 After being heavily recruited by several colleges around the country, Solo attended the University of Washington from 1999 to 2002 where she majored in speech communications. With the Huskies, she switched permanently to goalkeeper under the lead of head coach Lesle Gallimore and goalkeeper coach and former national team player, Amy Griffin. Solo described the transition in her memoir, "In high school, I had been the forward who won games. It was a huge mental adjustment to learn that my job was to save games. To anticipate what was needed. Before, I would stand in goal, the ball would come toward me, and I 'd use my athletic ability to make the save. But thanks to Amy's tutelage and my time with the national team, I was becoming a much better tactical goalkeeper. I learned how to read my opponents'runs toward goal, how to position my defenders, how to see the angles ... The intellectual side also made goalkeeping so much more interesting. It wasn't just ninety minutes of waiting for my defense to make a mistake. It was ninety minutes of tactics and strategy. The personality traits that had been shaped by my childhood — resilience and toughness — were assets at the position."
