<p>
</p>
<p>In theory that sounds fine (and I certainly agree) but in practice it’s not the case… many people apply to both even if they have different study proposals for each one. </p>
<p>After looking over a bunch of the bios it seems that about 30%, give or take a bit, of each incoming Marshall class goes to Oxford for their first year; however, many of those (in fact probably most that aren’t doing PhDs) decide to go elsewhere for their second year of study to increase their diversity. Most non-PhD graduate courses in the UK are one year so most people on the standard two year fellowship will end up doing two masters if they’re not doing a PhD. Given that the applicant pool for both the Marshall and the Rhodes is largely the same and that all the Rhodes must go to Oxford the whole time (while many of the Oxford Marshalls go elsewhere in their second year) it kind of makes one wonder if many of the Rhodes would take their second year elsewhere if they had the option to do so. </p>
<p>I think the geographic flexibility is a huge issue for many people (again, given that, for better or worse, the applicant pool is largely the same and yet the vast majority of Marshall choose not to spend their entire tenure at Oxford). Although you do have to have a study plan for what to do during the second year, ex-Marshalls have said that they were free to change those plans during their first year so long as appropriate arrangements could be made. For someone who is 100% sure they want to go to Oxford for the whole time (either for multiple masters or a PhD) then either the Marshall or Rhodes would work… to be honest you take which one you can get! although for any other case then the Marshall comes with a big advantage. </p>
<p>Of course, let’s also not forget about the Gates Cambridge (essentially a Rhodes style worldwide program but for Cambridge) which is limited to Cambridge and not yet so well known (because it’s only a few years old) but is an excellent program. </p>
<p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Yes, for singles, it is a bit higher although having looked into it it’s also worth pointing out that for married couples (of which there seems to be a lot more than I would have expected) the Marshall provides a top-up stipend which makes it higher than the Rhodes for those people. </p>
<p>
Our fellowship office looked into this and found out that the Marshall has never had to turn down anyone for third year funding if they wanted it. </p>
<p>
True. Although the flip side, as an ex-Marshall who wrote some comments for future applicants at our school said, is that the Marshals are at a variety of different schools (although concentrated in London, Cambridge and Oxford) and thus they often travel around on the weekends to visit and hang out with scholars elsewhere in the UK. As they wrote “You’re guaranteed to have some friends and a place place to crash in London, a place to crash in Cambridge and a place to crash is most other major UK cities too.” There also seems to be a big official diplomatic style trip once each year to somewhere in the UK (Scotland, Wales, N Ireland). </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Please, lets not have a X is more prestigious than Y debate… they’re pointless, impossible to quantify and annoying ;-).</p>