Parents Looking for advice on my daughter's gymnastics track

[sara3art]

Hello! My almost nine year old daughter is competing as a first year level three. She started late due to the pandemic and really hopes to compete at a college level one day. Is this possible or is she too far behind track to make elite? She is very gifted and is doing very well competitively, however the coaches may decide to keep her in LVL 3 for another year simply because that is what they typically do; I am praying they won't because she is so ready. Also, is it more common for gymnasts to move up levels more quickly when they are in the upper levels? I am pretty certain that levels 7-9 at our gym all have the same coach and practice together. Thank you so much!

 

[pagymmom]

Elite - most likely - but college is not the same as elite.

Also she is 9 so you have a long way to go - interests may change, etc. A compulsory gymnast is not automatically a great optionals gymnast - some stay great, but others who might not be great at compulsory is great at optional and the other way around as well. My daughter is 11 and is a level 8. I am assuming she will repeat 9 so should be a level 10 by the time she is a Freshman but even at the upper levels closer to 10 there is a lot that can happen.

In terms of moving up, yes, it can happen quickly if that is the path that is decided for the gymnast. There are score-out meets, etc.

I believe people will tell you the goal for college is to be a level 10 by 9th grade and that it is totally normal to spend 1 year per level and to repeat either 8 and/or 9 before getting to 10. It also helps if the gym has experience getting girls to college or if they have that as a possible path for your daughter.

I think if they moved her up she would get there but then also like if they are uptraining in practice and competing 3 that is a lot different than competing 3 and training 3. So there are a lot of variables. She is 9 now, so even if she does 4 next year, then 5, then 6, then 7...she would not be at level 10 until later in high school. She can go straight from 5 to 7 to 8 etc. if she is ready.

The key is that she enjoys it and works hard at it. You absolutely cannot force a kid to do this sport - they have to love it on their own.

 

[Tmacs]

My daughter has no interest in elite but wants to do college. She started late and should be L10 by 10th grade. She is a little behind but she hasn't repeated and consistently uptrain/competes below what she could. I'm hoping that equals a confident 10. But... a lot can happen! I'd be ok if she moved to a different sport as I'm not crazy about college athletics to begin with but it could be because I didn't love doing a NCAA sport in college. Club athletics were so much better!

 

[Deleted member 18037]

Unfortunately unless she is incredibly talented/gifted it is unlikely she would get to L10 by the time she is a HS freshman If she is repeating L3

Unless the gym does a lot of up training of skills.

My experience is it is more likely for gymnasts to move faster through the lower levels and do multi year at the higher levels because the skills are much more difficult. A gifted/talented kid can get from L3 to L 7 in a couple of seasons. L7- 10, much more difficult.

It also depends on the coaching and gym.

Does your current gym

Uptrain? How many L9/10 gymnasts do they currently have? Have any of those gymnasts gone on to college level gymnastic?

 

[sara3art]

My daughter has no interest in elite but wants to do college. She started late and should be L10 by 10th grade. She is a little behind but she hasn't repeated and consistently uptrain/competes below what she could. I'm hoping that equals a confident 10. But... a lot can happen! I'd be ok if she moved to a different sport as I'm not crazy about college athletics to begin with but it could be because I didn't love doing a NCAA sport in college. Club athletics were so much better!

This is really helpful, thank you so much. I am fine with whatever path my daughter decides to take, I just want to make sure she has the option down the road.

 

[moogacat]

Just to give you a little hope-- my daughter showed a lot of natural talent but we stayed at a rec only gym for numerous reasons until she was 10. I was wary of burnout and overtraining, so she started in Xcel when we made the move to a competitive gym. She was a Bronze at 10, Silver at 11, then started accelerating and was a Diamond at 13 and did L9 as a 14 year old freshman. She was on track to be a L10 as a sophomore, but she decided to drop back to Xcel, and is now as a junior she's a L9 event specialist and is in the process of recruiting for college acro & tumbling. It's not necessary a conventional or easy path, but being a L3 at 9 doesn't make higher level gymnastics by high school out of the question if she loves it and wants to stick with it.

 

[Carly]

Curious to why the gym typically repeats girls for level 3. I would not be happy with that if my kid was totally ready for level 4. Everyone is on their own path so there will be girls who repeat but if most do, that doesn't seem right. In my area, the girls who have repeated levels are levels 8 and/or 9.

 

[sara3art]

Unfortunately unless she is incredibly talented/gifted it is unlikely she would get to L10 by the time she is a HS freshman If she is repeating L3

Unless the gym does a lot of up training of skills.

My experience is it is more likely for gymnasts to move faster through the lower levels and do multi year at the higher levels because the skills are much more difficult. A gifted/talented kid can get from L3 to L 7 in a couple of seasons. L7- 10, much more difficult.

It also depends on the coaching and gym.

Does your current gym

Uptrain? How many L9/10 gymnasts do they currently have? Have any of those gymnasts gone on to college level gymnastic?

Thank you so much. She truly is incredibly gifted, however I do think that her gym/coaches are not equipped to get her to where she could go if she wanted to. Unfortunately, her gym is the best we've got in our area. The one I would love for her to train at is 45 min way sans traffic and it is literally impossible. Our gym does uptrain. We have two level 9 gymnasts - no 10s. Unfortunately it is the best we have in our area and it is too much to drive her 45 min each way.

Unfortunately unless she is incredibly talented/gifted it is unlikely she would get to L10 by the time she is a HS freshman If she is repeating L3

Unless the gym does a lot of up training of skills.

My experience is it is more likely for gymnasts to move faster through the lower levels and do multi year at the higher levels because the skills are much more difficult. A gifted/talented kid can get from L3 to L 7 in a couple of seasons. L7- 10, much more difficult.

It also depends on the coaching and gym.

Does your current gym

Uptrain? How many L9/10 gymnasts do they currently have? Have any of those gymnasts gone on to college level gymnastic?

 

[sara3art]

Just to give you a little hope-- my daughter showed a lot of natural talent but we stayed at a rec only gym for numerous reasons until she was 10. I was wary of burnout and overtraining, so she started in Xcel when we made the move to a competitive gym. She was a Bronze at 10, Silver at 11, then started accelerating and was a Diamond at 13 and did L9 as a 14 year old freshman. She was on track to be a L10 as a sophomore, but she decided to drop back to Xcel, and is now as a junior she's a L9 event specialist and is in the process of recruiting for college acro & tumbling. It's not necessary a conventional or easy path, but being a L3 at 9 doesn't make higher level gymnastics by high school out of the question if she loves it and wants to stick with it.

Thank you so so much! This definitely does give me some hope. I just want to make sure she has options should she want them when she is in high school. I would be shocked if she decided to not stick with it -- Not only is she so driven and focused, but she absolutely loves it and would gladly train 30+/hrs a week if I allowed it.

 

[PeanutsMom]

Just a word of caution about moving quickly and increasing hours. My daughter was level 3 at 7, level 4 at 8, level 5 at 9, level 6 at 10, level 7 at 11 and 12--then had to take a significant amount of time off due to a stress fracture in her L4 L5 vertebrae and a slipped disc between L5 and S1. There was no traumatic injury. It was over training and hyperextension since the age of 5 (Jr. TOPs and preteam through competitive team). She is now 14 and back in the gym doing XCEL Diamond. She has upgraded bars (easier on her back) and kept vault to a minimum (9.4 start value) so she isn't taking the beating on landings. She does less training on floor, but more on the tumble track and dance throughs. It has kept her in the sport even with restrictions her surgeons have put her on. Sometimes the pace and its consequences are readily apparent at such a young age. There are at least 4 girls that all started at the same gym, same level, same age who have essentially the same injury.

 

[gymmom10]

It is certainly possible. My daughter did it. It is not usual though. You do not have to be L10 by freshman year in high school (though it certainly helps), but you do have to be doing hard college level skills by the time she is recruiting if she gets to 10 as. a Junior in high school. As other say, a lot can happen between now and then. The thing is, you can’t really waste time if you want to keep her options open. You may need to make hard decisions at some point. Good luck.

 

[mezzamare]

If you cross-reference the collegegymnews WAG rosters and commits spreadsheet with mymeetscores, you can see firsthand that there's a huge range of experience across the 84 college teams.

Of the girls on the #1 ranked Oklahoma team, 75 percent have 5+ years experience as a level 10 gymnast. On the #84 (lowest ranked) team at Simpson college, 75 percent of the team has 2-years or LESS experience as a level 10. Five girls on that team never competed as a ten.

In the middle tiers things are very mixed. I haven't researched all of the teams, but in the programs ranked between 50-72, you start seeing girls with one year of level 10 experience, either due to timing or injuries.

Overall, chances of making a team seem to expand greatly once you hit three years of level 10 experience, thus the oft-repeated suggestion that it's good to make level 10 by sophomore year.

In other words, there's a big difference between getting a coveted D1 full-ride scholarship (most of these girls are level 10 sometime in middle school) versus just being able to have the college gymnastics experience. Timing is a vital component of achieving the first, while skills are the key to both the former and the latter.

 

[RTT2]

If you cross-reference the collegegymnews WAG rosters and commits spreadsheet with mymeetscores, you can see firsthand that there's a huge range of experience across the 84 college teams.

Of the girls on the #1 ranked Oklahoma team, 75 percent have 5+ years experience as a level 10 gymnast. On the #84 (lowest ranked) team at Simpson college, 75 percent of the team has 2-years or LESS experience as a level 10. Five girls on that team never competed as a ten.

In the middle tiers things are very mixed. I haven't researched all of the teams, but in the programs ranked between 50-72, you start seeing girls with one year of level 10 experience, either due to timing or injuries.

Overall, chances of making a team seem to expand greatly once you hit three years of level 10 experience, thus the oft-repeated suggestion that it's good to make level 10 by sophomore year.

In other words, there's a big difference between getting a coveted D1 full-ride scholarship (most of these girls are level 10 sometime in middle school) versus just being able to have the college gymnastics experience. Timing is a vital component of achieving the first, while skills are the key to both the former and the latter.

This is a great analysis!

 

[Blue]

If you cross-reference the collegegymnews WAG rosters and commits spreadsheet with mymeetscores, you can see firsthand that there's a huge range of experience across the 84 college teams.

Of the girls on the #1 ranked Oklahoma team, 75 percent have 5+ years experience as a level 10 gymnast. On the #84 (lowest ranked) team at Simpson college, 75 percent of the team has 2-years or LESS experience as a level 10. Five girls on that team never competed as a ten.

In the middle tiers things are very mixed. I haven't researched all of the teams, but in the programs ranked between 50-72, you start seeing girls with one year of level 10 experience, either due to timing or injuries.

Overall, chances of making a team seem to expand greatly once you hit three years of level 10 experience, thus the oft-repeated suggestion that it's good to make level 10 by sophomore year.

In other words, there's a big difference between getting a coveted D1 full-ride scholarship (most of these girls are level 10 sometime in middle school) versus just being able to have the college gymnastics experience. Timing is a vital component of achieving the first, while skills are the key to both the former and the latter.

Thank you so much for this. My daughter is a little behind but wants to do college gymnastics. She doesn't particularly care about D1 scholarship (which is good because that is almost certainly out of reach), so it is good to know that if she continues working hard and improving, with a little luck (no injuries, etc.), it might still be possible at a smaller school, which would probably be a better fit for her academically anyway.

 

[mezzamare]

Thank you so much for this. My daughter is a little behind but wants to do college gymnastics. She doesn't particularly care about D1 scholarship (which is good because that is almost certainly out of reach), so it is good to know that if she continues working hard and improving, with a little luck (no injuries, etc.), it might still be possible at a smaller school, which would probably be a better fit for her academically anyway.

No problem! I'm in the same situation with my daughter, which is why I started to look into the data. I posted a more in-depth analysis (https://chalkbucket.com/forums/threads/whos-getting-onto-college-teams.69484/) but what I wrote above is a good summation... if you're not worried about D1 or scholarships, there are definitely opportunities for girls who progressed a little more slowly or who started a little late.