Carmen Montalvo '12 Recruiting Profile

I am 5'8" and weigh 175 lbs. While swimming on a club team for 10 years, I qualified to swim  at state almost every year .My personal best times are in the middle distant range such as the 200 Back or Free or the 500 Free and the mile. I always try to get my teamates to think positively before a race and during practice. On July 10, 2011, I swam the 1500m free. Prior to the race, some of my team mates were  so nervous and thinking negatively about their 1500m free. I encouraged them until they raced to personal best times.   I want to keep swimming the rest of my life because I love it so much and being in the water feels natural to me. Being on a college swim team seems to be more competitve and fun than the club team. I notice that I swim faster when swimmers cheer and encourage each other.  I would love to go to school somewhere warm and near the coast, because I would like to major in marine biology. I am more interested in a coastal location such as Florida because it is warm most of the year and has easy access to the ocean. The college I am looking for needs to be medium, have a good academic program, offer Division II in swimming, and is nondenominational. I am open to other divisions but I would like to be in division II.  I hope to swim all my years in college, make my team my family, and compete at the highest level meet in college swimming possible at some point in my college swimming career.