Personal Statement
Hi, my name is Emilee Solomon. I am a year 11 (Junior) student from Queensland Australia, looking for an opportunity to complete a degree in the American collegiate system, while competing in the sport I fell in love with at the age of 5. Education is extremely important to me in order to have a good career after college. Throughout my softball career, I have always worked hard on my softball skills but I have worked equally as hard at school to maintain high grades. I believe that I would be an excellent candidate for a collegiate team as I have played representative softball at all levels in Australia, such as representing my state, QLD, from the age of 12 and my country, Australia, from the age of 15. I enjoy being part of team environments and I am always looking forward to a new challenge. I have a growth mindset and am always looking and willing to learn new things to improve my game while remaining level-headed in pressured situations.
At the age of 14, I was selected to represent both the U15 and U17 Queensland state teams, and I had to choose one or the other as the nationals championships were at the same time. This decision was extremely hard as I knew if I went away with U15 QLD state team I would have played almost every game and would have left the national titles with second place or maybe even higher. I chose however to participate in the U17 national competition. I didn’t know what to expect from the competition, but I knew to choose it for the higher-level competition and athletes.
I had this feeling that being one of only three 14 year old’s at this national competition I had to prepare myself that I was probably going to get very limited game time, and this was the case, but when I did get my opportunities I excelled impressing my coaches and national selectors but more importantly assisting my team. I had a growth mindset and just having the opportunity to compete above my age group fired me up to make sure that I stayed the best in my age group to make sure I was getting the game time that I aspired to have in the years to come.