WAG What is most common in your area?

[2gymkids]

We've usually seen equal age divisions named either boring old names (child, junior, senior, etc) or special names for a themed meet (snowflakes, etc). The exception is states, where they go by age number and split within that age number. So there may be ages that don't get split that have less or more kids than the subdivisions of groups that do get split, if that makes sense. So maybe there are 20 7 year olds in one group, but 30 8 year olds who get divided into 8A and 8B so they are smaller groups of 15.

 

[SurpriseGymMom]

To further embroider... DD has two teammates a couple of months both ways from her Bday (1 born in april, 1 born in June, 1 born in Sept same year). DD is the middle one. Throughout the years from L4 on, there has been a multitude of combinations: all in separate age groups, the first two in the same group and the last in a different one, the last two in the same and the first in a separate, all 3 in the same.

Her first year in L7 DD often competed in the same group as girls that were a lot younger than her =the hot shots which really, was just the way the numbers went (she was 11 and competed in the same age group as our uber talented 9-10yos). Had she been less than 6mo older, she would have hit a different group and had a totally different chance of placing. But,it is what it is and I am a big fan of competing only against yourself. It was definitely a necessary lesson learned that year!

 

[wandrewsjr]

Invitationals - equal ages groups - younger/middle/older or child/junior/senior. If big enough session might have 4 or 5 age groups.

States - Child A/B/C/D/E/F/G/H, Junior A/B/C/D/E/F/G/H, Senior A/B/C/D/E/F/G/H

 

[coachmolly]

We see a little bit of everything. Specific ages , broad age groups (8 & under, 9-11, 12 & up), Jr A/B/C, specific ages broken down (10 Jr1, 10 Jr2, 10 Sr). Sometimes it works out that there are roughly the same number of kids in an age group, sometimes it works out that there are way more in one than another. It also means the competitiveness of a a given age group varies greatly. I've had kids have a subpar meet end up winning AA because they lucked out and fell into a less competitive age group while their teammate had a spectacular meet scoring in the high 37s/38 only to place 2nd. Further reminder to have your kids focus on personal performance rather than placements!

 

[MeetDirector]

As a parent and now as a meet director, I never understood the wide fluctuations in award group size from meet to meet across the country. We traveled coast-to-coast and I just don't get it. Today's meet software, whether its ProScore or Beyond the Scores, they have very nice ability to even out the size of the award groups. Frankly, there should never be a meet with horribly out of balance award groups. My award groups are always balanced and I even adjust them after scratches if there have been a lot of scratches in a particular group. As for naming them, I name them something representative; the names are completely customizable in ProScore. Even award groups make the awards go much smoother.

 

[sewgood]

I don’t understand why they don’t just do 1st, 2nd, 3rd for medals. I think handing out 12th place medals because there were 24 in the age group is weird, but whatever. And yes, that would mean my kids get a lot less medals and would walk away empty handed sometimes (a lot of the time) but oh well. Last meet we went to, the awards took over an hour. It was ridiculous.

Anyway, to answer the OP, most of the meets in this area do the Sr A - Ch C thing, but a handful do it by age/birth year.

 

[SMH]

Child, Jr, Senior A-D most of the time. Occasionally by age, 6 and under, 7-8, 9-10...

Sometimes the groups are completely even but other times there are not. The last meet we went to Child A had 24 kids but Child D had 10.

I think some meets line the kids up by birthdays then group them evenly in order, and others take the span of birthdates and divide the calendar dates evenly (so Nov 2009-Jan 2009, Feb 2009-April 2009) so that there is often not equal groups in the same level. If hat makes sense...

 

[mobeans]

We've seen it all but see the Child A, B, C, Junior A, etc. much more frequently. I prefer the Child A, B, C, Junior, etc because it keeps kids who are close in age together. All 10 year olds, for example, includes the new 10s and the almost 11s, which is a much broader age span than the Child/Junior/Senior breakdown.

 

[GymMom4]

Most of our in-state meets have equal age divisions (jrA-SrC or whatever depending on the number of kids) but we went to an out of State meet where groups were decided based on gymnast age by the time of their state meet. Unequal groups there but they did top 50% for awards in each group.