High School Tryout Process

Also how some teams results are posted/meeting afterwards? I've thought for years about how I would run my own team and different stuff I would do but tryouts I guess slipped my mind!

Our teams tryouts are a five day process. The 1st day is a mandatory parent meeting with the candidates present. The 2nd day the seniors teach the tryout cheer from 2:45 until 5:00. The 3rd day the seniors teach the dance from 2:45 until 6:00. The 4th is essentially an 'open gym' where the candidates can come and practice their tumbling, jumps, and tryout material on the hard floor. And the 5th day is tryouts. For tryouts we bring in 2-3 NCA judges to ensure fairness. After all of the candidates tryout the scores are brought into the principal's office and entered into a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet organizes the candidates by tryout number and score. The candidates come back to the school at 9 PM the same day as tryouts. The seniors post the tryout results on the glass doors to the main gym. The tryout results are organized by number order. Edit: our entire school district (12 schools) has a standardized scoresheet.

Hope this helps!


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As far as releasing the results, I have heard of:
-Putting the results on a school door
-Posting the results on the school website (if they have a cheer page)
-Posting the results on a message machine that the girls call after a certain time on tryout night
-Sending the girls home with a letter about their results (either a yes or no)
-The coach calling each girl with their result

Then you need to email about when a "you made it" meeting with parents and cheerleaders is, if you haven't already given that info out in a letter, etc. (to go over expectations for the year, costs for camp, uniforms, uniform fitting days, practice calendars for the summer, football schedules etc etc etc)

As far as tryouts go, a lot will depend on your score sheet. Will it focus on:
-learning ability (how quickly kids can pick up choreo, do they get frustrated)
-competition prep (performance ability, skill requirement tests)
-stunting (time taken out to teach new girls trying out?)
-sideline skills (motions, sharpness, voice)?

Things such as teaching new girls to stunt will take longer than just checking off tumbling skills, as will having girls learn sideline chants/cheers to perfect vs. just giving a limited time to learn something and see who picks it up.

Our typical tryouts were similar to the post above......a Mon-Thurs of practice and then the Tryout immediately after school on Friday separated by squad (9th graders, then those 10-11th graders going out for jv, then 10-12 going out for varsity). Schedule looked a bit like this, though it could always be adjusted depending on how fast things were picked up:

Mon- Introduce the material (show cheer, show dance, show jumps, show tumbling requirements for each squad), start teaching cheer (words first then motions), review review review! During this day, those that were trying out for varsity get pulled to the side in small groups to check off a tumbling skill requirement (better to get it out of the way on the first day than to have kids go through the whole clinic thinking they are going out for varsity and then crushing their dreams on Thursday).
Tues- review cheer, start dance to eight counts, do a few times to music
Wedn- teach jumps as group then break into smaller groups to help critique jumps, regroup and review cheer, review dance to counts, review dance to music, then go through mock run through of tryout order of skills on floor (group of 3 dances then exits, then individual walks in, jump, tumble to center if applicable, cheer, exit)
Thurs- optional day. Mock tryouts are done by the graduating seniors to help give positive suggestions on skills/build confidence for girls that are out on the floor or have questions about cheer/dance/jumps/etc. After that, we just keep reviewing until time is up.
Friday- allow girls to stretch then quickly warm up any tumbling/jumps, then have them sign in/get tryout number (freshmen would be 1-last 9th grader #, jv would start the next #s, then varsity was usually in the 30's-40's) and line them up. Lead girls to the holding room and then start tryouts. In between jv and varsity there is a judges break (so they can use the bathroom,eat,etc. for about 15 min) and those trying out for varsity are allowed to quickly warm something up again on the floor if needed since they have been sitting awhile.

We never included stunting in the tryout itself because it's difficult to justify judging individuals accurately (aside from he said she said) and it wasn't so safe with the amount of new girls coming in to tryout with no prior experience and limited time to teach them proper progressions. After girls had already made the team, we determined stunt positions.

The official tryout was different than what I'm used to. We did the dance and cheer in rows in front of everyone. We did stunting and any type of tumbling. 3 Flyers (including me) rotated in coed too. Then everyone got a letter. We had to go outside to the parking lot to open them. It said if you made it, if you did what team, where to meet the coaches at, and some June practice stuff


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Ours is over the course of a week, but only 2 official practices before the actual tryout. The material is posted to the cheer website to learn on our own, since we have to learn most of our cheers and sideline dances on our own time anyways.

For the tryout, we have to rally and show lots of spirit, introduces ourselves, throw a toe touch and then another jump of our choice. Then we do the school fight song, a dance, a long cheer, and a chant. You can also throw whatever tumbling you have but you don't have to be able to tumble to make the team.

My alma mater, Rocky Point, has a pretty laid back tryout. It's a small school district and an athlete's performance the prior year plays a BIG part in team placement. Anyone is welcome (& there are sometimes a few gymnasts/dancers who come out and make Varsity their first year!)

The first day is basically an open stunt clinic. The coach decides the stunt groups and changes them around frequently. Always a mix of new with old. JV & Varsity practice on separate mats this day.

The second day is tumbling/learning material. Both JV & Varsity do this at the same time. Again, it's "open clinic" style with alumni making up the cheer/dance. It's usually just a quick 3 8-count dance and a short cheer. The focus is on motion placement and sharpness rather than remembering the material. The day ends with a quick stunt warm-up, maybe 30 minutes long, and this is usually when talented JV-aged tumblers will be asked to stunt with Varsity girls. This means nothing in terms of team placement. A girl who never stunted with Varsity before could see her name on that list, and a girl who was young on Varsity can be put on JV the next year.

The third day is the formal tryout. Judges are coaches & alumni. It consists of a "spirit entrance", jump of choice, standing tumbling of choice, along with cheer/dance. It's done solo (and is a VERY long day), with covered windows. First come, first serve basis.

The score on "formal tryout" does NOT determine team placement. It's really based on what is needed that year stunt-wise. IE) A freshman with a perfect score may be put on JV if she is a top girl, and all four competing top girls from Varsity are returning.

Team postings are after school on the gymnasium door. A meeting time is posted and all team members are expected to attend.

Everyone will make a team, but only 16 will compete on each. The rest will be alternates & will cheer at sporting events. Varsity coach has been known to take up to 32! Let the Hunger Games begin...

My school team is very small, so our tryouts are only a one day process, the tryout is about 3-4 hours long.
First, we get our numbers and stretch.
Then we learn a 4 8-count dance, a cheer, and a band dance.
We then get our tryout groups and have time to warm up tumbling and practice the dances on our own with music.
Tryouts are held right after this. They happen in groups of 2-3. Every group performs the cheer and dances, and each person in the group steps forward and does a toe touch, a jump of choice, a running pass, and a standing pass.
After every group goes, there is a flyer tryout. Basically, anyone who has flown before or wants to fly comes back into the room. Each person pulls all of the body positions they can do. After this, there are call backs, and the judges can ask for any skills from anyone that they may want to see again.
Judges calculate scores and pick teams. Each girl is called in and told what team she made, and then goes into a room if she made the team, where a meeting is held afterwards. We have also had the numbers on a sheet, and the coach just calling out the names to the group.

This has been so helpful everyone, so thank you!! I'm going to go with a more laid back tryout, considering I know the team is consistently pretty small (I think 12 girls last year). The first day I am going to teach a short dance and cheer, observe them stunting and if there's time have them tumble a bit (as I'm sure most of them haven't tumbled in atleast a month.) I'm still trying to come up with a scoresheet and judging system that I think will work for me but I have about a week to figure it out! I like the idea of them having to show flyer positions and coming in by 3's and showing the cheer, dance, best running and standing tumbling, and 2 jumps. At this point I'll be happy to get 15-20 coordinated girls who just want to cheer!

I know my tryouts are a week long. We condition and run at the beginning of every day, then stretch together. Then well do jumps as a group and then break up into smaller and smaller groups. We learn the cheer and dance and work on it as a whole, them once again break up into groups so we can practice and perform it together. On the last day we have the official tryout where we go up by ourself and perform the dance, cheer, jumps, and tumbling. We also stunt through out the while week.


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