Personal Statement
I absolutely love playing tennis and especially enjoy being on my school varsity team as I have been since 8th grade (when I played 3rd singles, was undefeated, won the league championship and personally won the All-Star award from the league). Last year I played 2nd singles, was undefeated, won the league championship and personally won the All-Star award again. This year I am playing 1st singles. I also currently play on an Advanced (invitation-only) 18U team for the John McEnroe Tennis Academy where I play three times/week (often after two hours of team practice). It is my dream to continue with tennis during my college years. Currently, I am 5’6’’, and weigh 113lbs.
As a person, I am happiest when I am busy so I pursue many other interests both in and out of school. Three years ago, I started an on-line baking business (www.olivialuv.com) from the website on up and have always donated 20% of my profits to charity. Last December I published a cookbook, Liv Sweet: Sweet Recipes from a Teenage Baker, which is available on Amazon (I also took all of the food photographs). At school I am currently the President of my class, Associate Editor of the Philomel Literary Magazine (grades 9 and 10), Associate Editor of the Yearbook, Reporter for the School Newspaper, Tour Guide and a Project Manager for the Riley’s Way Foundation. Schoolwork is another important focus and I have consistently earned A’s and a couple of A-‘s, including in my advanced Math and Latin classes.
Leadership is very important to me and I think both my classmates and my teammates would agree that I work hard to be a good, strong and fair leader. Some leadership moments have come as a surprise but have been rewarding nonetheless. For example, I found myself shouldering the majority of the leadership responsibilities this year for the yearbook after having only been a photographer last year. This required motivating many students and faculty in a short period of time to complete a great deal of work. Because of the tight deadline and my increased role, the experience was stressful at the time but luckily the project was very successful in the end.
I am very open-minded about the college that I will eventually attend with a few exceptions. I am most interested in medium-sized schools and small schools in or near urban areas. I am very interested in Business but I am not sure what my major will be as I am also extremely interested in History and perhaps Psychology. I will take a 3-week course in Organizational Behavior at Brown University over the summer (and hopefully play lots of tennis while I am there). I will also attend a tournament camp at Emory University for two weeks and will train privately and play tournaments/ID camp for the rest of the summer.
