<p>“thumper1 m just trying to explore all opportunities around me.”</p>
<p>@YPM2014, but you’re not, if you are just thinking about Harvard, Yale, MIT, etc. </p>
<p>You’re making a common mistake. You are thinking that “what people in my country have heard of / are impressed by” is the same as “the best colleges / universities in the US.” You probably think that in America, vast untold riches and power accrue to those who go to only a select handful of schools, and the rest – well, they prepare you for flipping burgers at McDonald’s. Because “that’s what the people in my country believe.” Well, guess what. They’re wrong. They have no idea what they are talking about. </p>
<p>Here in America, we don’t have the stratification that a lot of other countries do - where there are a handful of universities to whom all the power flows, and the rest, forget about it. Part of what makes America so great is that you can do well from a lot of places. There are a lot of very excellent educations to be had in the US. If you want to start at high / elite levels, then maybe pick the top 30 or so universities and liberal arts colleges – that’s 60 places right there, all of which are excellent. </p>
<p>It is irrelevant whether “people in your home country think of them.” If they are the kinds of people who cling stubbornly to the idea that if they haven’t heard of something, it can’t be very good - then they aren’t people whose opinions matter… </p>
<p>You are not sophisticated in the options available here in the US and are only inquiring about schools that people in your surroundings have heard of. </p>
<p>If you do go to Harvard, getting a Rhodes is certainly not the only way to distinguish yourself OR the only possible thing to show the folks at home.</p>
<p>Living for future prestige is not healthy but I won’t even get into it more than saying that.</p>
<p>Looking at it purely as a probabilistic exercise, 7 percent of applicants are accepted to Harvard. Do you think you have a better than 7 percent chance for a Rhodes, considering the number of applicants in India?</p>
<p>To win a Rhodes at a U.S. college, you have to be selected by your college to apply. So at Harvard you have to be at the very top. Probably something similar at a top Indian school.</p>
<p>I’d suspect getting into Harvard is easier than winning a Rhodes, but that might be like saying it’s easier to win my state’s lottery than Power Ball.</p>
<p>Right, the Rhodes Scholarship is not an exclusively academic award. Other than having a 3.9-4.0 gpa, most Rhodes Scholars were generally not the best student in their classes (particularly true at the super-elite schools.) However, they either were great athletes and/or were politically active and showed interest in becoming a political leader later. Yes, there are some straight scholars who get it too, but most often the athletes or politically active type. It’s actually written into the Rhodes charter to prefer these types. So even if your professor thinks you have Nobel potential, the Rhodes may be out of your reach. By the way, Oxford really isn’t good at science so its not the best idea to go there if you really intend to go into scientific research. Cambridge U. is better at science. </p>
<p>The Churchill and the Marshall scholarships have more stringent academic standards than the Rhodes, with the Churchill I believe specifically looking for technical majors. However, the extracurricular requirements for the Rhodes are greater.</p>
<p>Keep all this in mind if you are going to make the ill-advised decision to turn down Harvard for the possibility of a Rhodes Scholarship later. Even if you are an academic star, you may not be the type of academic star they like. </p>
<p>OP - I am more sympathetic than some to your questions, since a few young people I know set such goals for themselves and then figured out what they needed to do to successfully achieve them. It seems a backwards approach to me but works for some.</p>
<p>My advice mirrors several posts: Keep as many opportunities as possible open for as long as possible. Make no decisions that will limit your options until it is necessary. One step at a time. You aren’t quite to the point of needing to make any decision yet. Collegealum’s post is really excellent imho. If you are planning your schooling around these sorts schools or awards, you need to know what you should be doing to be most competitive. And this probably isn’t the best place to ask those questions. If you are smart enough to do this, you are smart enough to figure out where to get the information on how best to do it. : ) imho</p>
<p>ETA: IMPORTANT - when you post about your goals on the internet… do NOT put any identifying information. This will never do anything but hurt you. Be very careful.</p>
<p>another ETA: Don’t share your goals with a reporter for the local news; don’t share them anyone for the time being. It will never go over well. It can never help you achieve those goals.</p>
<p>I have to say, your question is profoundly depressing. Let’s put aside for a moment the extreme unlikelihood that you’ll have either option. Why are you so obsessed by the relative prestige of those two unlikely options? They are both prestigious. Let’s say you could guarantee that you’ll have the choice. The relative prestige should be the last thing that drives your decision. To go back to JHS’s analogy, it is kind of like asking whether it would be more prestigious to marry Jennifer Lawrence or Scarlett Johansson. If you actually have that choice, I would hope that you make the decision based on something other than prestige. I hope you answer this question; I would be really really interested in hearing your answer.</p>
<p>P.S. I used to work at a place where people were obsessed with making fine-grained distinctions regarding relative levels of prestige. I actually sat through recruiting meetings where people debated the relative prestige of being a Rhodes scholar from Harvard vs. a Rhodes scholar from say, UC Berkeley, where apparently Rhodes scholars are much more rare. I swear that someone used the words “dime-a-dozen” in one of these awful recruiting meetings to refer to Harvard-educated Rhodes scholars. That unending focus on hierarchy was soul-sucking. My point is that if your goal in life is to maximize prestige in OTHER PEOPLE’s eyes, you can never be happy because (1) there is no uniform prestigiosity scale, and (2) it’s a hollow measure of success in any event.</p>
<p>PG, #38–Your dilemma is easy to handle. Go and dance with the King of Sweden! You won’t regret it. You will certainly qualify for the next two or three Olympics after the one that you have to miss. The odds of qualifying for multiple Olympics are higher than the odds of winning more than one Nobel Prize. Their relative prestigiosity is quite clear.</p>
<p>And yet the people who are doing the hiring of these white shoe firms and/or management consultants and/or bankers – without whom these people wouldn’t have jobs – may be graduates of East Podunk U for all you know. That’s why it’s so self-referential and insular. </p>
<p>“PG, #38–Your dilemma is easy to handle. Go and dance with the King of Sweden! You won’t regret it. You will certainly qualify for the next two or three Olympics after the one that you have to miss. The odds of qualifying for multiple Olympics are higher than the odds of winning more than one Nobel Prize. Their relative prestigiosity is quite clear.”</p>
<p>You haven’t seen my backflips, I can’t keep up this pace forever.</p>
<p>Hold it. I think we need to add the arts. I would want to be selected for the Kennedy Center Honors. I think that could be harder than a Rhodes.</p>
<p>PG, I would suggest shifting to rhythmic gymnastics (the thing with ribbons). If only Nastia Liukin had heeded my advice to do the same, she would have been a two-time overall Olympic gymnastics champion. </p>
<p>If you meant diving, the landings seem to take less toll on the body, and repeat Olympics are certainly possible.</p>
<p>Actually, given the timing of the Nobel ceremonies and the Olympics, I guess your sport must be a winter sport. Snow-boarding? Sorry, fresh out of advice on that.</p>
<p>thumper1, I think you should purchase your first-class ticket to Washington, DC now. And book a really good hotel. Kennedy Center Honors are basically in the bag for you, right? Just like the terrible dilemma, Harvard or the Rhodes?</p>
Kennedy Center Honors are basically in the bag for you, right? Just like the terrible dilemma, Harvard or the Rhodes?</p>