Parents What do you consider to be a good score?

[momofsushi]

A good score is anything that represents the child's best effort on the day. As demonstrated by the conversation above, there are wildly different standards between regions, gyms, gymnasts, and families, so it doesn't do much good to compare. If my DD scores above a 36 all around she considers it a solid performance, but we're relatively low hours in a middle of the road region and she's definitely not shooting for elite. There's a girl on her team who was over the moon about finally scoring in the 8s on bars. There's another who I don't think has ever scored below a 9 on anything. It's all relative and in my mind they should all just be shooting for personal milestones anyway and not focusing too much on the numbers.

From my dd expérience, scores over 9 you usually place and go to the équivalent of states ( provincials). Last year (L7), scores tend to be higher on floor, and lower on bars and vault. Beam had the lowest and highest scores ( depend on the fallsssssss)

 

[Deleted member 18037]

Depends on your kids goals, the level and even the state.

37s in highly competitive states won’t get you to regionals/nationals. In smaller states you can get to a nationals, with a 35.

Clean routines, no falls, stuck landings. It’s a good day.

 

[mommyof1]

Clean routines, no falls, stuck landings. It’s a good day.

This plus "no injuries."

 

[MuggleMom]

I always say any score better than your last score is a good one That being said for my kid what we subjectively consider a good score depends on the event. If she gets a 9 on vault or beam that is excellent, for floor and bars above a 9.3 I would say. I would say that generally the goal is to strive for 9+ on each event which would put you in the 36AA category. However different people and gyms hold themselves to different standards likely because they have different goals. I think your standards should align with your goals.

I think sometimes Tys Dad speaks for himself and his DD and people project that onto a broader idea of "standard" which doesn't really seem to be his intention but with big goals comes big responsibility (to badly paraphrase spiderman)

 

[TumbleTimes4]

From a practical perspective, she’s had some first place finishes and a number of top three, but she’s never had the kind of scores required to be acceptable here.

This made me very sad to read. If you are referring to “here” as Chalkbucket, I would like to think you are wrong about that, and that scores are not what makes a gymnast acceptable here. All of our kids are on their own journeys and from what I have seen from the majority of members here is that what makes a gymnast acceptable is hard work, dedication, good sportsmanship, and love for the sport. Success will be defined differently for every gymnast and not all goals can or will be the same. Gymnastics has much to offer, and every gymnast will take something different from it. If at the end of the day, we base acceptability on scores, how are we any different than USAG?

 

[MILgymFAM]

This made me very sad to read. If you are referring to “here” as Chalkbucket, I would like to think you are wrong about that, and that scores are not what makes a gymnast acceptable here. All of our kids are on their own journeys and from what I have seen from the majority of members here is that what makes a gymnast acceptable is hard work, dedication, good sportsmanship, and love for the sport. Success will be defined differently for every gymnast and not all goals can or will be the same. Gymnastics has much to offer, and every gymnast will take something different from it. If at the end of the day, we base acceptability on scores, how are we any different than USAG?

I meant on this thread really. Whenever this topic comes up I am always flabbergasted at how many people put the bar so high. I imagine what they must’ve thought of my daughter’s journey over the years and mostly it just makes me sad- for their own kids, mostly, tbh- I can’t imagine the weight of those kinds of expectations. The whole reason I hang around to this day to be a part of making sure there are always counterpoint perspectives. Even when my daughter was scoring 32s I have never been anything but proud of her, and happy she found something that brought her joy.

 

[LJL07]

I meant on this thread really. Whenever this topic comes up I am always flabbergasted at how many people put the bar so high. I imagine what they must’ve thought of my daughter’s journey over the years and mostly it just makes me sad- for their own kids, mostly, tbh- I can’t imagine the weight of those kinds of expectations. The whole reason I hang around to this day to be a part of making sure there are always counterpoint perspectives. Even when my daughter was scoring 32s I have never been anything but proud of her, and happy she found something that brought her joy.

No way! From everything I can recall from your posts, your daughter sounds like she is very determined and doesn't give up easily in spite of a lot of obstacles. The saddest thing to me is the many, many children at our old gym who got so used to earning 38s on those low levels and early optional levels that they quit when it got harder and they started making little mistakes and maybe didn't win every single time. If gymnastics is bringing your daughter joy, that is the most important thing. I am inclined to agree with you about weighty expectations and a child's entire life revolving around gymnastics. I don't think it is healthy. But this is just my opinion that has evolved over time.

 

[profmom]

It's very difficult to come up with a good answer. The best one I've got is that it is all relative to the individual athlete in comparison to her/himself and others at the same level in the same meet. Judges vary in their strictness and a good score in one's first meet at a new level may be really different than what you consider to be a good score for the last meet after the third year in a level.

And for the record -- since I just looked it up -- one of our L10s who graduated a few years ago and will compete again this season NCAA if there is a season never got much higher than a 36 and change AA. It's possible to be a stellar athlete and have a weak event. Further, my own daughter can't wait to get back at it on her college club gymnastics team. She outlasted a lot of girls who put up 37+s at the lower levels, even though she didn't break the 35 barrier until L7. High scores are nice, but love of the sport will get them further than scores in the long run, as MILgymFAM can also attest.

 

[cogymmom2dd]

It’s all relative, as you can see.
It all depends on the individual and their abilities, past performances, the judges, what kind of meet they are at, and 1000 other factors.
My DD1 is NOT a morning person. Has never been. She’s grouchy and a bear to get ready, get hair done, etc. and takes her awhile to wake up and get in touch with reality. She also hates all breakfast food so trying to get some sort of nutrition in her is always a battle on early meet mornings. Usually, she sustains herself with some sort of smoothie but nothing else and by her 4th event is hungry, thirsty, etc. Her worst scoring meets are the early morning ones. It doesn’t matter if we wake up at the crack of dawn and drive or get a hotel and spend the night so that she is well rested and we can sleep in.
She scores better late morning and beyond. She has time to wake up, have a proper meal and hydrate before, get ready without drama, and be in a better headspace.
She excelled at Lower levels, winning state championships, etc, so it was a ‘bad meet’ if she scored less than 36AA.
She only had 2 meets as L6 before COVID cancelled our season, but her first few meets she had a 34-35AA and was OK with that. She was just happy to finally be in optionals.
Now, she is L7 and had a terrible AA score at our innersquad meet, but has harder skills she is competing. She was super bummed about her AA score for like 2 days and then she worked on what she needed to fix and hopefully can have some decent meets in 2021. However, she has been out of the gym basically for the entire month of December because our whole family has had COVID and we have been in quarantine. Our current quarantine will not be lifted until 12/28, so this may be another setback. So, we will go into meets in 2021 with the goal of obtaining qualifying scores for state meet and go from there.
With DD2, she always has a really strong bars score. Anything less than 9.5 for her is low. She has also had meets where she has scored that high and barely made the podium. Floor is not one of her strong events because she is a little shy and timid, so a lot of the time it just kind of looks like she is going through the motions and not necessarily putting emotion into it. She is actually quite flexible and can tumble, but doesn’t give any extra wow factor beyond what tho motions in her routine are. An 8.5-9 would be a good score for her. A 36+ AA is something that she strives for at every meet.
With that being said, our gym is not elite. They don’t produce college gymnasts, but collegiate gymnastics has never been the goal. Our gym has actually produced some D1 collegiate track and field athletes because they are very supportive of kids doing MS and HS sports beyond the gym. My husband was a collegiate track and field athlete and my DD1 has dreams of being a star track athlete with hurdles being her event of choice, even though she’s 10 and L7 and does have potential for college gymnastics. She’s still in elementary, so we have some time before she makes that decision. I can’t fathom having her on an elite/collegiate path at her age with the end goal of college gymnastics. I would rather invest all of that extra $$ spent on max training hours, privates, travel, meet entries, coaches fees, etc. and save for college or buy an investment property at the beach . But, each kid/family is different, to each their own.

 

[Ty’s Dad]

Can you guys stop saying kids with high scores or high goals have a lot of pressure from parents. Yall don’t know what goes on in peoples homes or gyms, like I said in previous post levels 3-6 (my daughter did in one year) my daughter was in last place on every event and we cheered for her like she won the Olympics at every meet. You can look at her old gym scores she averaged a 33AA until she switched gyms. Then all of a sudden for level 7 she’s getting 9.5-9.8 with 38AA winning everything, I’m not bragging I’m just saying she knows what it’s like to be at the bottom and she pushes herself to stay at the top. This year level 9 or 10 (if we have a season) we will see how it goes but from her words “I’m not going to ever be at the bottom again”

 

[Ty’s Dad]

She’s the one that wants us to delete old videos. She’s the one that stays later because she wants to finish her assignments. She’s the one that if something goes wrong on a event she’s pissed. Yall don’t know these kids drive and determination to be the best they can be, and I know I’m not the only one just a lot of people (trust me they hit me on the side) won’t say anything in this group because of the backlash

 

[profmom]

Ty's Dad, if you think athletes who aren't getting high scores are not driven, dedicated, and committed, you don't know much about this sport.

No one objects to you being proud of your daughter. The reason you get checked here is that you can't seem to build her up without pushing other people's children down.

It's great that your daughter is doing well right now. It's wonderful that she is quite dedicated and invested; it's an exciting time for her and everyone around her. Congratulations on her accomplishments. I mean that sincerely. But what you refuse to realize is that you are generalizing from an N of one and you are really not nearly as far down this road as you think you are. Gymnastics involves a lot of contingencies, and it is a very hard sport on the body, particularly for athletes who reach a high level at a young age. With a young one who is doing so well, it's so important to make sure they know that you love and support them unconditionally and will do so no matter where things go with this activity. I suspect you know that and will be there for your daughter 100% when things get hard. They will at some point. And I don't just mean OMG it is taking her a few months instead of a few weeks to get a new skill.

 

[Ty’s Dad]

Ty's Dad, if you think athletes who aren't getting high scores are not driven, dedicated, and committed, you don't know much about this sport.

No one objects to you being proud of your daughter. The reason you get checked here is that you can't seem to build her up without pushing other people's children down.

It's great that your daughter is doing well right now. It's wonderful that she is quite dedicated and invested; it's an exciting time for her and everyone around her. Congratulations on her accomplishments. I mean that sincerely. But what you refuse to realize is that you are generalizing from an N of one and you are really not nearly as far down this road as you think you are. Gymnastics involves a lot of contingencies, and it is a very hard sport on the body, particularly for athletes who reach a high level at a young age. With a young one who is doing so well, it's so important to make sure they know that you love and support them unconditionally and will do so no matter where things go with this activity. I suspect you know that and will be there for your daughter 100% when things get hard. They will at some point. And I don't just mean OMG it is taking her a few months instead of a few weeks to get a new skill.

Let me read all my comments to see if I EVER said kids that don’t get high scores are not driven

 

[Ty’s Dad]

Ty's Dad, if you think athletes who aren't getting high scores are not driven, dedicated, and committed, you don't know much about this sport.

No one objects to you being proud of your daughter. The reason you get checked here is that you can't seem to build her up without pushing other people's children down.

It's great that your daughter is doing well right now. It's wonderful that she is quite dedicated and invested; it's an exciting time for her and everyone around her. Congratulations on her accomplishments. I mean that sincerely. But what you refuse to realize is that you are generalizing from an N of one and you are really not nearly as far down this road as you think you are. Gymnastics involves a lot of contingencies, and it is a very hard sport on the body, particularly for athletes who reach a high level at a young age. With a young one who is doing so well, it's so important to make sure they know that you love and support them unconditionally and will do so no matter where things go with this activity. I suspect you know that and will be there for your daughter 100% when things get hard. They will at some point. And I don't just mean OMG it is taking her a few months instead of a few weeks to get a new skill.

Lol and who’s checking me. Once again you should read everything I said. If you or anyone else feels that me talking about MY kids goals and deans has anything to do with their kid and make you feel some type of way that’s your problem not mine. It’s like 7-8 other posts that say the same thing I said but for some reason I’m the one yall try to “check”

 

[mommyof1]

To answer the original question about what “most people” consider good scores for a kid who has been in the sport for a couple of years and is not on the HOPES/elite track: In JO compulsories, 9.0/36 seems to be the benchmark for “good“ at many gyms. You will often hear of requirements to score multiple 36s to move up. 9.5 generally seems to be considered “very good.” However, scoring will vary widely, from state to state and even from meet to meet within a state. In our state there are certain meets that tend to score high and others where the exact same routine would score much lower, even though the judges are the same. You will also see lower average scores in L4 and especially L5 than in L3.

For an individual athlete, “good” is defined by how she performed on a given day in relation to her potential to perform on that day. To my daughter, a 9.0 on bars would have been ”very good” in her first L3 season and “pretty bad” in L4.

In general, though, it’s better for normal JO kids who are not trying to go elite not to focus too much on scores. It is more productive to focus on execution—did I hit my cast and leap angles, keep my legs straight and together, accelerate through my tumbling pass, maintain the correct shape in my tap swings, etc. That way if the kid, um, accidentally adds a swing in what was otherwise a flawless bar routine (hypothetically, of course) and ends up off the podium, she can still take some satisfaction. And focusing on those specific execution goals will actually lead to higher scores than just worrying about the numbers.

 

[3cats]

Here's my experience. My daughter was a general 9.2ish scorer. Her highest was a 9.675 and her lowest was a 7.1 (level 4 vault got her that whole darn year ) but she generally ended up with a high 35 or low 36AA. She's just not a detailed oriented kind of gal.

One of the reasons she finally quit was that coaches were so angry at her for being so naturally talented but just not into perfection. Eh. What can ya do? (Tired of it all and being yelled at for not trying hard enough daily, she quit while training level 8 and went to T&T)

In levels 3 through 5 this got her a 3rd and 4th place, in levels 6 and 7 it moved her down to 6th and 7th place. Her teammates suddenly got really really good at details in optionals and were getting high 37s and 38s and they were getting 1st and 2nd.

So that is my personal analysis on what good vs great scores are and the difference they made at the podium. And it all had to do with the details.

 

[merritt]

Can you guys stop saying kids with high scores or high goals have a lot of pressure from parents. Yall don’t know what goes on in peoples homes or gyms, like I said in previous post levels 3-6 (my daughter did in one year) my daughter was in last place on every event and we cheered for her like she won the Olympics at every meet. You can look at her old gym scores she averaged a 33AA until she switched gyms. Then all of a sudden for level 7 she’s getting 9.5-9.8 with 38AA winning everything, I’m not bragging I’m just saying she knows what it’s like to be at the bottom and she pushes herself to stay at the top. This year level 9 or 10 (if we have a season) we will see how it goes but from her words “I’m not going to ever be at the bottom again”

@Ty’s Dad - on another thread within the last 2 weeks, you said that your daughter has until age 14 to quit at any time, but after that she has to continue and try to get a college scholarship unless she is injured. How can you say that isn’t parental pressure?

 

[MILgymFAM]

This is straying a bit, but parental pressure is sometimes there when we don’t think it is. We are not always aware of how we are affecting our kids.

A personal example would be my daughter. In the way that sometimes is discussed here, but with gymnastics, my daughter had tied her identity to something specific. In her case, having been in gifted programs from K, and having won other academic awards and accolades through the years, in her head she was the the “smart” one.. the one who would be the great academic achiever. Teachers wrote things like she was “the golden ticket” or the “Kobe of their teaching career.”

For our part, we never pushed her for any achievement- she tried for what she wanted, wrote her own applications, did her own work. She was preternaturally driven. We were simply proud to share her achievements. When she was in the end of eleventh grade and it was college application time, she had a bit of a breakdown that caught us off guard. She admitted she was so afraid of “failing” at the college acceptance race and letting everyone down. If she went to a “bad” college it would prove she was a fraud and she wouldn’t know who she was if she wasn’t the smart girl anymore. We assured her that we loved her for her, not her achievements, and that we would always be proud of her because she’s a good person, and that our love would never be conditional.

We never realized the pressure she put on herself, and how it became intertwined with how she viewed herself through our eyes. Ty’s Dad, I am definitely not speaking for your situation or your kid specifically- just wanted to make that clear, because you seem to think you’re picked on here- but rather I am saying we all need to try and see things through the eyes of a kid/teen more often, I think.

 

[LJL07]

Here's my experience. My daughter was a general 9.2ish scorer. Her highest was a 9.675 and her lowest was a 7.1 (level 4 vault got her that whole darn year ) but she generally ended up with a high 35 or low 36AA. She's just not a detailed oriented kind of gal.

One of the reasons she finally quit was that coaches were so angry at her for being so naturally talented but just not into perfection. Eh. What can ya do? (Tired of it all and being yelled at for not trying hard enough daily, she quit while training level 8 and went to T&T)

In levels 3 through 5 this got her a 3rd and 4th place, in levels 6 and 7 it moved her down to 6th and 7th place. Her teammates suddenly got really really good at details in optionals and were getting high 37s and 38s and they were getting 1st and 2nd.

So that is my personal analysis on what good vs great scores are and the difference they made at the podium. And it all had to do with the details.

That's right about the details. And Ty's Dad pointed out that his daughter did get lower skills WHILE skipping three levels in one year. Well, that probably explains at least in good part why her scores weren't higher. No way can a young kid attend closely to the tiny details of compulsories while skipping three levels in a short amount of time. And if the goal is to get her to optionals as quickly as possible, the scores on compulsories probably don't matter that much to the gym for that specific kid. Different goals, different path.

 

[Ty’s Dad]

@Ty’s Dad - on another thread within the last 2 weeks, you said that your daughter has until age 14 to quit at any time, but after that she has to continue and try to get a college scholarship unless she is injured. How can you say that isn’t parental pressure?

also on that same post a lot of people say if they paid money and their child wants to quit she has to keep going because they paid for the season. What’s the difference?