According to the Rhodes Trust, 830 applicants endorsed by 299 colleges and
According to the Rhodes Trust, 830 applicants endorsed by 299 colleges and universities vied for the awards. The Rhodes Scholarships instituted through the will of British philanthropist and visionary Cecil John Rhodes in 1902, are among the most prestigious academic honors in the world.
Some trivia about this year’s group: There are more women than men, and less than half graduated from Ivy League schools. Stanford (not in the Ivy League) had a record-high of five scholars, and the University of Washington had two. Harvard, which has been called a “Rhodes Scholars factory,” had four, the same number as Brown and Princeton.
Past recipients include former U.S. President Bill Clinton, La. Gov. Bobby Jindal, a long list of congressmen, Supreme Court justices, Nobel Prize winners and other leaders. This year, also making the list of luminary young Rhodes scholars is Ronan Farrow, the son of actors Mia Farrow and Woody Allen.
Some of the Asian Americans selected:
Stephanie Lin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: In addition to researching Karposi’s sarcoma virus and the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, Lin is the vice president for education in her sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta. (The Tech)
Mohit Agrawal, Princeton University: Agrawal won the Mitchell Scholarship last year and has been studying economic policy at the National University of Ireland, where he marvels that the country has less residents than his home state of Indiana. (Daily Princetonian)
Tenzin Seldon, Stanford University: Seldon is “an emerging leader in the Tibetan diaspora, having served as regional coordinator for Students for a Free Tibet and executive member of San Francisco Team Tibet.” (Stanford press release)
Victor Yang, Harvard College: Yang became interested in public health issues while volunteering in Boston and wrote his thesis on “non-traditional views of AIDS activism, particularly among minority groups.”(The Harvard Crimson)
Aysha N. Bagchi, Stanford University: At graduation in 2011, Bagchi received the Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel Award for Distinctive Contributions to Undergraduate Education. (Stanford press release)