My experience

My experience

My name is Polina Malykh, and I have come all the way from Moscow, Russia, to Provo, Utah, United States. I have been playing professional tennis since I was five-years-old, and I am now a Division 1 tennis player at Brigham Young University. Tennis has given me so many opportunities and taught me so many things. Being a D1 student-athlete is one of the blessings I have ever received.

I had no idea that tennis players can go to America and can get a full ride to get a degree. Until 2015. We found out about it by chance, and my dad inspired me to try it. When I just started my final 11th grade in September (Russia has 11 grades, not 12), I’ve also started preparing for SAT and Toefl. On top of that, I have also been preparing for Russian National Final Exams since I didn’t want to lose my opportunity to study in Russia if something goes wrong. I also played tennis every day. Was I stressed? Yes. But I was also super excited. I took SAT and Toefl in November, and I’ve got really good scores.

It took forever to get all the information and other things ready before coaches started reaching out to me. I have countless Skype conversations & many more questions. I went on official visits with my mom to Pitt, North Texas, and Brigham Young University. I have chosen the last one, and was super excited, but I didn’t know what a challenging way it is still in front of me.

The whole process was nerve-racking and difficult. I’ve work with an agency which is now closed. A lot of things we have done on our own – preparing documents, translating, sending them. A lot of information was needed directly for my university. A lot of questions appeared. It was overall a challenging but super exciting experience. But because of the good communication with coaches – I have made my dream come true.

But unfortunately, this communication is now not on the same level, which makes it difficult for people on another part of the world to connect. Where to go? Where to write? How to apply? What to do? Whom to trust?

Because of my personal experience with American university, living in United States, being a student-athlete, I want to help others. I want coaches to find perspective Russian athletes and make their dreams come true. I want athletes to find a home on another continent and make him/her dream come true. I want to make the process much easier for both sides.

And that’s why we’ve created «Sport 4 Study» – a unique product, platform, which re-creates the channel of communication with American schools.

We connect the two.