Personal Information
Lara de Vreede was born in Breda, the Netherlands on July 6th, 2006. Together with her parents, older sister, and younger brother, she moved to Hamburg, Germany when she was three years old for her father's work at Unilever. Here she joined The International School Hamburg (ISH). At the age of eight, she moved to Lagos, Nigeria with her family and enrolled in the American International School of Lagos (AISL). Back in the Netherlands, she went to middle and high school at the highest level (VWO), at Goois Lyceum in Bussum. She is currently in her senior year, expected to graduate in May 2024 in the following subjects: English, Dutch, German, Mathematics, Geography, History, Economics, and Philosophy. She completed the Cambridge exam in 2021 at level C1. Furthermore, she achieved a composite score of 1190 on her SAT. Although Dutch is her mother tongue, her English is fluent due to her years of English education abroad.
Lara is a dedicated and high-achieving student with strong leadership capabilities. Living abroad and attending numerous schools with differing education systems has taught Lara to adapt to different circumstances and cooperate and work together with students from a wide variety of backgrounds and cultures. Her experience living among people with different backgrounds sparked an interest in studying borders and their effect on discrimination. As a result, she is now writing her VWO end paper on the effect land borders have in Europe.
Read more3Lara is interested in intercultural and human relationships from a social, psychological, and philosophical point of view. She has worked outside of school and done volunteer work in her field of interest, working with children, helping elderly people suffering from dementia, and helping refugees to adapt and to be able to work.
Lara is still looking at majors that match her interests as mentioned above. Given her academic and soccer ambitions, joining a US college would be a great opportunity to combine these two goals. In addition, her strong character and social skills will help her fit in well among other students.
Athletic Information
Lara started to play soccer at the age of five with the boys in a boys team. When she moved back to the Netherlands she joined the local club SV Laren playing for both the girls and the boys teams. She then was invited by to play at a higher regional division at BFC in Bussum for the U-15 first girls team. In addition to her club practice at BFC, Lara also started practicing at the soccer academy UVVA on Sundays. This improved her technical skills even more.
In 2021 UVVA selected Lara to play for their U-16 girls team that competed in a U-15 boys league (2nd division) and successfully attended international tournaments. The following season, Lara and her U-17 girls team were promoted from Hoofdklasse to the first division and ended in the top 4 of the national tournament of the U-17 girls' teams in the Netherlands. This season, Lara competes for the first U-20 girls team that competes in the "Hoofdklasse".
Lara has played in various positions including as a center-back, a central midfielder, and a striker. But she has now developed herself as a strong central midfielder with excellent technical abilities. Lara's strong points are her strength, her perfect overall view and insight in the game, her accurate long and short-range passes, her calmness on the ball (even under pressure), and her leadership qualities. Her defensive abilities have helped her to learn how to play as a CDM as well as a CAM. Coaches like to work with Lara because she is always hard-working and willing to improve her skills.
To become a better overall athlete and to keep improving her physical strength, Lara joins the gym in her free time once or twice a week.
