Personal Statement
In the first semester of my senior year everything is coming together. I’ve made a series of accomplishments in both my academics and athletics. I ended the first quarter on the honor roll for the first time in my high school career with a GPA of 3.375. On the athletic side of things, I set a new school record during cross-country season in the 5k run twice. I ran a 16:45 at a track meet before the county championships and then I went on to break that record at the county championships with a time of 16:41 (there is an article about me winning this race in the Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/highschools/cross-country-fairmont-heights-anthony-glasgow-goes-the-distance-to-win-county-title/2015/10/21/89f05ee6-784a-11e5-b9c1-f03c48c96ac2_story.html). I also took the title of 1A regional champion interview here:https://www.milesplit.com/videos/101358 }. The course for the state championship meet was the most difficult of all and I couldn’t pull out a first place, but I managed to finish as the 1A state runner up. It hasn’t been easy getting to this point.
My family and I have always hoped that I would go to college. Therefore we decided that I should enroll into Possibility Preparatory Academy in hopes of expanding my educational opportunities. My experience there ended up being totally different than we expected. The school ran for only one year before it was forced to close. When I transferred to a new school, Possibility Prep lost all student records including mine. When I began at my new school, I had to repeat all of my previous classes while my classmates were taking on-grade level classes and in some cases advanced placement classes.
My high school experience has been tantamount to that of a rollercoaster ride. Freshman year was as expected, a new experience for me compared to middle school. My freshman year went fairly well and I thought that maybe high school wasn’t the jungle that I had heard about. Sophomore year was horrible. I was forced to open my eyes and realize that this was it. I learned the hard way high school is the next step to college and that there aren’t any cut cards. I was slow to catch up to my new classes and my schoolwork schedule. I wasn’t used to the amount of work I was receiving and it became a problem. I wasn’t able to turn work in on time causing more work to pile up. My grades began to suffer. I ended my sophomore year barely passing my classes and even failing one class. After meeting with my counselor about my high school progression, I decided that I wanted colleges to see that even though my sophomore year wasn’t very positive, that I made improvements in my junior year.
Meanwhile I discovered that I have a talent for track and field. I began to think that if I perform well enough in athletics I would open a new door for more opportunities to be accepted into colleges. Therefore I put my attention on running. I became first in the state for the 800m run and second in the state for the mile run and the 500m dash on my junior year.
Even though I have been, in a sense, using track as an opportunity for colleges to be interested in me, I still want my college experience to assist my academic performance and bring me up to par with my classmates. When I am done with high school and college, I want to be able to have multiple career choices to choose from. Therefore I expect to pour all of my focus equally into track and my academics.
