<p>The University of Oklahoma is a poor example as the current president was a Rhodes scholar and has made it his mission to have more of them come from OU. As such, advisers in the honors college try to make students aware of prestigious collegiate awards and then do their best to groom top students to win them. I suspect that if one plotted when Rhodes scholars from OU were announced (and possibly other institutions which have recently beefed up their honors offerings), the bulk of them would be from the past twenty years. </p>
<p>I would also be unsurprised if the top Rhodes schools spent considerable money on awards advising. After all, West Point has nearly double the number of Rhodes scholars as the Naval Academy despite being similarly service oriented and geographically diverse.</p>