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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My daughter played her age group this year but a grade down (she’s a young 7th grader). Her coach told her she should be making the jump to her grade level next year regardless of the team she plays on. Would love to hear what others think about age group vs grade level play. [/quote]

As a parent who has been through this exact situation, I'd strongly lean toward grade level over age level, if it's an option.

My daughter has a July birthday, so she was eligible to play 12U when most of her friends were moving to 13U. We chose to keep her in the younger age group because she could. Looking back, we wish we had started her with her grade-level peers instead.

Every kid and family is different, of course, but for us, the benefits of grade-level play would have been social, developmental, and competitive. Socially, she would have stayed with the kids she saw every day at school. Developmentally, she would have gotten an extra year of playing with the heavier ball and would have been closer to the pace and game she'd eventually see in high school volleyball. Competitively, once she reached high school, being a grade ahead but still playing "down" with "middle school kids" in club started to feel like a much bigger gap than it did in middle school.

We eventually made the jump to grade level at 15U. It worked out fine, but the transition felt massive... and honestly, it was. Most of the challenges were social and emotional rather than volleyball-related, and I think a lot of that could have been avoided if we'd made the switch from earlier or from the start.

One other thing to consider: if she has aspirations to play in college, she'll ultimately be evaluated against and alongside her grade-level peers, not kids a grade below her.

Just one family's experience, but if we had a do-over, we'd have gone grade level from the beginning.
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