OT Nca Staff Questions

[allstar_cheer_diva93]

Hi! I'm very interested in trying out for NCA Staff, but I actually have a LOT of questions before I start the tryout video process.

Is NCA super strict about having amazing tumbling? Because honestly my tumbling is nothing special. (Not that I won't have better tumbling in the future, but as of right now, I dont.)

I have only gone to 1 NCA camp, will they make this a big deal? This is my senior year and my first and last doing high school cheerleading.

There's a spot on the form that asks about awards.... do they mean as an individual or awards including ones your whole team has earned? And is this heavily weighed?

Do you keep the camp staff clothes and how much does all that come out to?

I have a bunch more questions, but I'll wait for answers to these first! Haha thank you!

 

[cheerforeverever]

As far as tumbling, its not a requirement to necessarily have amazing tumbling but it does factor into your tryout (whether that be in person or sent on DVD). I'd say a good chunk at least started out their 1st year on staff having a standing tuck, but the most important thing I'd say is being a great all around cheerleader and having a personality. Who cares if a girl can do a full if its not correct technique and her motions are terrible! As staffers, you are primarily doing a lot of sharp motions, pretty jumps and correct stunting technique, while talking to coaches and teaching campers. Therefore there are staffers that may not have super tumbling, but can hold their own in jumps, motions, & stunts with an outgoing personality. Also, a lot depends on how many staffers your region needs that year and the level of talent coming in, just like a regular job interview!

As far as only going to 1 NCA camp, its better than none That won't necessarily stop them from hiring you, but as with a normal resume, the more things with meaning that you can put on there the better you look. Have you gone to NCA competitions or nationals? Any NCA special events? You may have more experience than you think.

For awards, I would put down individual awards, but also anything significant with NCA such as if your team took top team or champion chant at NCA camp this year, or if your team won NCA Allstar or High School Nationals. As far as it being heavily weighed, its just another factor in addition to the tryout/ DVD you send in and the rest of the written portion. It wont necessarily make or break you, but all of the factors are put together to make an opinion of whether you're ready for staff or not. You want to look as strong of a candidate as possible while obviously still being 100% honest in your achievements!

For the camp staff clothes, yes you buy them and keep them. Its typically 3 outfits & 1 practice wear T-shirt plus the NCA uniform, shoes and a backpack with camp materials(eval sheets,hair ribbons,instructor handbook & DVD, etc.). The clothing is significantly discounted though and some stuff you only end up paying shipping for(the camp materials & shoes typically). I'd say pretty much all of the individual items are between 5-15 dollars, with the uniform shell and skirt being like 20 dollars-ish each if I can remember correctly. They carry the outfits and uniform from year to year, so if you stay with staff every summer chances are you may not have to buy anything aside from a new summer practice t-shirt each summer for most summers. Sometimes you may have to buy a new outfit because one of the 3 you have retires or more rarely, the NCA uniform retires. It still is not much though at all! They know everyone is a student for the most part and try to keep it really cheap and affordable for us.

 

[allstar_cheer_diva93]

As far as tumbling, its not a requirement to necessarily have amazing tumbling but it does factor into your tryout (whether that be in person or sent on DVD). I'd say a good chunk at least started out their 1st year on staff having a standing tuck, but the most important thing I'd say is being a great all around cheerleader and having a personality. Who cares if a girl can do a full if its not correct technique and her motions are terrible! As staffers, you are primarily doing a lot of sharp motions, pretty jumps and correct stunting technique, while talking to coaches and teaching campers. Therefore there are staffers that may not have super tumbling, but can hold their own in jumps, motions, & stunts with an outgoing personality. Also, a lot depends on how many staffers your region needs that year and the level of talent coming in, just like a regular job interview!

As far as only going to 1 NCA camp, its better than none That won't necessarily stop them from hiring you, but as with a normal resume, the more things with meaning that you can put on there the better you look. Have you gone to NCA competitions or nationals? Any NCA special events? You may have more experience than you think.

For awards, I would put down individual awards, but also anything significant with NCA such as if your team took top team or champion chant at NCA camp this year, or if your team won NCA Allstar or High School Nationals. As far as it being heavily weighed, its just another factor in addition to the tryout/ DVD you send in and the rest of the written portion. It wont necessarily make or break you, but all of the factors are put together to make an opinion of whether you're ready for staff or not. You want to look as strong of a candidate as possible while obviously still being 100% honest in your achievements!

For the camp staff clothes, yes you buy them and keep them. Its typically 3 outfits & 1 practice wear T-shirt plus the NCA uniform, shoes and a backpack with camp materials(eval sheets,hair ribbons,instructor handbook & DVD, etc.). The clothing is significantly discounted though and some stuff you only end up paying shipping for(the camp materials & shoes typically). I'd say pretty much all of the individual items are between 5-15 dollars, with the uniform shell and skirt being like 20 dollars-ish each if I can remember correctly. They carry the outfits and uniform from year to year, so if you stay with staff every summer chances are you may not have to buy anything aside from a new summer practice t-shirt each summer for most summers. Sometimes you may have to buy a new outfit because one of the 3 you have retires or more rarely, the NCA uniform retires. It still is not much though at all! They know everyone is a student for the most part and try to keep it really cheap and affordable for us.

Thank you SO SO much!! My school used to be a UCA team and decided to switch to NCA and this is also my first year in High School cheer. I have no experience with NCA except one local competition we went to when I was on an allstar team. I think I may be totally diqualified but I think I'm going to go ahead and give it a shot. The worst that'll happen is I won't hear back. Are you NCA staff? If so, how long have you been staff?

 

[cheerforeverever]

Definately give it a shot! You never know until you try and even if they don't hire you, they'll still send you something like a "thanks but you aren't quite ready for staff this year" .If you truly want to do it after that, you can keep working on your skills, get more experience, and then try out the next year! I know several staffers that didn't even do staff until they were in their 20's or nearing the end of college, so you're never too old for staff if its a life goal!
I've done NCA staff for 2 years now and it's crazy, lots of hard work, but lots of fun! You get to travel all over your region and its an amazing feeling to see your buddy teams grow so much in such a few amount of days.

 

[allstar_cheer_diva93]

Definately give it a shot! You never know until you try and even if they don't hire you, they'll still send you something like a "thanks but you aren't quite ready for staff this year" .If you truly want to do it after that, you can keep working on your skills, get more experience, and then try out the next year! I know several staffers that didn't even do staff until they were in their 20's or nearing the end of college, so you're never too old for staff if its a life goal!
I've done NCA staff for 2 years now and it's crazy, lots of hard work, but lots of fun! You get to travel all over your region and its an amazing feeling to see your buddy teams grow so much in such a few amount of days.

I greatly appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions! Thank you so much! How many more camps are you working this summer?

 

[cheerforeverever]

Three

 

[allstar_cheer_diva93]

Three

Aww how fun! How many have you worked already? And what region are you in?

 

[beautyy4cheerr]

Is it even possible to make NCA staff w/o tumbling? :[ also for achievements what if you have a whole bunch of UCA awards lol i'm feeling like that's a bad idea to put on an NCA application

 

[allstar_cheer_diva93]

Is it even possible to make NCA staff w/o tumbling? :[ also for achievements what if you have a whole bunch of UCA awards lol i'm feeling like that's a bad idea to put on an NCA application

I don't have ZERO tumbling, just nothing amazing. And I don't have UCA awards.

 

[cheerforeverever]

I would say that unless you are an extremely buff 6 foot amazing guy stunter then you should probably at least have a backhandspring for tumbling. Like stated above, tumbling is only one part of the tryout so it is possible to make staff without having a standing backtuck or something crazy but your other application parts must be strong! Pretty Jumps, strong stunting technique (note that it is technique not necessarily just difficulty..... Same with tumbling, no matter how difficult the skill is, if it's ugly no one cares), a great personality, and extremely sharp motions are definately looked for in addition to just the tumbling.
As for UCA awards, technically they are the sister company of NCA as we are all under Varsity . There is a bit of a fun rivalry always between both staffs though! If you have all UCA awards, you may have a better chance of going out for UCA staff just due to the fact that your team has been trained in having more experience in the UCA style probably. If you are set on doing NCA staff though, I wouldn't necessarily not put awards you have earned.... just know that if your resume looks like "UCA UCA UCA UCA UCA UCA UCA NCA UCA UCA UCA UCA" the directors may be like "uhhhh? why didnt she try out for UCA?". Have some NCA experiences to balance out everything more and have a good reason for why you want to do NCA staff, because you have to video that anyways for both live tryout and DVD submissions.
Hope that helps!

 

[allstar_cheer_diva93]

Is it even possible to make NCA staff w/o tumbling? :[ also for achievements what if you have a whole bunch of UCA awards lol i'm feeling like that's a bad idea to put on an NCA application

Ignore me. I'm lame and read your post wrong. Sorry!