How this LSU women’s tennis player balances athletics with prestigious academic scholarship – lsureveille.com
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It feels like the athletic and academic worlds at universities are miles apart, but for Carina Holguin, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Holguin is a member of the LSU women’s tennis team and is set to graduate with college honors funded by the President’s Alumni Scholarship. From the beginning of her journey, it was all about balance.
“When recruiting really happened, and all those college decisions, I was really just trying to figure out what I wanted and how to balance both wanting to play tennis but also wanting to go somewhere with really strong academics,” Holguin said.
Presidents Alumni is an LSU-based scholarship that provides the full cost of attendance for four years of undergraduate school at LSU, along with a $2,000 study abroad stipend and money to live on while in school. For out-of-state students like Holguin, the value comes out to around $50,000 in funding.
What makes PA truly impressive is that LSU’s Ogden Honors College handpicks the recipients, starting all the way down with the applicant pool. Of each incoming freshman class, 1% of incoming freshmen are invited just to apply. From there, the OHC chooses about 50 finalists to interview, and roughly 20 are chosen for the Stamps and PA scholarships at LSU.
For Holguin, the interview round was more than just vying for a full-tuition scholarship; it was a moment of finding a home in the most unexpected place. She said she didn’t even want to go to LSU.
“LSU was not on my radar, like, at all,” Holguin said. “My mom just forced me to apply, because she kind of just wanted me to apply to a lot of state schools and kind of see what I got in terms of money. Then I ended up getting invited to come to Scholars Weekend to interview and compete for the Scholars Program.”
“Scholars Weekend” is when the interviews for the scholarship are conducted. For most students competing, it is the first time they truly get to experience campus, including mock classes, tours and whatever else a student could need.
The event is a big part of OHC recruitment, but for Holguin, it was the moment her future changed. She says that Scholars Weekend was when she was introduced to women’s tennis head coach Taylor Fogleman.
“I met with the coach and saw the facility and was trying to kind of do both at once,” Holguin said. “Then, when I ended up finding out that I did get the President’s Alumni Scholarship, the coach here also told me I had a spot on the team as well, and it kind of just was the perfect combination for me.”
So Holguin made the easiest decision of her life: she accepted the scholarship and her spot on the team.
The life of a D1 athlete is extremely hectic, Holguin said. Working 20 plus hours on the court and then classes, homework, trying to eat nutritiously and getting an appropriate amount of sleep in between long days.
With such a chaotic schedule, Holguin does assignments as soon as they are assigned, whether she wants to or not. She stays on top of communicating with her professors about traveling and other tennis-related absences.
Her best friend and teammate, Anita Sahdiieva, can attest to Holguin’s discipline in classwork.
“She is the most organized and Type A person that I know,” Sahdiieva said. “Her time management skills are insane. She’s the person that always knows super, super well what’s going on with her stuff. Her strength is just being super on top of everything, super proactive.”
Sahdiieva said that Holguin doesn’t procrastinate on any of her school work, from studying in the airport to completing finals prep a week early.
Holguin isn’t just a D1 athlete and student on an elite scholarship; she’s also a political science major with two minors and currently pursuing an accelerated master’s degree in public administration. She had the option to graduate early, but unlike many college students, she chose to stay in school longer.
“I actually came into LSU with a lot of credits, so I could have graduated in two years if I wanted to, and I did not want to,” Holguin said. “I wanted to get a longer experience here, but I didn’t want to add another major. I was talking to people in my departments and trying to figure out what I wanted to do, so I’m actually working on an accelerated master’s right now as well.”
According to her best friend, Holguin is very hard on herself, and that is a big part of why she’s so successful in the classroom and on the court. She doesn’t settle.
Sahdiieva recalled that in their second week of school, Holguin received a 94 on a test. Her friend congratulated her, but Holguin immediately knew there was something wrong with the test. Sahdiieva thought she was crazy.
“I didn’t know her that well at the time,” Sahdiieva explained. “Then she comes back five days later, ‘I was right. The test was wrong. The two questions that I got wrong were actually wrong.’ She talked to the professor, and then she got a 100 because the answers were not correct on the test.”
Sahdiieva also described Holguin as extremely communicative, organized and easy to talk to. She said all of these things explain why she’s able to compete in so many different aspects of life while maintaining poise through it all.
“If there’s one person that every single girl on a team would be comfortable talking to about anything and feeling safe, heard and supported, it would be Carina,” Sahdiieva said. “She’s just so amazing to be around in any moment.”
Someone with so much going on in her life has every right to be overly stressed and undercommunicative, but that’s not Holguin at all. She knows her goals, and she allows that to motivate her.
Holguin said that many of the women on her team plan to go pro and continue playing after college, but that isn’t the route she’s taking. She plans to put down the racket when she finishes her master’s degree in the spring of 2027.
Even before college tennis opportunities arose, Holguin knew she wanted to go to law school, and nothing changed that. She took the LSAT a few weeks ago and is keeping her options open for the time being.
In a world where athletics can be valued over academics, there are people like Holguin showing that sports are just a part of your life, not the whole thing. She said she feels grateful to experience the strict schedule she has grown accustomed to, and it has been a great experience as a Tiger.
“I’ve been very lucky to get to be a part of both worlds here at LSU,” Holguin said. “I feel like our academics and our athletic institutions are very separate, which I don’t think should be like that, but I’ve been lucky enough to get to be part of an amazing athletic program and also a very unique and personalized academic program.”
