 10.0 SV on at least 1 event, may have 2 by the time she graduates HS. Working to find lower level schools that will actually look at her and see the potential of taking a kid with her skills who is currently only practicing 12 hours per week but will surely progress well with increased practice time and resources.

I am still trying to remember the girl's name, but I know that SUNY Cortland and Hamline (so far they are the only ones I have checked) both have L9s ... so if the girl is a former L9, then it might be a good place to start (if the colleges have what she wants to major in).

 

[Soaring]

As another option, Xcel gymnastics paired with cheerleading sets up well for college acro and tumbling

 

[gymgal]

Thanks for the response! I'm actually her coach, not mom.

I have looked at rosters of all programs to find the ones that have recruited/allowed walk ons from level 9 and those are definitely the ones we are targeting! We are looking at acro schools as well, and have definitely had some interest from those--including some top-ranked programs! Currently, those are a "backup plan" as her dream is to be a floor specialist (or compete floor, beam, and vault) in WAG. She had 3 strong level 9 events and one "behind" event as a 9 (bars), and was a level 9 regional champ on FX. Even so, a school with no bars depth could probably train her, as she does have really good, clean basics & the min NCAA requirements (9.4 SV, not the 10.0) even with no desire to swing bars in college.

She wipes the floor (literally) with other Xcel Diamonds while pushing the limits of allowed difficulty--woudn't be surprised if she scored 38s all of 2021 season. For example, this past season she competed RO 1.5 punch front pike (but has it with a layout), front lay front pike (also has front lay front lay on floor & front lay front full to resi), and FHS layout full. She's got a rudi to a resi, double tucks/pikes to mats in pit + double lay to open foam, & more dance difficulty than we can possibly fit in one routine. Unfortunately, COVID cut season short, or we would have put more of it on the floor for state/regionals because she was ready.

As far as bars & vault: I touched on bars, definitely don't think that is a realistic goal (or even something she wants), but vault she is not far behind NCAA level on. She has competed a laid out yurchenko in the past (though we just use her yurchenko pike in Xcel meets) and we work twisting in the open pit. For a team really desperate for vaulters, she could be a real contender to start competing a layout and eventually twist.

I think the biggest thing for her would be finding a set of coaches who want to see their athletes gain difficulty over their college careers and enjoy teaching upgrades. She is clean, has great basics, and is nowhere near her full potential yet in terms of difficulty. Super strong, great teammate, always the hardest worker in the group.

I would start contacting all the D3 teams. You just never know what holes they need to fill in their line up. She is good on vt with just a LO b/c 90% of D3 vaults are tsuk or 'chenko LO. You get a sprinkling of halfs, sometimes a full, or a front front but most are run of the mill flipping LO's. In college (d3 in particular), being able to stick the vt is a lot more important than having a twist. For most teams, she will not be competitive on floor until she can get all those skills you mentioned (sans the double lay) into a clean, 10.0SV routine - even in D3. You don't mention beam but the same pretty much holds true. Would need at least a 9.8SV for most teams. Now, that doesn't mean that she has to be competitive that first year - just that she has the potential to make the line up in the following couple of years.

 

[gymsandc]

As another option, Xcel gymnastics paired with cheerleading sets up well for college acro and tumbling

We are also talking with Acro & Tumbling schools, the top-ranked D1 schools are very interested so far!

 

[gymsandc]

I would start contacting all the D3 teams. You just never know what holes they need to fill in their line up. She is good on vt with just a LO b/c 90% of D3 vaults are tsuk or 'chenko LO. You get a sprinkling of halfs, sometimes a full, or a front front but most are run of the mill flipping LO's. In college (d3 in particular), being able to stick the vt is a lot more important than having a twist. For most teams, she will not be competitive on floor until she can get all those skills you mentioned (sans the double lay) into a clean, 10.0SV routine - even in D3. You don't mention beam but the same pretty much holds true. Would need at least a 9.8SV for most teams. Now, that doesn't mean that she has to be competitive that first year - just that she has the potential to make the line up in the following couple of years.

We've heard back from a couple of D3 teams so far, and will start following up with those we haven't now that we've gotten through the first few steps of setting her up with videos to send, etc.

She has a 9.7 SV on beam now with a lot of untapped potential for upgrades (especially for dance bonus), but I don't foresee her competing beam in NCAA--just not a very confident beam worker, despite the skills being there and being clean. However, she could very well blossom in a new setting!

For floor, I think she does actually have enough difficulty for a clean 9.8-10 SV--we were planning to compete it in "chunks" at the end of this season with regionals being so late, but COVID happened (Xcel penalizes for having too much difficulty, so we would have needed to leave out something here or there but it would have at least gotten some competition videos of certain skills). The way I wrote it out may not have made that very clear--only the double tuck/pike/lay are not "floor-ready". Everything else is, we just haven't been back in the gym long enough to be doing hard landings again. She's also got some fun "extra" skills like a whip full that she doesn't compete, but it's pretty and could come in handy one day. At this point, the only debate was really on the order of the passes & if we were ready to have enough difficulty on the last pass to avoid that deduction in NCAA (assuming no double salto yet). Feel free to double-check me on this below, I certainly don't compose NCAA floor routines for a living so I could have missed something or counted something incorrectly If there's something else (within reason) that we could be working to add, we certainly can add it to the list. She does have a clean (back) double full that we don't compete because it's kind of pointless on it's own, but with work it could eventually be a 2.5. Hasn't been high on our priority list but the potential to upgrade it is there. Front double full is also not out of the question for the future

For reference, last year with the season cut short, she was scoring 9.65+ with the following passes in this order: 1) RO 1.5 to front pike, 2) Front lay front lay, 3) FHS front lay 1/1; wolf turn 1.5, switch 1/2 popa. All of this was super clean & consistent and she scored similarly in level 9 with the same routine. Diamond only needs a B turn, B leap + jump combo, two different saltos with at least one being a B, so to say she stood out compared to the majority of the competition would be an understatement

Her planned routine for this upcoming season (if we didn't have to leave out skills to avoid penalties for too much difficulty in Xcel--in reality we can only have 1 D skill in a routine plus some other limits, so we'll switch out which pass to water down for the sake of comp experience with these skills) + some "far in the future" planned upgrades we've talked about working towards:
-RO 1.5 to front layout (eventually upgrade to 1.5 to front 1/1) B+C for +.1 or eventually C+C for +.3
-front lay + front lay 1/1 (eventually rudi or even rudi into a back skill, see below) B+C for +.1,
-FHS + rudi (+ stag jump sometimes--not consistent right now but has potential--eventually FHS to front 2/1) A+D +.2 potential for E pass or A jump comnnection
-She has both a double wolf turn (D) and a double turn (C) which may or may not be irrelevant in NCAA, but for now we are counting that double wolf turn as an extra D skill if she needs it to avoid composition deductions. (+0.1)
-switch 1/2 + popa (C+C = +0.1)

-she would easily have a double salto on the floor before the end of college career, they're not far off now.
-she also has more dance combos that we play with for fun--two full-twisting jumps connected, different leap combos, etc. They're all pretty and precise and would only take a few practices to develop into something competition worthy if more dance bonus would be helpful.

I also should maybe add that she had shoulder surgery this past winter so what is listed is what we got back from late December to March with 12 total hours of practice per week. Just her senior year with us should be very productive, but with 4 more years to learn from college coaches, she could certainly shine on this event.

 

[gymgal]

How are her academics? If they are excellent and she wants to pursue it, you could reach out to the Ivies. I would also encourage D2s. Both would be a stretch for a former L9 but she does have the skills to be competitive. It is just a matter of getting the coaches to listen and look at footage. IF she can gain confidence on bem, that would really help as it would add more dimension. Floor and Vt are typically the easiest slots to fill. It's bars and beam where coaches have trouble.

 

[gymsandc]

How are her academics? If they are excellent and she wants to pursue it, you could reach out to the Ivies. I would also encourage D2s. Both would be a stretch for a former L9 but she does have the skills to be competitive. It is just a matter of getting the coaches to listen and look at footage. IF she can gain confidence on bem, that would really help as it would add more dimension. Floor and Vt are typically the easiest slots to fill. It's bars and beam where coaches have trouble.

Above a 4.3 GPA and pretty competitive test scores, so that is definitely is on her side. We're definitely going to follow up with D2 schools and even some smaller D1 schools that may have a walk-on spot to give.