B meet swimmers and A meets. Tips on how to plan weekend?

[Anonymous]

DD is a solid B meet swimmer. She does well and has a lot of fun, but is really interested in making a few A meets. She only gets selected when there are a lot of kids out of town and they have to go deeper into into their rosters, which is completely random, so every weekend this summer has been up in the air. She doesn't want us to plan out of town trips or make other arrangements for Saturday mornings just in case. She's okay with this situation and has been a good sport when she doesn't make the A meets.
I am a different story. This is driving me bonkers.

For other parents in this situation how do you deal with the uncertainty? Do you just go ahead and make plans despite your DC's protests and hope she rolls with it?

[Anonymous]

We don't care. If we are in town, we'll do a meets. This year we do A meets. Last year they called us last minute, we had plans and I said no. We did another activity that day so we always said no to A meets. Its frustrating not to know.

[Anonymous]

You make plans and she rolls with it. You are the parent and she is the child.

[Anonymous]

We are in that situation. It doesn't really bother me. We usually know by Wed if we are swimming or not. Its 5 saturdays. We like to go to the Friday night pep rally, etc whether or not we are swimming- so we are not planning out of town trips.

[Anonymous]

Can she carpool with someone else if you’ve already made plans?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You make plans and she rolls with it. You are the parent and she is the child.

My kid is B swimmer too. If we are out of town, we are out town. I don’t plan our lives around summer swim team.

[Anonymous]

I would reach out to the coaches and ask if they know of any weekends when they expect to have enough A meet regulars out of town that your kid has a decent chance of swimming. Our swim team reps ask parents repeatedly and emphatically to report any known absences as soon as they know of them. You can then let your daughter know that those are the most likely Saturdays that she’ll swim, and that other Saturdays are open for travel.

[Anonymous]

Our team has a Google doc and asks parents to list the meets their children will miss. It seems most people do this in the very beginning of the season, so while there may be a few changes in plans here and there, for the most part having a system like this would make it easier to track whether the roster will be open for your swimmer on any given weekend.

[Anonymous]

I’ve seen a couple other threads about “A” meets and “B” meets. Is this a normal thing? What’s the difference? We have swim meets every Saturday morning that my kids swim in if we are in town. There are also some random weekday evening meets that they swim in if we’re able to. But there are no “A” meets or “B” meets as far as I can tell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve seen a couple other threads about “A” meets and “B” meets. Is this a normal thing? What’s the difference? We have swim meets every Saturday morning that my kids swim in if we are in town. There are also some random weekday evening meets that they swim in if we’re able to. But there are no “A” meets or “B” meets as far as I can tell.

A meets are on Saturday's for the top kids. B meets are for everyone on Wednesday. Some kids swim A and B, some just B. You may have A meets and not know as your kid has to be invited to them. Or, small team so everyone does A regardless.

[Anonymous]

Are you at a small pool? Most large pools have too many kids in each age group to compete in the official league events so they have a second weekly fun meet that does not count for official rankings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve seen a couple other threads about “A” meets and “B” meets. Is this a normal thing? What’s the difference? We have swim meets every Saturday morning that my kids swim in if we are in town. There are also some random weekday evening meets that they swim in if we’re able to. But there are no “A” meets or “B” meets as far as I can tell.

A meets are on Saturday's for the top kids. B meets are for everyone on Wednesday. Some kids swim A and B, some just B. You may have A meets and not know as your kid has to be invited to them. Or, small team so everyone does A regardless.

Ah, yes. I think it's because our team is small so everyone who is able to, swims A meets on Saturdays. There don't appear to be many B meets - maybe three all season?

To answer OP's question, we RSVP for meets via an app the team uses. If you know your schedule ahead of time, you can designate your availability at the beginning of the summer. The coaches also allow people to RSVP a week in advance if you don't know your schedule yet. So maybe just let the coaches know which weekends you will not be there so they can plan accordingly?

[Anonymous]

OP, how far down is she on the list? Is she 8th or 9th in any given stroke? Does she have a specialty stroke? If so, on our team, it would be possible for her to called up if "A" swimmers are out of town. Any far below that, it would be unlikely. I guess it depends on the size of the team, though.

[Anonymous]

How many more weekends does the season go? When do you find out that she's swimming?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve seen a couple other threads about “A” meets and “B” meets. Is this a normal thing? What’s the difference? We have swim meets every Saturday morning that my kids swim in if we are in town. There are also some random weekday evening meets that they swim in if we’re able to. But there are no “A” meets or “B” meets as far as I can tell.

A meets are on Saturday's for the top kids. B meets are for everyone on Wednesday. Some kids swim A and B, some just B. You may have A meets and not know as your kid has to be invited to them. Or, small team so everyone does A regardless.

Ah, yes. I think it's because our team is small so everyone who is able to, swims A meets on Saturdays. There don't appear to be many B meets - maybe three all season?

To answer OP's question, we RSVP for meets via an app the team uses. If you know your schedule ahead of time, you can designate your availability at the beginning of the summer. The coaches also allow people to RSVP a week in advance if you don't know your schedule yet. So maybe just let the coaches know which weekends you will not be there so they can plan accordingly?

Usually there are 5-6 weeks of meets, I forget how many. Its very odd you don't have B meets. This all makes no sense. Usually everyone swims B meets and only top do A meets in less its a small team. As your coach or parent rep.