@marlowe1 - but wait, Chicago is in the top 7or 8 all time for Rhodes production. It’s hardly a lightweight here. The disparity between #1 (harvard) and #7 is huge though - like 358 to 55.
I’m just saying you’d think a 50% increase in class size would move the needle a little, but it has not.
@marlowe1 What you are saying is probably true. Also HYPSM are just more likely to have more Rhodes-worthy students given that the majority of the uniquely talented kids tend to flock there. This combo probably results in a self-reinforcing cycle in favor of these schools.
Frankly this is now just a two horse race between H&S, and yes @cue7 UChicago does want to attract those profiles but mostly they lose out in these specific profiles to H&S as does P&Y.
No. Harvard leads Yale/Princeton by a LOT in the number of Rhodes. Stanford is a distant third!
HARVARD UNIV. 354
YALE UNIV. 240
PRINCETON UNIV. 208
STANFORD UNIV. 98
U.S. MILITARY ACADEMY 91
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE 62
BROWN UNIV. 55
UNIV. OF VIRGINIA 51
UNIV. OF CHICAGO 50
U.S. NAVAL ACADEMY 47
http://www.rhodesscholar.org/assets/uploads/RS_Number%20of%20Winners%20by%20Institution_1_30_17.pdf
@CA94309 I’m talking in the present and forward, not historically.
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Not true even if you look at the present (2017-2013). Its a competition between HYP and the rest.
Below are the number of scholars in 2017,2013 and the change between those two years for the top 10.
HARVARD UNIV. 358 347 11
YALE UNIV. 243 233 10
PRINCETON UNIV. 209 201 8
STANFORD UNIV. 99 96 3
U.S. MILITARY ACADEMY 92 91 1
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE 63 61 2
BROWN UNIV. 55 51 4
UNIV. OF VIRGINIA 53 50 3
UNIV. OF CHICAGO 51 50 1
U.S. NAVAL ACADEMY 46 46 0
2017 data http://www.rhodesscholar.org/assets/uploads/RS_Number%20of%20Winners%20by%20Institution_1_30_17.pdf
2013 data http://www.rhodesscholar.org/assets/uploads/Rhodes%20Scholarships_Number%20of%20Winners%20by%20Institution_10_15_14.pdf
Well see in the future years.
Was perusing the list linked above and spotted one mistake. McGill University was listed as having 1 Rhodes scholar, when it actually has 144. It shouldn’t even be on the list, as it is for American schools only.
There are some anomalies. Does anyone think that CalTech (6 Rhodes) is a lesser school than St. Olaf(9 Rhodes)?
“There are some anomalies. Does anyone think that CalTech (6 Rhodes) is a lesser school than St. Olaf(9 Rhodes)?”
Well, it probably has far less athletes historically. Athletics is a key component of Rhodes scholarship criteria.
One more Rhodes was just awarded to Chicago:
(this is on top of 2 awarded last year)…
https://news.uchicago.edu/article/2017/11/30/fourth-year-student-named-rhodes-scholar
Congratulations!!
So in addition to the Rhodes awarded this year, two UChicago students (one graduated '17) were among the 43 Marshall Scholarship awardees this year. Congratulations to these students.
https://news.uchicago.edu/article/2017/12/04/fourth-year-student-alumna-named-marshall-scholars
This is very impressive all around - looks like the scholarship production is still alive and well in Hyde Park!
Thanks to all who provided data here - it points to some good hauls over the years.
What’s really amazing is it turns out the class of 1999 – which applied to and enrolled in the College long before any of the current popularity began to build, and before most of the student-friendly changes in the College were instituted, and which as @Cue7 pointed out was a little less than half the size of the class of 2019 – produced three Rhodes Scholars and three Marshall Scholars. That was some year for prestigious Anglophile scholarships!
It’s important, however, not to emulate the Pharaoh of Exodus, who after the most productive day of labor ever demanded that every subsequent day meet the same standard. That’s not going to happen.
Just scratching an itch here, @JHS - why couldn’t Chicago have scholarship production similar to, say, Yale? I get the sense that, for these scholarships, pedigree/connections/power matter much less (an area where Yale bests Chicago), and talent/academic curiosity/potential matter a great deal. (Sports, by the way, seems to matter less and less.)
Through this lens, the comparative talents of the undergrad student bodies would be similar, no? Then, shouldn’t scholarship output be somewhat similar, too?
Why can’t Princeton or Stanford have Rhodes scholarship production similar to Yale? (They don’t. Stanford may be picking up speed, but Princeton just doesn’t show up that much. And some near peers like Columbia barely show up at all.) Why does UVa get so many more Rhodes scholarships than Berkeley and Michigan combined? (It does. A lot more.)
Who the hell knows? It doesn’t make a lot of sense. Maybe the kind of person who is successful at getting a Rhodes is the kind of person who is most likely to pick Harvard or Yale. That can change over time, but it changes very slowly.
Inspired by this thread, I looked at regional differences in Rhodes selection. Guess what? It’s really strong. Harvard and Yale’s dominance is completely a function of five regions (out of 16): the four representing the northeast quadrant of the country, Maine to Pennsylvania, and the Pacific Northwest. Out of 50 H/Y Rhodes Scholars the past 6 years, 35 (70%) were chosen in those five regions. When you move to the South and Midwest, other elite universities and elite public flagships (mainly UVa) are more popular.
@JHS - doesn’t Princeton have Rhodes scholarship numbers similar to Yale? Upthread, a poster noted that Yale has produced 243 Rhodes Scholars, and Princeton 209. That’s not a huge gap - the three biggest producers are clearly Harvard, Princeton, and Yale.
Btw, the Rhodes scholarship has been around since 1902 (when MIT and Stanford were still comparatively baby universities). In the past 115 years, here are the best producers per capita:
Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, the Military Academies, Dartmouth, Brown, Williams, and Swarthmore
(Note, MIT has been coming on strong in the past few decades, as has Stanford)
This looks like, more or less, a collection of the most prestigious schools over the past 100 years (with Brown being a bit of an outlier).
My question, then, is why couldn’t Chicago be in that mix? It has done very well, but the narrative is now that it’s bumping ever-closer to that top tier.
I looked at the last six years. Harvard and Yale combined had over 25% of the total – 50 between them. Princeton had 5 or 6, but generally wasn’t in that ballpark. No one was. All other elite private universities or colleges (defining “elite” pretty broadly) had about 1/3 of the total, but that was a whole bunch of institutions (the rest of the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Duke, Chicago, Northwestern, WUStL, Georgetown, Vanderbilt, Emory, Williams, Amherst, Oberlin, and others). The military academies combined averaged two per year, but no one of them had more than 5.
What do you mean by “per capita”? Most scholarships in absolute numbers, or most relative to class size? If the latter, how did you make that calculation, given that class sizes have varied considerably over 115 years?
Anyway, Chicago was as much a baby university in 1902 as Stanford. It was founded five years later than Stanford, and 30 years after MIT.
@JHS - By per capita, I meant most relative to class size, with the assumption that certain large public universities that do well (UVA, Berkeley and Michigan to a lesser extent) have always been much larger than LACs that do well (like Williams and Swarthmore) and considerably larger than the top privates (Harvard, Yale, etc.).
By this measure, then, a place like Williams fares considerably better than a place like UVA.
Chicago was very much a baby university in 1902 - but different than Stanford because it had so much startup cash. You know this as well as I - within 20 years of its founding, it was one of the top handful of american research Us.
This aside, the younger universities - Stanford and MIT - have seen a more recent upswing. Chicago’s done well too, but not at the same track. Now more than ever, though, the strengths of the student bodies at these three schools (along with hyp) would seem to be closer than ever before.