WAG Skipping levels in Xcel

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gymgirllove

Proud Parent
My DD is 13 and in Xcel silver, and she wants to excel (lol) in her gymnastics and possibly skip a level. Shes worried that she won't be able to get where she wants with her gymnastics while being the oldest on her team, compared to the other girls it seems like she won't have much of a future. Eventually, she wants to go into college gym and we aren't sure how to make that happen. Would skipping a level be potentially helpful? I don't know the prosses of skipping levels in Xcel, if it's different then in JO, or how hard it will be for her. Do you all know anything more?

Were in region 2 if that helps
 
Skipping levels in both JO and Xcel are generally not allowed- the exception is bronze in xcel and L1-3 and L6 in JO. All other levels are mandatory. To be honest, xcel is not generally the path to college gymnastics, if by college gymnastics you mean NCAA. If you’re thinking of her continuing on a college club team, her pacing and levels will be much less important overall.
 
You might have heard of kids skipping other levels in JO, but in reality they competed once to “score out”. I don’t know if they really do that in xcel.
 
My daughter competed one year of Bronze, one year of Silver, then last year scored out of Gold and did the full year at Platinum. This year she's competing Diamond. It hasn't appeared to hurt her development. For reference, she did rec gymnastics at a non-competitive gym and then moved to a competitive gym when she was 10. She had most of the skills for Gold when she came over but had never competed or seen a vault table. The gym thought it best to give her some time to develop vault and get experience competing before scoring out of any levels. It's worked well for her so far.
 
You can definitely score out of levels in Xcel. You just need to get the qualifying score to move on. Our gym has allowed that for girls who are new to Xcel, but have higher level skills, or other extenuating circumstances. You would need to score out of Silver and higher, as someone else mentioned. However, I also encourage you to express your daughter's goals to her coaches, as typically Xcel is not a path to college/NCAA (typically, the girls in our area who compete in college gym would be a level 8/9 - if not higher - by the age of 13 to be on the "college track".) In our area, Xcel is a path to a high school gymnastics team, which is still very fun and rewarding.
 
Seeing as xcel has only been around since 2013 its hard to say what it will be a path to in the future. Its true that many girls who were talented enough for JO were put on the Xcel track, but more and more its being chosen as a route that allows for balance with academics and other extra curricular activities. Xcel is growing like crazy. It’ll be fun to watch.
 
I don’t think you can skip gold or platinum (whatever your plan is ) completely but your daughter can try to score out of it. To score out you compete in a meet at the level you want to skip and if you achieve a certain score (not sure exactly what it is but you can look it up) and have permission from your coach, you can compete at the next level.
 

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