A Climbing Mom's Musings: The Collegiate Circuit

I have to say, the Collegiate Division is getting clearer for me. After reading the rules for the Collegiate season, I can boil things down to this for you.

All Collegiate climbers must get a Collegiate membership. This will be in addition to your Youth/Elite membership. I have them both on auto-renew as they expire at different times. Now, with the Collegiate one, your climber has to show proof of enrollment at a college. The way you do that is to submit an accepted document. Brendan used his schedule which shows his name, his school, his schedule, AND his student ID. All of these items must be on the accepted document.

The season starts with Qualification Events (QE) from roughly October to March. Each athlete must compete in one of them. From there, that qualifies them to register for a Collegiate Nationals Qualification Event (CNQE) anywhere in the country. If successful, meaning they score in the top 8 in their category, they would move on to Collegiate Nationals and then Collegiate Worlds.

The document on QEs states that the bulk of the setting will be for climbers at the average level. There should be one climb that everyone can top. However, there will also be one boulder that challenges the national-level climber. This climb will feature "moves that require good timing, precision, coordination, or complex movement, rather than using traditional 'hard' rock climbing problems on an overhang, and 'easy' problems on vertical terrain."

The Collegiate Nationals Qualification Event (CNQE) is held in various locations around the country, roughly in April. There are two scheduled weekends for these to occur in the 24-25 season. The total capacity at CNQEs is 160 with each category having up to 50 competitors. A competitor may only compete at one CNQE and they can compete in both boulder and lead if they wish. The category that is chosen will be the same if the climber makes it to nationals. As previously stated, only the top 8 in each category will advance to Collegiate Nationals.

At the Collegiate Nationals, here is what I have found so far: There are two rounds; Qualifications and Finals.

The top 20 climbers advance to Finals in each discipline.
The top 5 climbers advance to the Collegiate World Championship
Only the advanced category will receive invitations to the Worlds which happens every other year. The next is in 2026.
And if you are in the top 3 in your category or represent the US at Collegiate Worlds, you are pre-qualified for next year’s CNQE.

On the off chance Brendan or anyone makes it to Collegiate Worlds, here is the breakdown of the progression:

BOULDER: There are 3 Rounds - Qualifications, Semi-Finals, and Finals

The top 20 moves on to the Semi-Final round
The top 6 moves to the Final round

LEAD: There are 2 Rounds - Qualifications, and Finals

The top 8 moves on to the Finals

*One interesting note: The top 6 climbers in Bouldering and the top 3 climbers in Lead are automatically qualified for the Elite Yetli National Championships.

So for Brendan's first year in college, he is participating in three circuits: Youth (last year M20), Elite, and Collegiate!

*At the time of this writing, no official information has been posted on CNQE or the National Championship. I will update this post when they become available and tell you what our experience is!

BONUS HEALTH TIP: ALWAYS wear a mask in the airport/on the plane after a comp. Brendan got sick every time because he would have a compromised immune system and pick something up from the plane on the way back. When he started masking up after comps to travel home, NO PROBLEMS!

Don't forget to check out your climber's stats at the Competition Database HERE.