NVSL pool tryouts

[Anonymous]

When do your pools take on new swimmers? Memorial Day? After? We have a few pools near us and trying to decide which to join and zero information is out there.

[Anonymous]

Our team doesn’t have tryouts. If your family has a pool membership, you get signed up when swim team registration opens (usually late April/early May for us). New kids may need an evaluation based on age, to make sure they’re eligible for team vs. minis, but if the kid is at least 5-6 years old and can swim one length of the pool, that’s enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our team doesn’t have tryouts. If your family has a pool membership, you get signed up when swim team registration opens (usually late April/early May for us). New kids may need an evaluation based on age, to make sure they’re eligible for team vs. minis, but if the kid is at least 5-6 years old and can swim one length of the pool, that’s enough.

This. Being on swim team is a benefit that you get as part of your membership. Your kid may not swim A meets, but any member who pays can put their kid on a team. OP, you said you identified pools, but have you identified pools with memberships? Our pool has a 5 year waiting list and that's fairly common for a lot of pools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our team doesn’t have tryouts. If your family has a pool membership, you get signed up when swim team registration opens (usually late April/early May for us). New kids may need an evaluation based on age, to make sure they’re eligible for team vs. minis, but if the kid is at least 5-6 years old and can swim one length of the pool, that’s enough.

This. Being on swim team is a benefit that you get as part of your membership. Your kid may not swim A meets, but any member who pays can put their kid on a team. OP, you said you identified pools, but have you identified pools with memberships? Our pool has a 5 year waiting list and that's fairly common for a lot of pools.

This. OP, contact those pools now and see if you need to get on waitlists or if they have available memberships. Nvsl isn’t like club swim. There aren’t tryouts but you must be a pool member to swim on a team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our team doesn’t have tryouts. If your family has a pool membership, you get signed up when swim team registration opens (usually late April/early May for us). New kids may need an evaluation based on age, to make sure they’re eligible for team vs. minis, but if the kid is at least 5-6 years old and can swim one length of the pool, that’s enough.

This. Being on swim team is a benefit that you get as part of your membership. Your kid may not swim A meets, but any member who pays can put their kid on a team. OP, you said you identified pools, but have you identified pools with memberships? Our pool has a 5 year waiting list and that's fairly common for a lot of pools.

This. OP, contact those pools now and see if you need to get on waitlists or if they have available memberships. Nvsl isn’t like club swim. There aren’t tryouts but you must be a pool member to swim on a team.

Contact the pools you are interested ASAP. Many pools in this area are full and you can't just walk in.

[Anonymous]

There are no tryouts.

Research the pools close to where you live and figure out how long waiting lists are, if they have them. Start there and then come back to this board to post Qs if you have them.

[Anonymous]

Email team reps from pool's swim team page for registration date. They are very responsive in answering your questions.

[Anonymous]

OP, this list doesn’t look like it’s been updated in about a year, but it may be a start - https://www.mynvsl.com/file/35818/2023_Join_a_Pool_that_has_an_NVSL_Team_BY_CITY__3_31_23_pdf

It has all of the NVSL pools and, for many, indicates whether or not there’s a waitlist. Plus there’s contact info so you can reach out to any pools near you.

[Anonymous]

We only have tryouts for kids 8 and under and we do those evaluations starting the week after memorial day. Once they turn 9 they are automatically on the team, but don't tend to stick around of they show up never really having swam before.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We only have tryouts for kids 8 and under and we do those evaluations starting the week after memorial day. Once they turn 9 they are automatically on the team, but don't tend to stick around of they show up never really having swam before.

Those are tryouts for kids whose families are members of the pool, it’s important to say. A random nonmember family can’t just show up and have their kid do evaluations.

DP

[Anonymous]

For most pools in NOVA, you can't just go "tryout" unless you are a member.

[Anonymous]

There may not be tryouts, but when we lived in Burke Centre (CSL) the team definitely filled and went to waitlisting people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There may not be tryouts, but when we lived in Burke Centre (CSL) the team definitely filled and went to waitlisting people.

The swim team was wait-listing pool members? Wow, I’ve never heard of that for a summer league.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There may not be tryouts, but when we lived in Burke Centre (CSL) the team definitely filled and went to waitlisting people.

The swim team was wait-listing pool members? Wow, I’ve never heard of that for a summer league.

I had never heard of that either until recently at a club meet and various team reps were talking and several of them were saying that yes, they have waitlists for the swim team. And the waitlist is by age/gender.

So you join a pool with your 10 year old girl and they already have a ton of them - that kid gets waitlisted. But if you have a 13year old boy and the team has low numbers you would get on immediately. They also have a sibling clause - so if a 13 year old boy gets on - so would HIS siblings even if he also has a 10 year old sister.