WAG First steps for looking at colleges?

[cbifoja]

At what point should my DD be making an effort to begin looking at colleges if her goal is a college scholarship? There is a specific D1 school she wants to attend and while I think it is a long shot (plus what @bookworm says about D1 schools scares the bejeesus out of me!), I am curious when we/she should begin doing what. She will be entering the 7th grade in the fall and has become more vocal about hoping to earn a scholarship. Is this something we need to be starting yet?

I know there isn't really a checklist but I swear that I read somewhere on this site that gymnasts should start attending summer gym camps of schools they are interested in but I don't remember at what point in their career that should begin.

If I am trying to steer her more toward D2/D3, are the steps different from her goal?

 

[cadybearsmommy]

I don't know a lot about the process but from my understanding a lot of the recruiting begins at L9, especially at nationals, so if she goes to easterns or westerns this year it's very possible that she may be seen and then contacted by recruiters at that time. A lot of people make youtube channels with their child's name and gym contact info and send the videos to coaches. Is your gym familiar with the recruitment process? Have they had scholarship kids before? If so I would reach out to them and let them know your dd's goals, I think they could be a big help to you.

 

[MeetDirector]

cbi -

Three things to do first and foremost:
- Make sure your dd's high school college guidance counselor is aware of her goal. You have got to have a counselor familiar with the academic side of NCAA eligibility.
- Next, register with the NCAA eligibility center (used to be called the clearing house).
- Make sure her current head coach is aware of her goal so he/she can start renewing acquaintences.

Then, I would start just casually visiting college campuses. Whenever you go someplace, see if there is a college nearby and visit. Start making a list; start crossing schools off the list for whatever reason (too cold/hot, tornado alley, etc).

This should get you started.

Good Luck.

 

[cbifoja]

Thanks Meet Director. She is entering 7th grade so no high school counselor yet. But I will check and see if the counselor at the high school understands the academic requirements of the NCAA.

Registering her with the eligibility center is do-able and her coach is aware of her goals. I appreciate the help. It feels silly to be asking her to think about colleges so early but I know so little that I wanted to get some advice from someone who knows what to do.

 

[skschlag]

When do you recommend registering? Is high school soon enough?

 

[sce]

When do you recommend registering? Is high school soon enough?

I think they recommend as a freshman.

 

[gymbeam]

i don't even want to think about this part of it all. seriously. i really hope our coaches take the wheel and that it doesn't require me to do much! (*if we reach this point...)

 

[gymbeam]

cbi -

Three things to do first and foremost:
- Make sure your dd's high school college guidance counselor is aware of her goal. You have got to have a counselor familiar with the academic side of NCAA eligibility.
- Next, register with the NCAA eligibility center (used to be called the clearing house).
- Make sure her current head coach is aware of her goal so he/she can start renewing acquaintences.

Then, I would start just casually visiting college campuses. Whenever you go someplace, see if there is a college nearby and visit. Start making a list; start crossing schools off the list for whatever reason (too cold/hot, tornado alley, etc).

This should get you started.

Good Luck.

What do you mean by casually visiting colleges? just go and look around the campus as a family without any formal tour or goals of info. seeking? is this just to get kids thinking about college in general?

 

[justanothergymmom]

At what point should my DD be making an effort to begin looking at colleges if her goal is a college scholarship? There is a specific D1 school she wants to attend and while I think it is a long shot (plus what @bookworm says about D1 schools scares the bejeesus out of me!), I am curious when we/she should begin doing what. She will be entering the 7th grade in the fall and has become more vocal about hoping to earn a scholarship. Is this something we need to be starting yet?

I know there isn't really a checklist but I swear that I read somewhere on this site that gymnasts should start attending summer gym camps of schools they are interested in but I don't remember at what point in their career that should begin.

If I am trying to steer her more toward D2/D3, are the steps different from her goal?

Is she a level 10 yet?

 

[cbifoja]

Is she a level 10 yet?

No.

 

[justanothergymmom]

This is just our personal experience, so by no means is this the only way things happen, but D1 schools started looking at my daughter after she had a solid season of level 10 under her belt with 10.0 start values on all four events, scoring 37s and qualifying to NIT. The top tier D1 schools started looking at her after a 2nd season of L10 scoring 38s and qualifying and placing at JOs. The one thing that I have noticed that may set apart the girls that get recruited earlier than others is a 10.0 start value on all 4 events and competing E skills. There are a couple schools of thought on this topic, but my daughter's coach seems to be of the mindset to not "put yourself out there" until you are a solid level 10 with a competitive skill set.

 

[MeetDirector]

If your gymnast has college gym as a goal, you owe it to her to educate yourself as much as possible on the process to fulfill that goal; DO NOT rely solely on her club coach for this information.

By casually visiting college campuses, I mean just that - a casual visit to have her set foot on a college campus. Most (all?) colleges have visitor tours just to see the campus. We combined these visits with out of town meets; we saw campuses (campi?) in many different states. As she gets into high school and the list narrows down some, then I suggest contacting the coach and getting a tour on an "unofficial" basis. Before you start these unofficial visits be sure and have her registered at NCAA Eligibility Center.

Yes, she needs to have a couple of good years at level 10 under her belt before the top tier D1 schools will look seriously at her. They also want to see skill progression as well. As for college camps? We heard mixed stories on that; I guess it can't hurt. If she has a good coach that knows what it takes to get to the college level, let that part take care of itself.

She (you) can't forget the academic side of things. She is still going to have to get academically accepted to whatever school she applies to. She needs to be taking the kind of courses in high school that will set her up for academic admittance.

Good Luck.

 

[bookworm]

So she's not a 10 yet so you can still be in the looking phase...has she done a solid year at 9 (meaning gone to Easterns or Westerns)? If she hasn't even done a year at 9, you may be getting ahead of yourself for D1 gym...not to say she can't make huge progress and do it. It would just be of a more urgent nature to be scouting out schools if she had just finished a solid year at Level 10 because as someone said earlier, colleges don't really even look at them until they are at least level 9 or 10.

And if a specific D1 school is her goal, by all means pursue getting her ready to go after it academically, because at the end of the day, after gymnastics, you have to love your school and I will say, even after all the baloney that went with my daughter's NCAA experience, she absolutely LOVED the school she was at and would never have transferred and is a proud 2016 graduate as we speak.

 

[cbifoja]

She (you) can't forget the academic side of things. She is still going to have to get academically accepted to whatever school she applies to. She needs to be taking the kind of courses in high school that will set her up for academic admittance.

Good Luck.

I am a teacher so this part will always be something I emphasize. However, I want to make sure she is taking the right classes once she gets in high school. I'm on the fence about AP classes in general but I also don't want her to just take easy classes to bolster her GPA and then be unprepared for the rigor of university academics. But all of that would be on my mind even if she quit gymnastics today. In addition, our high school offers different programs that allow our hardest working students to graduate with enough credits to have an associates degree. But I don't know how much that plays into NCAA requirements.

I tell ya....parenting isn't for the faint of heart!

 

[cbifoja]

So she's not a 10 yet so you can still be in the looking phase...has she done a solid year at 9 (meaning gone to Easterns or Westerns)? If she hasn't even done a year at 9, you may be getting ahead of yourself for D1 gym...not to say she can't make huge progress and do it. It would just be of a more urgent nature to be scouting out schools if she had just finished a solid year at Level 10 because as someone said earlier, colleges don't really even look at them until they are at least level 9 or 10.

And if a specific D1 school is her goal, by all means pursue getting her ready to go after it academically, because at the end of the day, after gymnastics, you have to love your school and I will say, even after all the baloney that went with my daughter's NCAA experience, she absolutely LOVED the school she was at and would never have transferred and is a proud 2016 graduate as we speak.

I've read most of the threads that pertain to gym scholarships so I have all these bits and pieces swirling around in my mind. All I remember is that you shouldn't wait until it's too late and that too late comes sooner than you think. I also remember that people say you need to starting making videos and websites and what have you but I can't remember the timeline for all of that.

She will compete her first year at 9 this upcoming season. Should I bother videoing meets/practices/skills? Or is it too soon? I mean, she just did her first unspotted/unassisted pak yesterday! But is that level of skill important? I don't think that I'm in the urgent stage yet. I just want to know if there is anything I need to be doing now....for a 7th grader (sounds ridiculous even saying it) who is going into L9.

I appreciate all of the feedback from you more experienced parents.

 

[notthatmom]

Unless your DD is already a L10, and has recruiters already chomping at the bit, I honestly wouldn't even start thinking of looking before she is in high school.

College gymnastics is an amazing dream to have, but be sure she knows that gymnastics isn't going to be forever...while gym might be what gets her there, that's not WHY she will be there, the academic aspect of it is essentially much more important. She is still very young so obviously picking a major isn't essential yet, but have her start thinking about what spikes her interest, does she like science? Does she want to be a teacher? Find schools that have programs with subjects she is interested in, then from there look into the athletics, and weed out the schools that don't have gymnastics teams.

It's good that she looks into this aspect ahead of time, so that when she gets to high school and her counselor tells her "this shouldn't be just about gymnastics" it won't be a shock, or come off as discouraging.

 

[notthatmom]

I've read most of the threads that pertain to gym scholarships so I have all these bits and pieces swirling around in my mind. All I remember is that you shouldn't wait until it's too late and that too late comes sooner than you think. I also remember that people say you need to starting making videos and websites and what have you but I can't remember the timeline for all of that.

She will compete her first year at 9 this upcoming season. Should I bother videoing meets/practices/skills? Or is it too soon? I mean, she just did her first unspotted/unassisted pak yesterday! But is that level of skill important? I don't think that I'm in the urgent stage yet. I just want to know if there is anything I need to be doing now....for a 7th grader (sounds ridiculous even saying it) who is going into L9.

I appreciate all of the feedback from you more experienced parents.

This brings up another good point, it's not too early for her to create a website, we have girls in our gym who start theirs around L9 while they're still in middle school, the earlier the exposure the better, so I don't think it's out of the norm to do that and start videoing now, she's only going to get better, and the website will give potential recruiters something to look forward to. Does her coach know she's interested in college gymnastics? Does your gym have a portion of the website dedicated to websites for recruiters? If so, ask them when they allow gymnasts to have their websites added.

 

[kitkat]

I would recommend creating her a Facebook and YouTube page specifically for her gymnastics.

Post her meets, progressions on skills, etc.

Also I would keep track of her meet scores as well.

My dd is just going into high school and we are working through this process.

 

[Muddlethru]

Doesn't hurt to visit collages and check out campuses this early to narrow down choices. But honestly, coaches will not even look at a Level 8. She will need to be a Level 10 or perhaps a top Level 9 gymnast before coaches will even look at videos. Attending summer camps is good idea however. You can perhaps start developing a relationship with college coaches she is interested in.

 

[OzZee]

I know zero about college gymnastics (we don't have that sort of thing here) but is she choosing that d1 college because of their gymnastics program or because that's the school she wants to go to? And why?
I have one in year 7 and she would have no idea what different universities existed or what they were called. But then we don't have to look for many years yet (totally different system).
But anyway, if she has chosen it because of gym or Auntie May went there or whatever and has her heart set on it then a visit sounds like a good idea. She may hate it ! And as she is looking at hoping to do gym in college surely a summer gym camp if they have it would be a great way to get a feel of the campus and the gym.
And, lol , if you have some other schools you think she should consider visits if possible would also help rule some in/out.

I know when we went high school visiting my list of preferences completely changed from what I thought was best on paper to what we felt was best after the open days.