Why Do We Care about Rhodes Scholars?
Posted on November 22nd, 2011 in Uncategorized | 25 Comments »
I was listening to NPR yesterday morning and heard a short piece about the new class of Rhodes Scholars. Among them was Ronan Farrow, a son of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, who graduated from Yale Law School when he was 17.
It was the second time in recent weeks that Rhodes Scholars had been in the news, following all the coverage of the Yale senior, Patrick Witt, who had to choose between his Rhodes Scholarship interview and quarterbacking his team in the Yale-Harvard game. (Perhaps unfortunately for him, he chose the latter.) That story was all over the press. (Here, it is “aggregated”—i.e., rewritten—by the Huffington Post.)
In fact, that Huffington Post story prompted Harvard “professor” David Gergen to comment, “If character counted on scoreboard [sic], Yale has already won against Harvard. Patrick Witt showed selflessness we should applaud.”
Because skipping your Rhodes interview is an almost unthinkable sacrifice.
As I heard the NPR piece, I couldn’t help but think of this latest class of Rhodes Scholars, Who cares?
It has been decades since Rhodes Scholars have had any particular import or relevance to our culture. Increasingly, being a Rhodes Scholar means simply having a dated and pointless line on your resume. Well—not quite pointless; the point of it is to add a line to your resume.
And yet, students labor for years to become Rhodes Scholars, Harvard practically has a training camp for breeding them, and universities round the country tout their winners in press releases.
My anecdotal impression is that most people who care about winning Rhodes Scholarships, and most people who win them, tend to be pretty privileged already. Quite frequently they attend privileged institutions, and they win a scholarship that allows them to attend another privileged institution. After which we generally never hear from them again.
So why do we care? Maybe it’s just force of habit; maybe it’s some sort of class thing, an obsession of the 1%. (Oxford! England! Etc.)
One Harvard student, asked by the Crimson about the benefits of becoming a Rhodes Scholar, gave the prototypical Harvard answer: It’s great networking.
“There’s an incredible community of former Rhodes Scholars you get to join,” he said…
Another student worked as a research assistant for history prof and Oxford grad Niall Ferguson, which, I’m sure, had nothing to do with her winning a scholarship to Oxford.
Congratulations to these young people on their achievements. But wouldn’t it be great if we paid as much attention to people who came from more challenged backgrounds and just won, you know…scholarships?
25 Responses
11/24/2011 8:51 am
You’ve adopted Ross Douthat’s moronic definition of ‘privilege,’ in which it refers to anyone who achieves success acknowledged by a university. You know NOTHING about how affluent these people were growing up. And you have no basis for doubting that they worked their asses off and are talented. Moreover, the point of the Rhodes is that they self-identify as focusing to some extent on public service. (One reason I was a semi finalist but not a finalist: no vision for myself at that point.)
As to your point about Ferguson, for whom I have very little respect, I know exactly how the scholarship committees function, and his Oxford affiliation had NOTHING to do with anyone’s selection. That’s not how the trust is set up.
Your point, insofar as you have one, was made much better in the Crimson half a decade ago by Winthropian Melissa Dell ’04.
Drop the Douthatism; it’s dumb.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Standing Eagle
11/24/2011 2:32 pm
Hear hear SE! I found this quite insulting. I’m having lunch with the student in question this Wed., as I’ve done each year since her freshman year when she took a Gen Ed course of mine. She’s among the very smartest, hardest working, most articulate and likable students I’ve met in over thirty years teaching here.
11/26/2011 4:53 pm
You forgot to take into consideration that Bill Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar.
11/28/2011 6:51 am
In reverse order:
Yes, Roark, Bill Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar. And on this long list, you’ll see about four or five other famous people who were also Rhodes Scholars. So?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Rhodes_Scholars
RT, I’m sure the young woman is very smart and hard-working and articulate and nice. (Most students at Harvard are.) But why is getting a Rhodes Scholarship for her so important that, as she tells the Gazette, Cabot House officials assigned her a fellowships tutor, read various drafts of her proposal, and “even organized a mock interview for me”? And out of all the Harvard accomplishments, does the fact that she and three other seniors won Rhodes deserve to be the lead story on the Harvard website?
SE, as you sometimes do, you shout more than you reason. I never said that these students aren’t hardworking and talented (despite the fact that you say I did). I said that, in my anecdotal experience, most of the people who apply for Rhodes Scholarships come from privileged backgrounds already. I admit I can’t prove that, but I do have some economic logic on my side: If you need to get a job, you’re not very likely to direct that much effort (see above) to winning the right to study for another year.
As for the Niall Ferguson connection…your conviction that merit-centric processes are uncorrupted by the application of personal influence surely flies in the face of your Harvard experience.
11/28/2011 6:52 am
Sorry, winning the right to study for another couple of years.
11/28/2011 1:36 pm
This isn’t shouting. It just hurts your ears like sunlight hurts vampire eyes.
Let’s consider what you originally wrote. Can it be reduced, as you now claim, to the tentative suggestion that Rhodes Scholars tend to come from affluence? On the contrary, it suggests that their academic life is ITSELF affluence (and therefore unmeritocratic).
“My anecdotal impression is that [Rhodes Scholars] tend to be pretty privileged already. Quite frequently they attend privileged institutions, and they win a scholarship that allows them to attend another privileged institution.”
Your second sentence presents itself rather strongly as if it were evidence for the first (since, as you admit, ‘anecdotal impressions’ aren’t much evidence). Let’s see if we can make sense of that link between the two sentences, using EITHER definition of privilege.
Option A: privilege is a material status.
1) We should not be much interested in people who grow up rich and win the approval of a caste-based society. 2) People who attend rich universities tend to have grown up rich. 3) Rhodes Scholars tend to attend rich universities; therefore, 4) they are probably rich; therefore, per 1) and 4), we should not be much interested in Rhodes Scholars.
This is valid reasoning, but 2) is (I would suggest to you) 35% false.
Option B: “privilege” as the opportunity to do stimulating work.
1) We should not be much interested in the giving of awards that are unfair. 2) People who have done stimulating work, and done it well, sometimes win the Rhodes Scholarship and the chance to do more of it. 3) ??? 4) Therefore, the Rhodes Scholarship is unfair. 5) Per 1) and 4), we should not be much interested in the Rhodes Scholarship.
I don’t know what you would write in as #3, but I’m pretty sure it would have to be, as RT says, insulting to meritocracy.
As you can see, your paragraph only holds together logically if it can draw on the double meaning of ‘privilege’ to use some elements of Option A along with some elements of Option B. That blurring of the line between wealth and accomplishment is Douthatism, and IT’S DUMB. (okay, that was shouting).
Now, it’s a fair question whether Rhodes Scholars make the contributions to society that their promise and accolades would suggest. I don’t know the answer. But I don’t think the celebrity they go on to achieve is the best metric, nor do I think their net worth (though it is certainly on your current radar as a journalist) is a meaningful measure of that. To evaluate the last sentence of your paragraph I’ve just quoted, we’d need to know more about how you — or we — “hear from” people in their adult careers. I’d submit to you that in fact Rhodes Scholars are not overwhelmingly likely to become professors; they very often go into public service. Fame and fortune do not necessarily follow.
Do I think universities are consistently meritocratic? No. Do I think processes of student evaluation can be set up that have integrity — and have value in themselves as processes (because, oh yes, I learned from preparing for my Rhodes app and interview, and so did many generations of my students, long shots and strong contenders alike, in countless Tutor conversations and superbly interesting mock interviews)? Yes.
It’s lame of you to suggest that administrative cravenness in a university is identical with educational weakness. The two can be linked, but my “experience,” far from leading me to a declare a pox on all houses of learning, leads me to continue to place the burden of proof on those who want to show that any intellectual has a conflict of interest in their response to STUDENTS and IDEAS. I don’t think very much of your work or thought has actually shown such a thing, and I can assure you that anyone who cares about and works with Harvard students for more than a couple of years can offer thirty ‘anecdotal impressions’ to contradict every one of yours.
(The problem with reasoning, by the way, is that it takes me a while to type and others a while to read. Are you sure you prefer this to me shouting?)
Standing Eagle
PS. My point about Ferguson wasn’t that influence and prestige in recommenders don’t matter; only that Oxford has no special place in the esteem of the Rhodes selection committees, which are made up of Americans convening in various regions of the country.
11/28/2011 1:45 pm
“why is getting a Rhodes Scholarship for her so important that, as she tells the Gazette, Cabot House officials assigned her a fellowships tutor, read various drafts of her proposal, and “even organized a mock interview for me”?”
Because that process has value in itself.
Do you suppose all those graduate students have something BETTER to do than talk with a student about her work and future goals, and help her write an essay about them? Do you suppose the House exists for some BIGGER aim than conversation about ideas and a student’s place in the world she might go on to serve?
The Rhodes and Marshall processes in the College are an opportunity admirably seized by every House to bring about serious conversation, writing and revision, and mutual challenge.
The mock interviews I took part in — and they were many — may or may not have resembled the actual interviews students went on to face. But they were incredibly challenging and fun, wide-ranging, thought-provoking, and inspiring.
And I think — though I can’t be sure — that the students got something out of them too.
“Teaching is like dropping ideas into a letterbox of the human unconscious. You know when they are posted, but you never know when they will be received or in what form.”
Standing Eagle
11/29/2011 10:51 am
RB:
1) I would make no assumptions about the privileged background of Harvard students, particularly of the last 3-4 years, when Harvard has required only 10% of family income in lieu of tuition up to the level of $180,000 per year. I wouldn’t assume that (like you) the student came from a private school.
2) Practice interviews are standard these days, for graduate students and undergraduates alike. It’s part of mentoring.
3) You say “If you need to get a job, you’re not very likely to direct that much effort (see above) to winning the right to study for another year.” To which I respond: “If you are thinking about an academic career, coming out of a liberal arts undergraduate experience, and are therefore looking to test your commitment by focusing on one area/discipline for a year or two (i.e. do a Masters) to see how that feels, you either get your parents to pay or you apply for every fellowship you can find, starting with the Rhodes and Marshall.
11/29/2011 10:53 am
PS on 1) with free ride for incomes below $80,000 I think it is.
11/29/2011 1:25 pm
Richard-both you and SE are missing my point, which is not to chastise those who have won Rhodes Scholarships but to wonder why the rest of us pay so much attention to them given that a Rhodes generally translates into a bit of fun for a couple years before lending that highbrow line to your resume.
As to your point about public v private schools: I’ve no doubt that some Rhodes Scholars come from public schools. Brett Rosenberg, for example, attended Horace Greeley High School, in Chappaqa, New York. Not exactly PS 97 in the Bronx. Again-nothing to take away from her achievement. I have no doubt that she is a fantastic student. I just continue to maintain that we pay attention to the Rhodes for dubious reasons (its cachet) at the expense of some more meaningful achievers.
Finally, Richard, if you’re thinking about an academic career, you probably don’t need to get a job. Most students who really need to earn money—for themselves, for their families—don’t head to academia. Particularly in the humanities, the profession is for the monied.
Not saying that’s a good thing, not that it was the case when you were in graduate school, but it’s reality.
11/29/2011 1:26 pm
Sorry, “nor” that it was the case when you were in graduate school.
11/29/2011 1:29 pm
Oh, and Richard, you’re certainly right that it is risky to make assumptions! I was a partial scholarship student at Yale and had jobs all through (not just vacations) high school and college. I just look fancy on paper.
11/29/2011 4:26 pm
You’re wrong here Richard, in fact things have improved immensely in this respect over the last 30 years.
When I was in graduate school (Michigan 74-77) I was one of two PhD students out of a cohort of 8 on scholarship, and we were the only two who finished.
Doing a PhD in the Humanities is now fully funded (outright fellowship and TA for 5-6 years) in the top programs (the only ones that will survive the next decade anyway).
So a student from a family earning $56,000 can get a BA and PhD from Harvard with essentially no loan, and then maybe even get an enjoyable job at the other end. This is actually becoming a reality, and is not just theoretical.
I agree that if Harvard should be bragging more about anything (a dubious proposition) it should be doing so about the generosity of its financial aid.
11/30/2011 8:22 am
“a Rhodes generally translates into a bit of fun for a couple years before lending that highbrow line to your resume.”
If this was your point, as I said, it was made better a few years ago by someone who knew what she was talking about:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2007/2/25/oxford-blues-to-all-juniors-out/
Ms. Dell was a cross-country standout from Enid, Oklahoma. She’s now finishing an MIT PhD in economics; her job talk is a quantitative analysis of links between Mexican drug violence and election outcomes.
But as I say, you were also making much more unsound points, more or less accidentally.
To your newly reformulated question:
The reason we are interested in Rhodes Scholars is partly about what they have done, and partly about what they are, it is in each case becoming apparent, going to do (although you’re right, not what they are going to do at Oxford particularly). They are not yet great at any particular thing, don’t get me wrong. They are not being honored for expertise. They’ve had, almost always, liberal-arts experiences.
But I’d say the Rhodes process identifies, imperfectly, those who are by certain questionable standards of value (including grades and cheerful polite argumentation) the top unprofessionalized college students in the country. They constitute an interesting display of what universities value.
Universities’ values are subject to critique, of course, but to execute that critique you need to be more thoughtful than people like the Rhodes committees — not less.
Standing Eagle
PS. I wonder by the way how many college graduates you think need to make money “for their families.” I’m guessing that at four-year schools the answer is less than five percent, unless you count people who plan to have children of their own immediately after college. Other opinions are welcome.
12/3/2024 1:13 pm
By a total coincidence, Ms. Dell became famous this morning. Does this count as ‘hearing from’ her?
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/12/googlemapping-the-cartels.html
12/3/2024 5:44 pm
Not quite sure that a mention on the Daily Beast makes one “famous,” SE, except perhaps in the Andy Warhol sense. Do you have some sort of professional or personal relationship with Melissa? You seem to follow her work quite closely.
In any case, good on her for working toward her Ph.D. and working on the Mexican drug crisis. It’s an important issue. Does her having won a Rhodes Scholarship have the slightest thing to do with either?
12/3/2024 5:51 pm
After all, as Dell herself pointed out in that Crimson piece, the academic experience at Oxford is rather less than it’s cracked up to be.
So, again…why do we make such a big deal about the annual announcements of Rhodes Scholarships?
Because we have a lingering, class-based fascination with a scholarship whose image is far more romantic and laudable than its reality?
Because trumpeting its Rhodes winners is great PR for a university, because the Rhodes, like Harvard, is the top brand in its category?
Or because, as you say, Rhodes’ winners “constitute an interesting display of what universities value”?
Whatever that means.
12/3/2024 8:16 pm
Andrew Sullivan’s blog had, in February, 1.2 million unique readers a month. The linked article is from Slate.com. Your call.
It’s clear that you have no intention of being satisfied by any kind of causation. Does the Rhodes Scholarship make anyone more accomplished? No. Must one accomplish any socially useful thing to win the Rhodes Scholarship? No.
Do accomplishments that correlate with later socially useful accomplishment also correlate with the Rhodes Scholarship? I think so. Also, a certain kind of college success is reflected in its winners. I welcome thoughtful critiques of that success.
Melissa was a student in Winthrop House when I lived there as the Allston Burr Senior Tutor. I looked her up last week for the first time in order to respond to your ill-thought-through post about the prize she won. She agrees with you about its intrinsic value, but I do not agree with you about the value of what correlates with it.
SE
12/4/2024 7:40 am
Well, we can agree to disagree at this point, SE. But more power to Ms. Dell with her work. Anything that shows promise in helping to alleviate the suffering of people in Mexico is a good thing….
4/25/2012 1:32 am
I just wanted to add a few facts which may inform this discussion further. The Rhodes selection committee provides no funding for individuals selected to interview to fly to their home state/state of application. This automatically screens for a certain level of socio-economic privilege — like one of my friends said ‘do poor people ever win the Rhodes?’ It is a good question to ask. Secondly there is privilege within the Ivy-Rhodes, and, in particular, the Harvard-Rhodes nexus for preparing for this pinnacle status of a fellowship. Most public schools do not have the institutional resources to facilitate student applications to these very widely respected fellowships. Indeed many students in public school systems do not even know of the deadlines. These various points are often missed when the Rhodes is elevated as a peak achievement. And by peak achievement my focus is on relativity. It is viewed by many universities, students and the press alike as an achievement more extraordinary than other fellowships (like the Marshall or Fulbright), conventional vocations (health professions, teaching, etc), or community service based lifestyles.
10/17/2012 1:02 pm
It is so fashionable to belittle and ridicule those who value tradition!
Sometimes I would like to force folks to listen to a recording of Kipling’s White Man’s Burden for hours on end!
1/22/2013 11:30 pm
Why not have a Hitler Scholarship? The problem with Western Societies is that they tend to be full of contradictions. Why would won work so hard to become a Rhode Scholar, an endowment named after a colonizing, genocidal, imperialist. Why would someone with supposed intelligence and character accept an endowment funded by the colonial efforts of Britain’s Chief imperialist? Is this to say that this Rhodesian disposition is admirable? Is it a reinforcement of white supremacy? Are those who accept this scholarship extension of the scholarship’s namesake?
Why not a Hitler Scholar? I know, that sounds totally absurd right. Well a Rhodes scholar is no better label!!! This is institutionalize white supremacy and if you ok with it then this conversations not for you. But if you abhor that meritless philosophy then challenge this bullshit scholarship!!!
7/3/2024 4:54 pm
I am not really great with English but I find this real easy to translate.
10/20/2014 5:52 pm
I stumbled across this, and almost never comment on websites (especially two years late), but had to comment on this: Richard, I’m no real cheerleader for the Rhodes, nor do I think they are terribly special, and I’ve known >20 of them. I’m just struck by how you manage to take an argument I mostly agree with and present it in a such a wrong-headed, somewhat self-righteous, half-baked manner. Impressive work. If I’m ever charged with a crime, may you be the prosecutor!
10/21/2014 7:48 am
It’s always the anonymous ones…