Ellie Park, Multimedia Managing Editor

Paul Lomax ’27 always loved academics. As an International Baccalaureate student in high school, he knew his future was in college — but his path there would be far from traditional.

After graduating high school, he enrolled in the Navy, where he served six years, including two deployments in Afghanistan. It was during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 that he experienced a turning point. Witnessing the complexities of the situation firsthand, he realized that creating lasting impact would not just come from the battlefield but also through shaping policy. 

That moment sparked his decision to pursue a career in government — and ultimately led him to Yale’s Eli Whitney Students Program.   

“We betrayed a lot of people that helped us overseas, and a lot of people lost their lives because of that, and that’s weighed on me ever since,” Lomax said. “I made a vow to myself at the moment that I would never let something of that nature happen again.”

Lomax was admitted to Yale through the Eli Whitney Students Program, designed for non-traditional undergraduates who have been out of high school for at least five years and have not yet earned a bachelor’s degree. Students in the program hail from diverse backgrounds. Many are veterans; others are entrepreneurs, Olympic athletes and artists. 

While Eli Whitney students integrate into undergraduate life much like traditional undergraduate students do, they make distinctive and significant contributions to the Yale College community and enhance the strength and diversity of the undergraduate student body, said Jeremiah Quinlan, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions.

According to Quinlan, most Eli Whitney students have had unique professional and personal experiences, with around 50 percent having served in the armed forces.

The News spoke to three Eli Whitney students about their journeys from military service to Yale and how their unique experiences shape campus life.

Paul Lomax turns military experience into civic ambition 

Lomax, a political science major at Yale, plans to work in the Department of Defense after graduation, focusing on national security with the possibility of pursuing a political career down the line. The week before entering Yale as a first-year student, he was still on active duty, completing full mission briefs in Virginia. 

“The abrupt change from that environment to the classroom was quite a bit for me, and at the beginning, adjusting to Yale was difficult,” he said.

Lomax shared that this led him to remain passive in discussions and be cautious about speaking in class. Over time, he found value in sharing his thoughts confidently in classroom discussions and has taken impactful courses, such as “Nuclear Politics” with Alexander Debs.

Karolina Burtell finds her voice through service and storytelling 

Karolina Burtell ’27 grew up in a family with eleven children. College did not seem like a “promising avenue,” so she joined the Air Force.

Burtell first worked as a weather forecaster, where she studied hard, earned distinctions from her peers, and was awarded “Senior Airmen Below the Zone” for her efforts.

“I didn’t really know what I wanted to do while I was in the Air Force, so I just trusted my gut and did what was interesting to me,” she said.

After experiencing sexual assault while in the Air Force, Burtell taught “sexual assault yoga” to survivors. Leading these exercises was incredibly important to her, allowing her to give back to people in the community that she was a part of.

Burtell played with the idea of going to college for a while, but it was only after meeting her mentor through a nonprofit organization called Service to School that she realized it was still a possibility. She completed her application and essays while deployed in Saudi Arabia, lodged in a dusty tent library, and watched videos from the “College Essay Guy.”

“I love writing journaling, and I think writing application essays was honestly a creative outlet for me to just write a story about myself; I’ve always dreamt of writing memoirs,” she said.

Burtell shared that her experiences in the Air Force helped her truly listen to other people’s needs and be aware of the people around her.

Burtell is majoring in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology. She describes her experience as transformative, mentioning her work with supportive faculty, exciting course material, and inspiring peers.

Similar to Lomax, adjusting to civilian and college life was initially difficult. Even the simplest things, like figuring out her style, were new to her. During her time at Yale, she has continued to discover the importance of self-improvement and mental health and believes that although she is older than most undergraduates, she is “still figuring out a lot and growing too.”

Patrick McGrath trades missions for Wall Street dreams 

Patrick McGrath ’26 graduated from high school in 2013 and immediately enlisted in the Coast Guard, serving on active duty for seven years.

McGrath said that service was fun for a while, but eventually, the work got repetitive. As he moved up the rankings, he found that he was pushed away from executing missions and more into material roles.

“I figured if I was just going to manage people, I didn’t want to do it in the military,” he said.

After his contract ended in 2020, he enrolled in the City College of San Francisco and eventually decided on a career in investment banking. McGrath landed the job he wanted but soon realized that to break into top Wall Street firms, he needed to attend a target school — an elite university where leading firms are actively recruiting students.

Like Burtell, McGrath also learned about the EWSP through Service to School, where they recommended Yale as the school that “treated veterans the best.”

After his acceptance, McGrath spent a day touring Yale and reached out to Eli Whitney students to get a meal and talk about the program.

“Around ten Eli Whitney students came to the dinner, and I was really surprised. They were all super eager to meet me, and hear my story,” he said. “That experience, to me, spoke volumes about the community here.”

Now, in his second year at Yale after entering as a sophomore due to his community college transfer credits, McGrath describes his experience as “overwhelmingly positive.”

While he initially faced challenges adjusting to the academic rigor, he was quickly able to adjust due to the “extensive resources” at his fingertips.

Socially, his experience has lived up to his original tour. He described the Eli Whitney community at Yale as incredibly close, where he often hosts poker nights and has gone on trips to India and the United Arab Emirates with fellow students in the program.

McGrath has also formed strong relationships with traditional students, whether through study groups, investment clubs or the Jonathon Edwards dining hall.

He said that the biggest social barrier between Eli Whitney students and traditional undergraduates is often age, but hopes to dismantle this as “Eli Whitney students are eager to connect.”

The Eli Whitney Students Program was introduced in 2008.