http://www.rhodesscholar.org/news-and-announcements/american-rhodes-scholarship-winners-2018/
A big congratulations to the recipients!
Reading their profiles, I am blown away at how impressive they are!
My daughter is friends/close acquaintance with the recipient from her school. She has always been impressed with the winner and says she is truly an amazing person.
My sons went to the same elementary, middle and high schools with one of this year’s winners. We’ve known her since they participated in the elementary school “talent show.” Now, she’s attending the same university as my older son. A couple of years ago, my sons’ local youth symphony orchestra member won it, too, out of Yale. Most recently, my younger son’s RCA won this year’s Rhodes out of India. Each of these winners is truly impressive. What a bright future ahead of them!
Yale, Princeton and Duke seemed to have produced most winners.
I rather my kid — if he ever wins any big award — win the Knights-Hennesey award. But I doubt it with 3.5 gpa. Lol
Lots of state publics on the list too though!
If I were at Duke, I would certainly consider it the year of Duke. I’m pretty sure Duke has never before had three students selected in one year, maybe not even two.
I looked back over the last few years, and the number of what I’ll term “elite private university” Scholars this year is actually only slightly on the low side. I count 16 this year; there were 17 last year, and before that 13 (2017), 19 (2016), 21 (2015), and 18 (2014) (out of 32 total every year).
http://s3.amazonaws.com/rhodesscholars-fileshare/final_winners_list_2018.pdf
My son’s high school friend is one of the winners. They all went to the same elementary, middle and high schools. A few years ago, one of my violinist’s son’s local youth orchestra members won it, too. Most recently, my son’s RCA won out of India. When are my sons going to win this thing!!?? ;))
^ Duke had 3 Rhodes Scholars in 2002 and 2006. They last had 2 in 2016.
Duke has historically done fairly well, placing 9th among private universities and 13th overall in the number of Rhodes scholars produced.
That said, the unsavory side of Duke’s Rhodes production is that about half of the winners were AB Duke scholars. Other Duke students are qualified for the scholarship, and the university has a great fellowship office, but AB Duke scholars receive career and fellowship mentoring that really goes above and beyond anything the rest of undergrads have access to (even Robertson scholars, to speak from experience). If you calculate on a per capita basis, the AB Duke program is up there in Rhodes production with HYP.
Top 10 Private Universities
362 Harvard
245 Yale
210 Princeton
102 Stanford
63 Dartmouth
55 Brown
51 Chicago
47 MIT
43 Duke
31 Cornell
Top 10 Private LACs
35 Williams
32 Reed
28 Swarthmore
26 Sewanee
23 Davidson
22 Bowdoin
20 Amherst / Haverford
18 Carleton
16 Middlebury / Oberlin / Washington & Lee
Top 10 Public Colleges
93 USMA
53 UVA
47 USNA
44 UNC Chapel Hill
39 USAFA
37 U Washington
32 U Wisconsin
29 UT Austin
28 U Oklahoma
27 U Kansas / Michigan / Montana
Source: http://www.rhodesscholar.org/assets/uploads/2018%20RS_Number%20of%20Winners%20by%20Institution.pdf
It is interesting to me how many more winners there are from UVA (53) compared to Berkeley (24) and UCLA (11). I supposed part of that might be that the Jefferson scholarship allows certain UVA students to stand out, but I also wonder what other explanations there might be. More support for applications? More interest in going to the UK at east coast schools?
The Rhodes recipients (other than from HYP) very often are recipients of the ultra-competitive scholarships from their undergrad colleges – UVA/Jefferson, UNC/Morehead, Duke/AB Duke. The Rhodes recipient from CU/Boulder is, of course, a Boettcher Scholar (the top schollie a kid from Colorado can get).
The kids obviously have to be super-impressive to get those undergrad scholarships. And those scholarships usually come with a lot of extra mentoring and support for when it comes time to apply for Rhodes, Marshall, Truman, Fulbright, etc. Many schools maintain an office whose job is to try to produce as many prestige schollie recipients as possible.
Rhodes Scholars just don’t happen these days. There’s a lot of recruiting, mentoring and coaching that goes into it.
Location, location, location. There were two finalists from CU this year but both were instate students so were competing against each other at the interviews in Salt Lake. If either had been from another state, she could have been in a different pool.
I was surprised there were none from West Point this year as that is a stat the academy likes to tout to parents as if the school has anything to do with it. I believe that students of this caliber self-select among colleges rather than the colleges “producing” them.
A friend of one of my kids was a Rhodes candidate (unsuccessful) from the Naval Academy. He was (and is) a great guy, but there was a ton of mentoring and “production” that went into his candidacy. He was noticed and groomed for prestigious scholarship applications from the middle of his first year.
“Many schools maintain an office whose job is to try to produce as many prestige schollie recipients as possible.”
Yes I’ve seen this is emphasized at Utah too. Lots of fuss made over the winners of these prestige scholarships (and support for applications, preparation etc). And it definitely helps to have a limited pool (and structured cohort) of top scholarship winners to select from. But it doesn’t appear to be much of a priority at the UCs and there are too many Regents scholarship winners and no formal mentoring/cohort structure for them AFAIK. IMO this is another advantage to being a big fish in a small pond.
My D’s ex was a winner a few years ago. While away on his anthropological mission, he decided that he wanted to emulate the practices he was studying and engage in a polygamous relationship. He mentioned his brilliant idea to my D. That’s why he’s the ex.
I don’t know whether to click “Agree” or “Like” or “Helpful” to your comments. :))