Isabel "Izzy" Zhang '20 Recruiting Profile

My name is Izzy Zhang and I am a rising junior at The Potomac School. I was introduced to competitive running in freshman year and instantly fell in love with the sport; I love the endless opportunity for self-improvement, the straightforward emphasis on hard work, and the fostering of my competitive spirit. Over the course of my indoor and outdoor season of freshman year, I drastically improved and capped off an amazing first two seasons by helping lead our 4x800 relay to a third-place finish at conference championships and a second place finish at state championships, earning All-State honors. In sophomore year I decided to pause tennis, another competitive sport I played,  to pursue my love of running during the cross country season. Unfortunately, I was injured for most of the season, but through the intense effort in the last few weeks once I recovered I was able to make the varsity team my first race and ran varsity during conference championships. In addition, as one of the top five finishers, I helped lead my team to a 7th place finish (best in a while) during state championships. I continued working hard during track season, lowering my PR to a 2:33 and leading off relays at conference and state meets. 

Just as in running, I like to push myself academically. I have enrolled in the most challenging courses my school offers and have maintained straight A's in those classes. In addition to a strong focus on academics and athletics, I also pursue many extracurricular interests such as violin (which I play at a pre-professional level), Model United Nations, writing for a literary magazine, robotics, and ASIA (diversity club).  I am training over the summer am looking forward to continuing working hard next year in the cross country and track season and further lowering my times. I aspire to continue improving myself as a student, athlete, and person in college and hope to run competitively on a division three running school with strong academics.