I am returning to competitive gymnastics after a few years away and will be competing at the optional level. I can technically fit in both the practices and mock trial (my extra curricular of choice). However, based off of this year, I think it would be to stressful. Would colleges look at competitive gymnastics + volunteering + thespian honors society better, equal to, or worse than rec gymnastics + mock trial + volunteering. Returning to competitive is a dream come true to me, it’s just way to exhausting doing mock trial with it.
You only really have one shot at this and want to do competitive gymnastics, so do it. You can’t know how colleges will see it, so why try to please them? You can craft your application to show why you chose your passion.
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Are you potentially good enough to be recruited? If so, it could be a big boost. If not, it’s just another EC, imo, albeit one that demonstrates commitment.
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When you say you will be competing at the optional level, are we talking USAG, XCEL, GI-JO or what? And what level are we talking about? Optional covers anything Level 6 and up, but the skill jumps between levels really skyrocket between Level 8, 9 and 10.
Unless you are competing at Level 10 (perhaps Level 9 if you are an event specialist who has 1 or 2 events at a Level 10 difficulty) - gymnastics, competitive or rec, will just be considered an EC. An impressive EC to those who understand the commitment it takes, but it won’t be a hook.
All that said, if you love it - go for it! Just do it for yourself, not for some perceived advantage in college admission.
I think that this is your answer.
You should participate in the ECs that make sense for you. I would not worry about what admissions is going to think. If you do what is right for you, and make sure to apply to safeties that you would be happy to attend, then I think that you will be fine.
I also think that you should not over-commit yourself. You do want to have the energy left to do well in classes and the time to get some relaxation and enough sleep.
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Another way to think about this in the abstract is whether colleges prefer one EC that takes 20 hours per week and another that takes 5, over 5 that take 5 hours each. I had twins where one was the former, the other the latter, and I think showing a very high level of commitment (she had had been a ballet dancer since the age of 4 and danced 25 hours per week to the exclusion of almost everything else) was really helpful in college applications.
But what made even more difference, especially for very competitive scholarships, was applying for dance with great academics rather than applying for academic subjects with dance as an EC. There just wasn’t as much competition that way round. That aligns with what others have expressed above about recruited athletes: getting to a level that allows you to do your sport/EC in college tend to be optimal for admissions.
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I don’t know if I’ll be recruitable or not, likely DIII or DII at most. My mother keeps insisting that Mock Trial shows more practical skills and to do it over gymnastics.
Both will show achievement and commitment. Do what you love. If that’s competitive gymnastics, go for it. If that’s Mock Trial, then go for that and reduce your gymnastics commitment. There are only so many hours in a day, and there is no way to guarantee admissions anywhere by choosing one EC over another, so do what you will really enjoy doing and make the most of the time you are able to devote to it.
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It sounds like you love gymnastics and are passionate about it.
It sounds like Mock Trial is something you sort of like and are doing it to look good for college admissions.
Competitive gymnastics takes a tremendous amount of dedication and hard work. Personally I think that is more impressive and more unique.
I would pursue the gymnastics since it is something you genuinely want to do and that will come through in your application process.
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Level 6, set to be 7 by next season. I’m a current freshman. Currently undergoing a debate about not doing mock trial next year. My mother maintains that it will look better on college apps because of the practical skills. I think that the commitment to gymnastics looks just as good. Plus not doing mock trial would give me the chance to get the hours needed for thespian honor society.
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@amiaray, your mom is wrong on this --, neither “looks better” to a college in a way that will impact admissions.
Colleges do like to know why you do what you do with ypur time outside class. “Because it looked good on an application” isn’t a great reason.
I think it’s also important that gymnastics is unlikely to be something you could re-engage with later.
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Completely agree with @gardenstategal here. Your mom is wrong about this.
Mock Trial is something pretty common and doesn’t require nearly as much commitment as gymnastics.
Since you have a passion for gymnastics and it requires a lot of focus and commitment, it will take you far.
You can always do Mock Trial in college if you really want to but your window to do competitive gymnasitcs is small and I would take advantage of that.
If you step away from gymnastics and try to get back into it, it’s a much steeper hill to climb than re-engaging in Mock Trial.
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I agree with you. What looks good to university admissions is to be authentic. A big part of being authentic is to do what is right for you.
Also, high school students in the US are under way too much pressure. There are way too many students being treated for stress related problems. Trying to do too much is a common problem.
One thing that you might want to read (and then show your mother) is the “applying sideways” blog on the MIT admissions web site. The point of this blog is that the best way to get into MIT is to do what is right for you, and to do it very well. The same approach works for other top schools.
However, what was right for me, what was right for my wife, what was right for our older daughter, and what was right for my younger daughter, are four entirely different sets of things. Each of us doing what was right for us has worked very well for my family (on a Columbia, MIT, Stanford level).
I think that gymnastics is a great EC. It would be entirely the wrong EC for me, but this is not about what is right for me. It is about what is right for you.
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A bit off topic here, but this is my reclimb, and it’s part of why my mother is hesitant. I haven’t competed in four years. One of those years, I wasn’t doing any gymnastics. For the next few years, I mostly held on to my old skills. It’s only been the past few months that I’ve been in the gym enough to actually improve.
The fact that this is your re-climb is fine. It could be that the time away was what you needed to relight your fire and push you to excel, rather than burning out. Svetlana Boginskaya retired for three years before coming back to the sports…you’re doing it at a younger age. But if you only do this for 9th grade and decide that no, you really are done with gymnastics, then you can do Mock Trial in 10th-12th grades, or some other extracurricular that you find particularly interesting. Women’s gymnastics tends to have a very short window for serious athletes. Participate in it for as long as you enjoy it.
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Where are you trying to go to school ?
Mom is likely wrong in this sense - schools want you to do what you want to do !!
We read every day about kids that have papers published, are involved with the highest academic extra curriculars and get rejected - 4.0, perfect ACT and all.
We see others who worked in fast food get into Ivy.
There is no one size fits all. There are no assurances.
What do you enjoy ? What can you describe with passion ? This is what you should do.
Sorry mom.
Ps find 1-3 great things and go from there.
Many, even maybe most colleges, don’t care about ECs at all so depending on where you look it may not even be a question.
You have one life. Make it yours - not moms.
You should focus on the EC that you love, that gives you the most joy. If it helps you get into your preferred college, great. If it doesn’t, you still will have done what you enjoyed.
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How many hours a week will you be practicing? What level were you when you stopped? Do you still have all the compulsory skills or will it take several months to rebuild?
Lastly, why did you stop doing gymnastics?
I agree with others that pursuing what you are passionate about is more important than the “essay” you will write in the future.
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6-10. I’m not completely sure what my schedule next season will look like. I was in xcel gold when I left. I came back with pretty much all of my skills three and a half years ago.
Just another option I’m throwing out there that might be worth thinking about if you want to stay engaged in gymnastics at a more than recreational level, but aren’t sure if you want to commit to the rigors of competitive sports…
My daughter was in a competitive sport for nearly 10 years (starting around age 6). Not gymnastics, but a pretty intense one. Over COVID she was forced to take a break since everything was closed, she couldn’t practice, there were no competitions, etc. She used that time to reassess her relationship to the sport and realized that she didn’t want to continue competing - in large part because she had developed other interests that she wanted to pursue, and that wouldn’t work with her previous intense training schedule.
So she took a job coaching in the sport. She couldn’t be happier. It is much less of a time commitment than training for competition, but she still feel fully engaged and she really does love the sport, so this is a great way for her to stay involved without sacrificing other interest areas.
This not meant to discourage you from doing competitive - if that’s what you want to do and that’s what you love, then go for it. It’s just to say that, if you’re not really sure what you want to do with gymnastics, there may be other options that are less commitment than competing, but more engaged than recreational.