Personal Statement
Soccer has been a passion of mine since a very young age, and I have dreamed of the opportunity to play in college. I have always made my grades and education a high priority, and have maintained a high GPA throughout my freshman and sophomore years while taking an honors course each year, and made Principal Honor Roll List each year as well.
My academic goals as a junior are to become a member of the National Honors Society, take more honors courses (Precalculus and Chemistry) and advanced classes (AP Environmental Science and College Spanish), and continue to be a scholar-athlete at my high school.
I enjoy challenging myself through my education and soccer experiences. I first joined a highly competitive and successful premier level soccer team Just Play Soccer Club (JPSC) at the U13 age group, where I developed into a very strong player and earned a starting role within my first season with the club. Across my 3 years with the club, I continued to challenge myself by playing with older age groups inside my club (both 1 or 2 years older), which has been a great experience for me to become a better player and teammate. My strongest attributes like speed, anticipation, and vision on the field make me an overall excellent athlete. That has allowed me to earn starting positions on each team I become a part of, including my club teams and my high school’s JV A team during my freshman year and varsity team during my sophomore year.
I challenged myself during the summer of 2019 when I took a trip with JPSC to Portugal where we visited several cities. I had a great experience training with high-level local coaches and scrimmaging the youth academies of FC Porto, Guimaraes FC and a Japanese development team that was training in Portugal for the summer. It was great to see the style of play and culture of soccer in a country as passionate for the sport as Portugal, as well as have the opportunity to tour parts of the country. I further challenged myself by joining an even more successful and competitive team in the U16 age group, FC Somers Arsenal (Arsenal). Arsenal is a nationally ranked team (11th as of 7/5/2020) and a top 5 team in a strong New York East region (4th as of 7/5/2020), based upon results of season play and tournaments/events among club teams and regularly plays top teams which is helping me continue to improve as a player.
I continued to improve my GPA from the prior year as I take my studies very seriously, while having a very hectic schedule at times. It was very disappointing to have COVID-19 hit during the winter of 2020 which lead to the spring soccer season being canceled, especially since Arsenal had a very active schedule ahead with plans to progress to an even higher level in 2021 based on our results of the spring season. However, I took advantage of the time off and put in a lot of work training to keep developing and improving as a player, as well as improving my strength and speed. I still hope to get some competitive games this summer to stay sharp before the high school season begins in the fall.
I am looking to attend a college that can help me achieve my goals in education and soccer. I realize how challenging it can be to manage a college sport and academics, but feel I have proven that I am up for the challenge to balance both.
