Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the most important things you need to do in finding a club for a young kid is to find a club that emphasizes a great IMX score. If your kid wants a scholarship or wants any long term success, they need to get this score high. Think of it as the SAT score for swimmers

What?!?! No. Just no. I know many recruited Power 5 and Ivy swimmers. It’s essentially whether you have 2 or three events that can score the team points at conference champs. IMX is of no value past middle school.

We had this conversation on another thread recently. My Power 5 committed kid hasn't swum IMX since 5th grade. My other kid on the same path last swam it at the age of 10. Both of them currently have 200 stroke events they have never swum or haven't swum in 3+ years.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the most important things you need to do in finding a club for a young kid is to find a club that emphasizes a great IMX score. If your kid wants a scholarship or wants any long term success, they need to get this score high. Think of it as the SAT score for swimmers

OMG you always post this and it isn't true at all

This a weird thing that this poster is fixated on. It’s a great tool to incentivize the young age groupers to become well rounded, but it doesn’t have any impact on college recruiting whatsoever. Like someone else stated, if your kid is excellent at one of the specialty strokes but not great at another specialty stroke it doesn’t matter because their recruitment is not based on their weak stroke.

I want to know how old the kid of this poster is. I have a kid swimming in a Power 5 division 1 conference and a second swimmer currently being recruited by Div 1 programs. This is NOT a thing anyone in HS pays any attention to. Nor do college coaches care. They care about your 3 best events and your ability to help their relays.

One that will pay attention to athlete burn out and make sure she stays in the sport past the middle school drop out hump.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the most important things you need to do in finding a club for a young kid is to find a club that emphasizes a great IMX score. If your kid wants a scholarship or wants any long term success, they need to get this score high. Think of it as the SAT score for swimmers

OMG you always post this and it isn't true at all

This a weird thing that this poster is fixated on. It’s a great tool to incentivize the young age groupers to become well rounded, but it doesn’t have any impact on college recruiting whatsoever. Like someone else stated, if your kid is excellent at one of the specialty strokes but not great at another specialty stroke it doesn’t matter because their recruitment is not based on their weak stroke.

Anonymous wrote:Most D1 scholarship athletes did not start year round swimming until late elementary and intense daily practice until high school. Pay attention to PP that said this is a long game. It’s better to be an average swimmer when you are younger and peak in high school/ college. There is a lot of burn out for the young superstars.

Where are you getting this info?

I think most have started year round swimming earlier, but maybe weren’t the fastest or strongest until later. Learning and refining strokes early seems to be crucial to long term success.

I don’t have a source for that though, just what I’ve noticed from the D1 swimmers I have known.

Anonymous wrote:One of the most important things you need to do in finding a club for a young kid is to find a club that emphasizes a great IMX score. If your kid wants a scholarship or wants any long term success, they need to get this score high. Think of it as the SAT score for swimmers

OMG you always post this and it isn't true at all

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the most important things you need to do in finding a club for a young kid is to find a club that emphasizes a great IMX score. If your kid wants a scholarship or wants any long term success, they need to get this score high. Think of it as the SAT score for swimmers

What?!?! No. Just no. I know many recruited Power 5 and Ivy swimmers. It’s essentially whether you have 2 or three events that can score the team points at conference champs. IMX is of no value past middle school.

Though we are getting off of OP's original post, I agree with this- we are at NCap and no one has ever said the letters IMX to us in the many years we've been there and their recruiting record is very strong.

As for OP, the kid is young. If they enjoy it and want to do a team, do one that is close to you for now. You can change later if they really want a more intense club. Many swimmers do this.

Anonymous wrote:One of the most important things you need to do in finding a club for a young kid is to find a club that emphasizes a great IMX score. If your kid wants a scholarship or wants any long term success, they need to get this score high. Think of it as the SAT score for swimmers

My kid is a sprinter and sucks at breaststroke. Her IMX score is lower than her teammates, but she is the one with more championship cutoff times.

Swimming a variety of events is good and should be encouraged at younger ages, but no college is going to pass on a phenomenal breaststroker with a mediocre fly and back.

Anonymous wrote:One of the most important things you need to do in finding a club for a young kid is to find a club that emphasizes a great IMX score. If your kid wants a scholarship or wants any long term success, they need to get this score high. Think of it as the SAT score for swimmers

This is so NOT true...

Anonymous wrote:One of the most important things you need to do in finding a club for a young kid is to find a club that emphasizes a great IMX score. If your kid wants a scholarship or wants any long term success, they need to get this score high. Think of it as the SAT score for swimmers

I thought imx was introduced to encourage young swimmers to swim a variety of events. A good club will encourage swimmers to do that, but the actual score isn’t very important. Go for a club with supportive coaches who care more about developing young swimmers than winning or getting points at a swim meet. Our coaches support our kids and encourage them in their other sports and commitments. My kid is most proud of his best times and the way he raced, not the wins themselves- that came from the coaches.

Anonymous wrote:Most D1 scholarship athletes did not start year round swimming until late elementary and intense daily practice until high school. Pay attention to PP that said this is a long game. It’s better to be an average swimmer when you are younger and peak in high school/ college. There is a lot of burn out for the young superstars.

I support this idea and while my kids swim year round, they also do other sports to stay balanced. But I wonder if this is still true. Ten to fifteen years ago, the norm was for kids to do multiple sports, so most d1 swimmers also did multiple sports. Today the norm is to concentrate in one earlier, so I think it’s just as likely that the d1 athletes from this cohort will have done the same. I have a friend who is a former professional soccer player who didn’t play exclusively until age 11/12. He works for an mls team’s academy and he said kids like him are rarer than hen’s teeth these days. He only sees the kids who have played since they were toddlers.

Anonymous wrote:One of the most important things you need to do in finding a club for a young kid is to find a club that emphasizes a great IMX score. If your kid wants a scholarship or wants any long term success, they need to get this score high. Think of it as the SAT score for swimmers

What?!?! No. Just no. I know many recruited Power 5 and Ivy swimmers. It’s essentially whether you have 2 or three events that can score the team points at conference champs. IMX is of no value past middle school.

One of the most important things you need to do in finding a club for a young kid is to find a club that emphasizes a great IMX score. If your kid wants a scholarship or wants any long term success, they need to get this score high. Think of it as the SAT score for swimmers

Most D1 scholarship athletes did not start year round swimming until late elementary and intense daily practice until high school. Pay attention to PP that said this is a long game. It’s better to be an average swimmer when you are younger and peak in high school/ college. There is a lot of burn out for the young superstars.

Anonymous wrote:my 8 year old was the fastest swimmer in their age group for a few years, fast forward, they played multiple sports realized that they didn't enjoy swimming anymore, walked away form it and enjoyed playing 3 sports throughout high school and a club sport and enjoyed their youth.

They still did summer swim and beat many of the kids who swim year round.

My point is, don't expect them to stay with it even if they are good, let them make the choices.

I'm not sure if there was more than one of these kids in the area, but we had a child like this on our team. She was a phenomenal athlete.