Anon Percentage of D1 gymnasts who homeschooled? Any data?

[Anonymous (b3da)]

We are getting gym pressure to homeschool our 12 year old level 9 gymnast. The gym has made it clear the homeschool group is preferred track for her. We'd prefer to wait until high school to re-visit the idea after she hopefully has a level 10 season under her belt and reaccess. I feel like after 20 hours a week the returns of more hours is diminished returns, but high level coaches seem to prefer homeschool group attention wise, so we don't want her getting the short end of the stick either.

Our plan would be to stay in the 20 hours a week regular after school group and do privates on weekends when we feel it necessary. Is this this going to be an uphill battle?

 

[Anonymous (1edc)]

We just changed gyms because of the pressure to homeschool. It was hard to walk away from a great gym, but my kid wanted a regular school day and didn’t want to leave that behind.

You can go through some NCAA rosters and see if athletes did normal or homeschool HS, but some of them only list clubs so it’s hard to tell. There are also plenty of girls who homeschool for late elementary and middle school but go back to regular HS or half-day HS.

The way I look at our choice is that if level 10 and recruiting works out, great. But if it doesn’t, my daughter has a full school experience to fall back on. I know she would do great at managing homeschool or just taking a few core classes in-person, but the benefits she gets from electives, group projects, school activities, and a diverse group of non-gym friends will serve her well after her gymnastics career. It’s a really hard balance but I’m glad to find a gym that’s willing to make school work and doesn’t see it as an afterthought or disruption.

 

[Liza]

We have a multiple year level 10 who is in the class of 2026. She’s in public school and is on full scholarship to Stanford due to gymnastics ability and academic ability. She only practices 20 hours a week. Our gym has trained elites as well as college gymnasts. As far as I know ( daughter joined the gym a few years ago and is also 12 years old and a level 9) we never have done daytime practices. How does your daughter feel about the current situation?

 

[Dahlialover]

We'd prefer to wait until high school to re-visit the idea after she hopefully has a level 10 season under her belt and reaccess.

It’s worth considering that it is dramatically more difficult to homeschool during high school than during middle school. In middle school you can basically do whatever you want but in high school there are a lot of requirements to stay on track for NCAA eligibility. As an inexperienced homeschooler, you would be probably be looking at doing an online school rather than homeschooling. Online schools are very hit or miss in terms of quality and suitability for the individual child. It really would be better to give that a test run in middle school when grades don’t count for your child’s college admissions GPA. You would not want your child to have an academic meltdown as a freshman in high school. I’d definitely do it now if you are going to do it at all.

 

[Anonymous (2c1f)]

Do you have to homeschool, or just find an alternative style school that allows her to get to the gym at a certain time? Asking because my daughter goes to a non-traditional school (not because of gymnastics, but because we just really like their philosophy) and we can build her days in a variety of ways. She could get to the gym as early as 12:45 T-Th while still completing a rigorous school program. No school on Monday/Fridays. I have heard this model exists in many places. It's a private school but costs less than a typical private school.

 

[Anonymous (a66c)]

We just changed gyms because of the pressure to homeschool. It was hard to walk away from a great gym, but my kid wanted a regular school day and didn’t want to leave that behind.

You can go through some NCAA rosters and see if athletes did normal or homeschool HS, but some of them only list clubs so it’s hard to tell. There are also plenty of girls who homeschool for late elementary and middle school but go back to regular HS or half-day HS.

The way I look at our choice is that if level 10 and recruiting works out, great. But if it doesn’t, my daughter has a full school experience to fall back on. I know she would do great at managing homeschool or just taking a few core classes in-person, but the benefits she gets from electives, group projects, school activities, and a diverse group of non-gym friends will serve her well after her gymnastics career. It’s a really hard balance but I’m glad to find a gym that’s willing to make school work and doesn’t see it as an afterthought or disruption.

I totally agree with this! My daughter goes to a gym that has a day group and an evening group with plenty of level 10s in both. I don't know if any of the day group are actually homeschooled anymore, but they all are either in online programs or attend alternative schools or some kind of hybrid/in person public schools. The evening group starts at 3:30 and most attend public or private traditional schools. My daughter did not want to give up the full high school experience as mentioned above. She also had a preference for her coaches and didn't really want to be coached by the day group coaches. However, there is no denying imo that the evening group is the "b group". Not that they don't get great coaching and there are many in their group that have success, including D1 scholarships, but there is a general attitude of the day group that is coached by the owners/head coaches being the superior group. It bothers me if I am being truthful, but it is what it is.

And personally I am glad that we didn't choose to change her schooling for gymnastics. I know some choose homeschooling for their own reasons - and no knock on anyone's choice regardless. But my daughter has always wanted to stay in public school with her friends and since that was important to her, that is what mattered. And I don't think she has any regrets - especially since she is now entering her senior season (and 5th year at level 10) and I'm honestly not sure that she'll end up with a scholarship or not at this point. But she does have a very strong academic resume (GPA, class rank, AP Classes, etc), test scores, clubs and activities all while training 22+ hours a week so I think that is going to help her in college and in life regardless of what happens with an athletic scholarship.