Parents New Level 4 Scoring?

[3LittleGymmies]

I know what you mean, @wgymmom! For my daughter to go from 38 to 30 AA was quite the blow to her confidence. It definitely has her "on a mission" though, but she has a lot of work to do between now and the next meet which is only 8 practices away. No response so far from her coaches...

 

[gymdog]

Well if you moved from VA to MD, scores are much lower across the board in MD. That's just the way it is. Doesn't surprise me at all. I'm sure the coaches will let you know if she isn't improving enough.

 

[gymmom8772]

5girlsandaboy I can totally relate! This season has been much tougher with scoring in new level 4 from last season in old level 4. I get that this new level is much harder and a big step up from the last but the scoring is brutal! Funny that someone mentioned the low scores in MD because DD competed in a meet there this weekend and the scoring was the toughest and lowest I've ever seen!

 

[happychaos]

Scoring for new L4 this year has been pretty similar to old L5. Top 5 or 6 girls in old L5 scoring generally ran about .3- .5 less on every event than old L4. This year seems to be the same.

One thing that is different is that there does seem to be a wider range of scores. For example on vault there may be a few 7.5's as well as a few 9.3's, and everything in between. In old L4 95% of the girls would score between 8.8 and 9.3.

Also, the scores seem to vary more from meet to meet (i.e. there are noticeably more higher or lower scoring meets) but the placements seem to stay about the same. It's like the judges know which routines are the best, but they just can't seem to get the scores as consistent from meet to meet. Of course the rank order is more important than the individual scores, but it does make it hard to compare one meet to another.

 

[TeamGram]

Our head coach held a parents meeting a week and a half before the first meet. Main focus of the meeting was to help the parents prepare their gymmie for the possibility of lower scores then last year. I feel it really helped with most of the girls. My DGD spent most of the summer in a boot and only was able to really practice the last month. She held her own . Pretty proud of her. Her attitude is I can only get better.

 

[3LittleGymmies]

@gymmom8772.. I bet you were at our meet .

 

[gymmom8772]

I'll bet! Timonium?

 

[gymmomtoo]

In terms of order of competing--if they were preassigned by the meet, then they can't mess up the order or the judges will not know who they are judging.

 

[3LittleGymmies]

Yep, @gymmom8772!

 

[gymmom8772]

LOL! I'm not surprised at all! I wonder if they were in the same session. Which one was she in?

 

[3LittleGymmies]

Session 6

 

[gymmom8772]

OMG we were in the same session!!!

 

[3LittleGymmies]

That's so funny. I am kind of glad that you thought the scoring was a little crazy, too. I definitely saw more 6's and 7's than 8's for sure.. and there were probably less than five 9's in the whole session...

 

[sglemon]

We had score shock at the beginning of level 5. It did get better though, but you did see not as many of really high scores at states. You will see some. Also I think Va scores pretty high, it is always shocking for us when we compete in SC.

 

[Natasha]

@sglemon. Yep. Here a 9.5 is very rare. Excellent routines score 9.3. I am in awe when I hear people on CB talking about 9.8's because I have never seen one in competition in our state. The last few years we've attended an invitational in GA where our girls consistently score + .3-.5 on each event. The problem is this is the last meet before States and then we come back and they score 1-2 full points lower AA. I remember back when my dd was in old L6, there were entire (large) meets where out of 60+ girls no one would score a 9 on bars, and never more than a handful.
@ OP, it sounds like it was a combination of moving up levels and moving states and the coaches just didn't think to prepare you for that aspect of it. It sounds like they are making sure that she is progressing on her skills and you said that the scored as well as the other girls. It may be a good time to help your dd start focusing more on skills and specific goals that are not score related. It is not uncommon at all with different judges to see more variety, especially moving from state to state. I think you can especially see this on vault as a lot of the deductions are listed as "up to .5" That is a lot of judge discression! It could very well be that the same vault could have scored in the 7's at another meet.
Also, it is much more common to see the scores significantly improve during the season at your dd's level as opposed to her previous level just because it takes longer to fine tune everything.

 

[gracyomalley]

Just another parent commenting about the variability of scoring state to state and level to level - here throughout ALL of old level 5 and 6 (DD skipped old 4) there were, in general, 1-2 kids AT STATE who would score 37+....36s generally were in top 3 places, and 34s were average for kids ( with 32s required to make state....) . Especially at old 6, bars scores above 9 were extremely rare - and that has held for level 7 as well - DD placed consistantly with high 8s/low 9s at meets all over the region.

I know last year when the boys routines changed it took quite some time to figure out what a "good" score was comparatively, and I suspect that this year it will be more consistent...now that the coaches, judges and kids have the routines under their belts more.

I just look at my kids' progress (did they make a skill they've struggled with, did they polish something they were working on) and figure if they are in the "top half" of a new level by the end of the season they've had a "good year"....

With one note on the order of competing - although it may have been automatic (boys meets always are here), the coach may have also wanted to emphasize that one bad score does not need to affect your next event - and also not give your child time to "stew" about it....plus with bars the order has to do with when they have to adjust the bar distance for different sized girls...DD always goes close to first as she is teeny....went first when she barely could kip, went first when she was scoring in the top 3 meet wide..no difference.

Our girls coach actually doesn't let (as much as she can prevent) the girls see their scores until meet is over - that way they are simply focusing on their gymnastics....she only broke that rule once with DD - when she FINALLY topped a 9 on vault (again - 9s are not common here....) her last event to reach that "milestone"....

 

[GymRatMama]

We had two L4 meets this season so far. The first meet was in PA and the scoring seemed to be fair. There were not many 9's given out, but there were a lot of 8's. This past weekend we went to a meet in MD and the scoring was much much lower. The top girls were getting low 34's for their overall scores. My daughter had about .5 lower for each event and her coach said that both her vault and floor routines were better than the previous meet. Our next meet is in PA in 3 weeks. I am curious to see how the judging will be there.

 

[gymmom8772]

Gymratmama...I'll bet it was the same meet in MD that my DD was in!!! The scoring was definitely .50 to a full point lower on each event!