Personal Statement
Even at a young age, I always had a natural love for the water. It seemed only fitting that my parents place me in swim lessons, giving me a basic knowledge of the four strokes and an overall feel for the water. As I continued to grow and my enjoyment of being in a pool increased, I decided to try out for the local YMCA swim team. This ended up being a life-changing decision. I completely fell in love with everything that surrounds the sport of swimming: the coaches, the swimmers, but most importantly, the racing. On my first year on the YMCA team, I trained hard with a group of level one swimmers all year. However, at the last meet of the season, I qualified for NY YMCA states in the 50 free, and was moved up to group two where I swam with much older swimmers and learned about all of the different aspects of the sport. When the state meet finally arrived, my 200 medley relay team won first place overall, giving me a sense of accomplishment and solidifying my status as a competitive swimmer.
Since my early days of the sport, I have learned so much about life, hard work, and most importantly, goals. My varsity coach and club coach both stress the importance of goal setting. Having recently joined a different and more competitive club team, it was especially important for me this winter season to set goals that I could strive for. I achieved my season goals with a lot of effort and hard work, getting best times in every event I swam at Gold Championships. If this season taught me anything, it was determination; to not give up despite all of the times that my goals seemed so far-fetched and difficult. This lesson has also helped me in school. It has taught me not to just figure out the answer to a difficult problem, but to figure out how to find the answer. As a student who likes to challenge myself, this lesson helped me out in a lot of my difficult classes.
Picking a schedule for senior year can be difficult. A lot of students prefer to take easy classes so they can relax after a challenging junior year. However, I tend to enjoy the challenge that a difficult class brings. I like to learn and I enjoy being introduced to new and innovative ideas that will further develop my thinking. This aspect of my personality translates to all parts of my life. I do not like to back down from a challenge, and if a coach asks me to do something I will do it no matter how difficult it is. Although being competitive is a huge part of swimming, in my opinion a larger and more important aspect of the sport is being respectful. It is important to show respect to all people on and off of the pool deck. This includes coaches, officials, and fellow swimmers. I am a three time recipient of the Respect Award at my high school, possibly the honor that I am the most proud of. This holds true for my team members as well. The Saratoga Springs Varsity Swim Team has been awarded best sportsmanship for the last several years in a row, a statistic that I hold higher in value than any race time or point value.
Although I have been swimming for seven years now, I continue to learn and grow as a person from this amazing sport every day of my life. This is why I would like to competitively swim in college. Every coach I have had has taught me amazing life lessons that I can translate into everyday use. And more than that, I still have a piece of that child in me, who simply loves the water and wants to be in it as much as possible.
