Each college gymnastics team goes into the season with the goal of doing its best, but for some programs, there exists extra pressure to do so. Whether it’s due to recent struggles, coaching changes, or controversies resulting in exposure, the following teams are facing more scrutiny than most to outperform recent results in 2025.

North Carolina

North Carolina is one of those teams that definitely has what it takes to be successful in the postseason, but that breakthrough year has to be soon. The Tar Heels gained momentum in the back half of the regular season in 2024 but missed out on regionals by six positions. Since 2020, they have hovered around this same spot in the national rankings but certainly have the ability to break out of the regionals bubble with the talent on the team. The main thing holding North Carolina back has been consistency, so hopefully this will be the year the team can turn that around and have its breakthrough. 

Georgia

Days after the team narrowly missed moving on to the Gainesville regional final in 2024, Georgia finally cut ties with embattled head coach Courtney Kupets Carter. That move, as well as the hiring of Cecile Canqueteau-Landi to join Ryan Roberts as the new leaders of the program, make it clear that Georgia is officially in…

As we enter the 2025 season, we’re getting ready for the final cohort of COVID-year athletes. The NCAA allowed an extra year of eligibility for all 2021 winter athletes to account for teams and individuals who opted out of the 2021 season. Gymnasts have already been able to take a COVID year in the 2022, 2023, and 2024 seasons, resulting in thousands of routines from athletes who chose to extend their collegiate careers.

While athletes can stay on longer, the number of routines in each meet hasn’t changed. We found that over the last three seasons, fifth-year gymnasts have made nearly 5,000 lineup appearances. Has this resulted in underclassmen making fewer appearances?

Who did we consider to be a fifth year?

We used the cohort of fifth-year athletes that we previously identified in our previous Data Deep Dive, “Unpacking the Success of Fifth-Year Gymnasts”: including gymnasts in their second or third senior seasons in Road to Nationals rosters as well as gymnasts included in College Gym News’s 2022, 2023, and 2024 tracking articles as returning for a fifth year. For non-fifth years, we used class years in Road to Nationals rosters.

Throughout this analysis, we look at the percentage of lineup appearances by class year to account for changing number…

The statement “Kids Say the Darndest Things” remains true about most things in life, even college gymnastics! In this series, we will take a different aspect of college gymnastics, from skills to leotards and everything in between, and have kids react. It’s Kids Say the Darndest Things…about College Gymnastics!

For this edition, we pulled out some of the leotards we judged and asked the kids to score them similarly to our Leotard Rankings. Each leotard was ranked out of 10 points in the categories of design, sparkle, and school spirit, and all of the scores were averaged together to create the score for each category. Have ideas for what we should ask kids next? Leave a comment to let us know!

NOTE: Names and ages of children have been changed to protect their identities. Proper permission was obtained to post quotes from those involved. No additional editing outside of correcting grammar has been done.

Clemson: 8.000

Design: 8.200/10; Sparkle: 8.200/10; School Spirit: 7.800/10

Kayla, age 8: I like that it’s the design of a tiger. I like all the gems. I like the colors.

Brooke, age 9: I like it a lot, especially the upper back and how it’s just kind of like a circle but not really. But for this one, I give it like a 6/10 since I love the…

Alaska, Southern Utah, and San Jose State have earned the top three team grade point averages for the 2023-24 academic year, according to data provided by the Women’s Collegiate Gymnastics Association.

Sixth-three collegiate gymnastics programs achieved an average GPA of 3.5 or higher, with 1,174 individual gymnasts reaching this mark—the highest number recorded since 2008 when this statistic started to be monitored. Notably, 296 student-athletes earned a perfect 4.0 GPA, setting a new record. The overall average GPA across all reported student-athletes was 3.6103, marking the second-highest on record.

“Our student-athletes continue to excel not only in the gym but also in the classroom, consistently raising the bar year after year,” WCGA board chair Casey Jo MacPherson said. “Their academic achievements are a true reflection of their hard work, dedication, and unwavering commitment to success in every aspect of their lives.”

Alaska led the country with a top GPA of 3.8678, giving the Seawolves the top spot for the first time in program history, with eight student-athletes achieving a perfect 4.0. They finished No. 58 a year prior.

Southern Utah secured second with a team GPA of 3.8584. The Thunderbirds made the leap from 19th place in 2023, with eight…

Think about the different hats a parent has to wear: working professional, grocery store runner, taxi driver, cook, cleaner. Now imagine adding the additional job of project manager for a level 10 gymnast who trains anywhere from 20 to 40 hours a week. For the parents of high-level gymnasts, finding balance in their families is an ongoing challenge. What goes on behind the scenes? What does it take to parent a collegiate gymnast?

To help their kids reach the highest levels of gymnastics, parents need to be equally as committed as their kids to turn dreams into reality. Kelly Piedrahita, the mother of Penn State gymnast Ava Piedrahita, is one of these parents who has to juggle multiple roles. Beyond managing the financial aspects of training like paying for tuition, grips, tape, and competition fees, Kelly also handles the logistics: scheduling physical therapy appointments, talking to teachers and academic counselors, and just making sure Ava has a meal to eat when she gets home from practice. Kelly’s daytime job as a pharmacist, working 12-hour shifts, makes the logistics aspect extremely difficult and requires her family to think multiple steps ahead constantly. “I had to make arrangements with friends, teammates, parents, neighbors, and even co-workers to help…

As we head into the last month of summer, hopefully everyone heading to campus is not only joyful but rejuvenated for the upcoming year!

Getting ready for season is not only about having the skills when you come back to school, but being strong and healthy enough to sustain the amount of activity you will be doing for the next nine months. After a long season, summer is the perfect time to go back to the basics, play around with different skills, and set new goals. Arguably, however, this short turnaround period from May to August should not only be focused on these aspects, but more importantly taking the time to relax, rest, and recover after a jam-packed year.

Every athlete has a different plan for what their summer training looks like but also for how they are able to decompress both physically and emotionally. For some, taking a break is the ideal way to come into the gym more motivated, while others like to get right back into a routine as they had become accustomed to throughout the previous year.

Reflecting on my five seasons in the NCAA, each summer and what I did to prepare for the next season look different. I felt relatively prepared going into preseason as I was that second athlete example of wanting to stay in a familiar practice routine. However, going…