<p>I know most of us here have no experience with Oxford, but for those that do...Any thoughts? I was planning on going there next year, but I have yet to hear my decision from Harvard. I would attend Oxford as an undergrad, and while this article was focused on graduate studies, it still made me think.</p>
<p>It's in extremely poor taste for these two to get the scholarship and diss it in the Crimson, as though this were a weighty choice for numerous undergrads each year. The authors didn't opt out of the horrible Rhodes Scholarship themselves. The shortcomings of Oxford and Cambridge are well known to most who apply for Rhodes and Marshalls.</p>
<p>Why is it in poor taste to inform fellow students? Think of it as a public service.</p>
<p>Good article. Many colleges now have a whole office that are devoted to helping their students win "prestigious" fellowships. It's not about what works best for the student but bragging rights and marketing for the colleges. Their job depends on getting students to the accepted stage so the minor little details like the hardships you may have to endure or the extra money it may cost you are seldom discussed.</p>
<p>I agree with Bandit TX. Harvard tends to do well in the Rhodes and Marshall sweepstakes, which means that a number of Harvard students cosnider competing for them. There is no reason why all articles should address all students. The authors have experienced Oxford and therefore can speak with much greater authority than those who have merely heard of its shortcomings. People do get blinded by the prestige of the Rhodes scholarship (just as many get blinded by Harvard's name).</p>
<p>The authors didn't supply any new information. The gutting of top-level British academia has been known for a long, long time to all concerned, and doesn't really affect the merits of the Rhodes competition for the applicants. Everybody knows that a Hertz or NSF fellowship in the US is more effective than a Marshall fellowship to England, unless there is some specific British academic one wants to work with. The Rhodes scholarship is about nothing other than prestige, and giving a pseudo-renunciation in the Crimson while still soaking up that prestige oneself is an ugly load of self-service performed on a public stage.</p>
<p>I don't think many students realize what the gutting of top-level British universities mean in real terms.
Whether or not these two students are soaking up the prestige of a Rhodes scholarship while dissing Oxford, I still think they are giving students a good reality check. Would you rather that the same article be written by someone who'd never actually studied at Oxford or had been able to compare a Harvard vs. Oxford experience? Sure, there are plenty of Oxford students who could describe their experience, but they do not have the same basis for comparing Oxford and Harvard.</p>
<p>The authors are also complaining too loud too late. The UK government has been aware of the problem and providing extra funding in science and other fields for a long time. Some of the brain drain reversed itself.</p>
<p>As to your question, even an anonymous article would have been better, IMO.</p>
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Whether or not these two students are soaking up the prestige of a Rhodes scholarship while dissing Oxford,
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<p>"Whether or not"? They are Rhodes scholars, and I doubt that they will drop out of the program or ever fail to mention the Rhodes on a CV, so the prestige part is clear enough. Re: dissing --- did you read the article? Every other sentence is a huge diss in the direction of Oxford.</p>
<p>Other Rhodes people respond:</p>
<p>'The American Secretary of the Rhodes Trust, Elliot F. Gerson ’74, said that the op-ed raised legitimate points that were obscured by its presentation. However, he said “much of the rest of their article was frankly silly.” </p>
<p>Although Gerson said that the two Rhodes Scholars’ views are “in the extreme minority,” he said that “there is an unfortunate perception that those attitudes are more common among Harvard students at Oxford.”'</p>
<p>I read the article.</p>
<p>Dissing? Does it mean that what the students wrote is not true? You yourself said that "The gutting of top-level British academia has been known for a long, long time to all concerned." The authors have been spelling out what it means in real terms, not as an abstraction. And it looks like the two authors are not the only Harvard students at Oxford who share their perception. More info instead of less is a good idea.</p>
<p>Dissing means dissing, i.e. loud public disrespect.</p>
<p>Rhodes scholarship is a peerless credential that amplifies tenfold the Harvard AB of the two editorialists. Their complaint is that the accompanying multi-year paid vacation is in a 3-star hotel where they expected 4-star accomodation. The particulars they are displeased by are absolute trivia. That they are bothered by it highlights the extent to which Americans in general, and Harvard students in particular, have expectations of university life that are far out of line with the rest of the world.</p>
<p>In other words, what they say is true. Thank you.</p>
<p>That's a non sequitur. I don't think that "what they say is true", no. Much of what they say is dubious, and the truth of the rest is drowned out by its arrogance.</p>
<p>Lambasting Oxford, all the while refusing to leave to take time and write that "novel". Thanks for the warning, though many of us Harvard undergrads will never be in a position in which we might lament the Rhodes experience.</p>
<p>If someone is going to report on 4-stars hotels vs. 3-stars hotels, I'd rather they had actually stayed at both kinds, and for extended periods of time. </p>
<p>Let's remember that Rhodes scholars are post-graduates, not freshmen. One Oxbridge on after another has been lamenting that Oxbridge post-graduate students are so ill-funded that the quality of their Ph.D. dissertation research suffers significantly. I've actually heard a famous Oxford don complain that Oxford Ph.D. dissertations are based of only 2.5 years of post-graduate work (including coursework and relevant language training). This contrasts to 5 years of guaranteed funding at top American universities. The Bodleian is rightly famed but its holdings cannot compare to Widener's and in certain fields, they are woefully lacking. And so on. These are by no means trivial issues. Anyone thinking about going to Oxford should be aware of them.</p>
<p>Any opinions on Oxford undergrad?</p>
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If someone is going to report on 4-stars hotels vs. 3-stars hotels, I'd rather they had actually stayed at both kinds, and for extended periods of time.
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<p>Oxford as such is a very different proposition from Oxford-on-a-Rhodes-scholarship (after a Harvard summa or magna, no less). The differences in resources might become important for choosing, without any special scholarship, between Harvard and Oxford PhD programs. Given the Rhodes, however, Oxford itself is almost irrelevant, a vanity degree. That people get second bachelors' degrees on this program tells us all we need to know. The authors of the whine can opt out any time and go to the US grad school of their choice, fully funded, without losing the Rhodes credential. It's a free option, which is to say that the writers have published a load of self-indulgent bellyaching. Their complaints are trivia in their circumstances.</p>
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Let's remember that Rhodes scholars are post-graduates, not freshmen.
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<p>By the way, the "post-graduate" in a Rhodes is generally a master's degree or second bachelor's, not PhD. I would like to see the authors compare the supposedly apathetic teaching and mediocre resources at Oxford with what's on offer at any US master's degree program, including those at Harvard.</p>
<p>As the holder of an M.A. from Harvard, I can mention the faculty and the library facilities for starters; the greater financial support given to students. The larger range of fields with top faculty (think Chinese or Japanese studies, for example). Even traditional fields such as Classics are struggling. </p>
<p>You object to the authors taking the Rhodes, going to Oxford and "belly-aching" about it. If they had merely taken the Rhodes then gone on to an American institution, they would not have had the actual experience at Oxford to report on it. Had they written a similar article, they would have been accused of not knowing enough. That would really have been dissing. American students and Oxford dons are not the only ones lamenting the decline of Oxford. American universities have a fair number of Oxbridge graduates. Having experienced Oxford and Cambridge, they know where the good deals are. </p>
<p>This is a pretty pointless discussion, when all is said and done.</p>