December 22 — Dartmouth knocked on Isaac Ahn’s door.
Colombia too.
In fact, almost every Ivy League university was interested in student Ahn (a National Merit Scholarship semifinalist, hoping to become a finalist); Ahn the person (he is the co-captain of the Mayo chess team, among other interests) and Ahn the athlete (two-time qualifier for the Minnesota Class 3A high school state competition).
Ahn said he is impressed by what Dartmouth, Columbia and others offer athletically, academically and socially. But the more he thought about it, the more the Rochester Mayo High School senior came to one conclusion.
“Harvard was my first choice. I got to visit all these different schools on recruiting visits and I loved everything about Harvard,” said Ahn, who has a 4.0 grade point average, a grade point average of 4.93 and a score of 1,570 on his SAT (the median). The SAT score for students admitted to Harvard is approximately 1,520). “I can really thrive there as a student and an athlete.”
Ahn will have this chance from fall 2025.
After going through a lengthy and comprehensive admissions process – including writing several essays, answering hundreds of other questions, submitting high school transcripts and letters of recommendation from at least two teachers – Ahn learned on December 12 that he had been accepted into the prestigious University of Cambridge, Mass.
More good news soon followed for Ahn, during a call with Fred Schernecker, the director of Harvard Golf, and Kevin Rhoads, the Crimson head coach. They are ready to welcome Ahn to the Harvard men’s golf program with open arms.
“It’s definitely a relief to be done with” the recruiting process, Ahn said. “At first it was exciting, it started in June 2023 when I was able to start talking to coaches. Even before that I was sending emails.
“It’s exciting at first. Then I realized it was a very competitive environment in the sense that the coaches only had a limited number of spots and were dealing with a lot of other kids. C It’s a lot of pressure.”
Ahn is a two-time qualifier for the Class 3A state competitions.
As a freshman in 2022, Ahn was tied for 10th place, with a total of 36 holes of 3-over-par 147.
In 2023, he helped Mayo boys reach state as a team for the first time in over 20 years. He tied with teammate and classmate Tim Sexton that season for 17th at state (both shooting 4 over par for the 36-hole competition), while the Spartans finished fifth in the team rankings.
Ahn, who plays almost non-stop in the summer, in the American Junior Golf Association and other prestigious junior events, said he is looking forward to another spring season with his Mayo teammates and a chance to winning a state team championship and individual medalist honors. .
The high school season begins March 17. The state competition ends June 11. Then it’s a summer of junior tournaments before heading to Cambridge to start a new academic and sporting life.
Ahn expects to be one of three freshmen on the men’s golf team in the fall. He’s just as excited, he said, to embark on the academic part of his college career. Ahn is a math fanatic who plans to major in applied mathematics. He has spent a lot of time studying Google’s PageRank algorithm – which measures the number and quality of links to a web page, to determine the importance of the website – and would like to work on something similar after obtaining his university degree.
During his visit to Harvard, with two of his future golf teammates, he was able to observe a number of classrooms, particularly in small groups.
“The students there are amazing,” Ahn said. “Everyone is different and has a whole different level of communication skills and intellectual abilities. The entire student body, represented by this golf team, is something I want to be a part of.
“They are all very good role models.”
Last summer, Ahn had been thinking for some time about how he could give back to the local golf community and the AJGA community, both of which have been extremely supportive of him and helped him become the golfer and the person he is today.
While in Illinois for a junior tournament, Ahn was at a laundromat when he struck up a conversation with another golfer who was doing laundry at the same time. Ahn learned that his peer was only able to travel to participate in this particular tournament thanks to the support of the AJGA Liberty National Ace Grant, which provides financial support to young men and women who aspire to obtain a college golf scholarship in playing competitive junior golf.
That’s when the idea came to Ahn’s mind.
On September 22, he hosted a Swing For Kids charity golf tournament at Eastwood Golf Course in Rochester, home of the Mayo Spartans.
The event attracted dozens of golfers from Rochester and surrounding communities and Ahn raised nearly $11,000 for Liberty National Ace Grant and for the First Tee of Rochester, which helps young golfers of all ages pay green fees on local courses and gives them access to practice facilities.
“I thought this would be an incredible way to bring the Rochester golf community together and an opportunity to give back to them,” Ahn said. “(In Illinois), I saw the amazing things that Ace Grant does and I saw that it benefits good-hearted kids who are motivated to compete and play golf.”
The fundraiser was the highlight of an impressive year for Ahn. He was named a National Merit Scholar semifinalist and hopes to advance to finalist status. He was selected as one of 28 boy golfers on the AJGA Tour as a Rolex Scholastic All-American (an honor that takes into account high school GPA, test scores and golf achievements). Closer to home, he also won the 2024 Rochester All-City Championship, defeating a talented field of local golfers of all ages.
All of this, including her recent acceptance to Harvard, would not have been possible, Ahn said, without her faith and the support of her parents, Sharon and Edward.
“My parents and my faith have been with me every step of the way,” Isaac said. “It’s been such a crazy ride…and they’ve been fully supportive of my decisions.”
