On 22 March, Shenzhen Merchiston International School officially signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Golf Planet, announcing the first full-time Golf Academy program in the Greater Bay Area. 

At the event, representatives from both sides signed a letter of intent for a million-yuan scholarship with the parents of the first batch of students admitted in the academy.

Data shows that among the freshmen admitted to eight Ivy League universities, including Harvard and Yale, an average of one in ten students in 2023 will be athletic recruit, and this ratio has remained stable in the 10-12% range for five consecutive years. These figures reveal a new trend in education: sports skills are becoming an important dimension in selecting talents for top U.S. universities.

In this regard, MIS Shenzhen Golf Academy has directly addressed the anxiety of parents - not only to avoid the ‘grades only’ education, but also to empower students’ global competitiveness through sports. The ‘academic excellence and golf professionalism’ will help students seize the first opportunity in the future competition, forging core competitiveness that cannot be replaced by AI, and providing an innovative model for international education in the Greater Bay Area.

Unlike ordinary courses, MIS Golf Academy is fully synchronised with the American golf training system, and at the same time, provides a pure British international curriculum. In the morning, children will be studying in MIS, immersed in the British education, and in the afternoon, they swing on the international standard 18-hole course under the guidance of professional coaches.

The coach Andrew Dawes is selected as one of the Top 20 coaches in the United States. His training of golf players such as Aline Krauter and more than 30 students, who were admitted to first-class universities such as Stanford University, Louisiana State University and other top universities and received scholarships, is a good proof of the complementary nature of sports and academics.

Andrew Dawes

In order to encourage more outstanding students to enter the world's most prestigious universities through golf, the Academy has set up the ‘Million Yuan Scholarship Programme’, offering three full-Tuition scholarships and six Half-Tuition scholarships each year, with assessment criteria covering academic performance, golf performance and overall qualities. Selected students are required to maintain the dual criteria of ‘academic excellence and golf ranking’.

In the special ‘Tribute to the Classics·The Masters Tournament - Family Day’, nearly 20 groups of families dressed in customised golf uniforms competed on the 9-hole course at Mission Hills Golf Club’s FALDO COURSE on G Planet.

Left: Founder of BrightFuture Leon

 Right: Founder of Golf·Planet Prisilla

Aas the first overseas branch of the 200-year-old Scotland Merchiston Castle School, MIS Shenzhen is now following the footprint of Scotland, the birthplace of golf sport.

2021, MIS Edinburgh's alma mater won the second place in the UK National Golf Tournament, and this cooperation is also an in-depth practice of the concept of British whole-person education.

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The head of the MIS Golf Academy said in his speech, ‘We look forward to nurturing more future leaders with both academic depth and sportsmanship.’ As the link between sportsmanship and academic achievement, golf is not only about how to hit the ball into the hole, but also the art of decision-making in adversity. This is the core competitiveness to cope with future changes.  Which can never be replaced by AI.