By Tim Merrick

Yale College, like the other Ivy League schools, is considered one of the country’s toughest colleges or universities to get into. According to The Yale Daily News, the New Haven, Connecticut-based school received more than 52,000 applications for the class of 2027– the largest number ever – and admitted only 2,275. With just a 4.35% acceptance rate, those students represent the brightest minds who boast the best resumes from across the country.
 
Faisal Patel is no different.
 
Patel, 17, of Morton Grove, is in his first year at Yale with a double-major in Molecular Biology and Economics. Growing up in a household that consisted of an older sister and a grandmother who is deaf and does not speak English, the value of a strong education was instilled in him from a young age.
 
“I always grew up with those two figures in my life,” recalls Patel, a recent graduate of the Illinois Math and Science Academy in Aurora. “They always pushed for me to get a strong education because that’s something my grandmother didn’t have growing up.”
 
While many of his peers understood that their parents would help fund their college tuition, Patel knew he had to work twice as hard in order to be recognized by scholarships, so he too could pay for school. That all came to fruition with an email received while on the golf course.

“I remember I was out on the course, and I got one of those emails from Youth on Course and it was like ‘If you’re a senior, please apply,’” said Patel. “I was like ‘I might as well apply.’”
 
In April, Patel was announced as one of 20 Youth on Course Scholarship recipients. Youth on Course, which is administered at the local level by the CDGA through CDGA Youth Memberships, offers golfers ages 6-18 access to rounds for $5 or less. Since the inception of the national organization’s scholarship program in 2008, 323 Youth on Course members have been awarded more than $2.6 million in financial support. Patel remembers hearing the news, knowing how it would impact his life.
 
“I was in complete shock,” said Patel. “The money will be able to help me through my research endeavors and my path through college and medical school. It’s really going to make a huge impact on me in my educational endeavors.”
 
Last year, the sixth year of the program in Illinois, more than 4,500 Youth on Course participants played more than 11,000 rounds at over 50 participating facilities in the Chicago District. The CDGA subsidized those rounds by paying courses more than $63,000 in 2022.

Before becoming a Youth on Course member in 2020, golf was not front-of-mind for Patel, who carried a 4.0 GPA in high school, and for good reason. Amongst a host of other extracurricular activities, Patel helped create the Red Cross Club, which helped educate students on international and humanitarian laws. He started a non-profit with friends aimed at serving underprivileged students by way of math tutoring. He’s also spent two years as a primary research intern at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, using his grandmother’s deafness as a driving force behind his help in studying the ear and efforts to help those like her.
 
With that math and science mindset, Patel remembers watching the Masters when he was younger, and wondering how professional golfers could exert so much force on a tiny ball with such accuracy. Having played more physical sports like soccer and basketball as a kid, the emphasis of the mental game of golf was enticing. A trip to the Harry Semrow Driving Range in Des Plaines and an introduction to the Youth on Course program was the stepping stone to a full-on love affair that even included being named captain of the varsity golf team during his junior year.
 
“To have access to that for $5, I was really taken at a shock,” said Patel. “There would be no way I would be golfing nearly as much as I do now. I always love being paired up with new people – getting to know them, where they work, their jobs. Golf is such a big community and Youth on Course allows me to access all of these courses, all of these people, at an affordable rate.”
 
Patel has begun his time at Yale already, with the hopes of becoming a doctor and learning more about the business side of the medical industry to hopefully open his own clinic one day. As one of just over 2,000 new students at the college, Patel is quick to point out that future Ivy Leaguers and parents alike should be more willing to utilize golf and Youth on Course on the road to getting a college degree.

“There are so many opportunities within Youth on Course, so many partnerships with different clubs and organizations,” said Patel. “The access to courses, the connection and the bond, to me it’s a no-brainer.”

It doesn’t take a Yale degree to recognize the value of Youth on Course.