Parents L10 parents, can you share your gym successes/shortcomings for younger college path athletes?

[LJL07]

I think it depends on the school, ie., D1 or D3. Grades and good form will help a gymnast get into a D3. Of course you will need the great skills for the top D1's and they don't look at grades first. Stanford requires the same level of academic achievement as the average student there-for gymnasts (4+ GPA, 4-6 APs, 99% on test scores). They will dip down for football and basketball and they have a formula for those sports to meet a team average. A solid all arounder is someone scoring close to 9.5s on all events, at least getting 37s. Many awesome gymnasts though have one really strong event that can pull their AA score up, but they likely won't do AA in college if they are low 9s on an event.

I just want to know how kids juggle a full high school schedule with AP courses, a 4.0 GPA, and elite level gymnastics (I realize they typically drop down to level 10). It sounds insane! I figured for the large, competitive D1 programs, the gymnastics is the most important thing. I thought maybe the schooling might be equal in importance to the gymnastics for D2/D3, but maybe that is not the case.

 

[B&M's mom]

It's really, really hard. My daughter took a modified schedule, did homework until 12-1 am nightly, getting up at 7 am to get to school by 8 am. She spent all her out of school time either in the car getting to and from practice, at practice or doing homework (and some sleeping). It was very hard/stressful but she wanted to do elite gymnastics and I required that her grades be good. She was one that wanted all A's. Frankly it set her up well for college athletics as she knew how to balance the demands of practice with school work. Though in college she's doing less practice time than she did at her club.

 

[NutterButter]

I thought maybe the schooling might be equal in importance to the gymnastics for D2/D3, but maybe that is not the case.

Regarding the importance of schooling, keep in mind that all of the D2/D3 schools that offer gymnastics have lower admission standards than many D1 schools (especially if it's a top R1 school and especially if applying as an out of state student). Also, D3 schools have tryouts each year with varying degrees of 'safety' for returning athletes...some programs will actually cut a junior or senior who has been on the team for 2 or 3 years prior while some programs seem to be committed to the athlete the entire time (barring the need to medically retire).

When looking at schools for my DD, there were not too many D2/D3 that provided what she was looking for academically and once she narrowed the list down to other non-academic qualities such as size and culture of the school there were really only 2 viable options for her (with 1 being an almost perfect fit).

 

[doublestrike]

I just want to know how kids juggle a full high school schedule with AP courses, a 4.0 GPA, and elite level gymnastics (I realize they typically drop down to level 10). It sounds insane! I figured for the large, competitive D1 programs, the gymnastics is the most important thing. I thought maybe the schooling might be equal in importance to the gymnastics for D2/D3, but maybe that is not the case.

There's a reason why Stanford has such a limited pool and the Ivies are not as competitive as the top D-1 gym programs. Even Cal, UM and UCLA the gymnasts are not often 4.0's with 4 or more AP courses, they are still excellent students but they get in with less academics than their non-athlete peers. I've heard UNC has pretty high standards for their gymnasts and half their scholarships must go to in-state residents. The SEC schools don't have the same level of academics as others.

 

[gym_dad32608]

The SEC schools don't have the same level of academics as others.

I would take some issue with that, while that might be the perception that is certainly not the reality. UF is a top 5 public research university on par with UM, Cal and UNC. Georgia is a top 10. I get the general shade thrown to SEC schools because of the athletic focus of their universities, but there are several very strong academic institutions.