<p>Bingo. So you do acknowledge that it is extremely prestigious. You just don’t understand “why” and / or you don’t think its prestige is “justified” over and above other scholarships.</p>
<p>Well, and I’m just brainstorming here, maybe – just maybe – the award and its recipients are actually pretty damn good. It’s also a function of supply / demand – i.e. lots of people want it, not many people get it… e.g. lots of people want to go to Harvard, not many people get in.</p>
<p>Seems to me you have an issue with institutions with established prestige. You are fighting an uphill battle if you are trying to convince the world that this prestige is undeserved.</p>
<p>“Well, and I’m just brainstorming here, maybe – just maybe – the award and its recipients are actually pretty damn good. It’s also a function of supply / demand – i.e. lots of people want it, not many people get it… e.g. lots of people want to go to Harvard, not many people get in.”</p>
<p>You haven’t said anything that doesn’t also apply to the kinds of things I’m talking about. Thanks for proving my point.</p>
<p>You’re right, I can’t help you get over the fact that the Rhodes Scholarship is prestigious and you think that its unfair. Perhaps a shrink is a better avenue than an internet board.</p>
<p>hmm, it’s interesting that no one brought it up but Rhodes Scholars are picked with respect to regions. Therefore it’s very hard for Berkeley to have many Rhodes Scholars. They can’t give the Californians who went to Harvard and then give someone who go to Berkeley as well. This is why state schools don’t fare so well in comparison to privates which take students all over the US.</p>
<p>Are you suggesting that a disproportionate number of top students from any given state is more likely to attend a top private rather than its own respective state school? You are probably right. I guess the lesson here is if you have serious aspirations to win a Rhodes scholarship, you’d be better off at Harvard than Cal. Is that fair? Who said life was fair?</p>
Not quite true. Rhodes Scholars can choose to either compete in their home state <em>or</em> the region in which they go to school. A Californian attending Georgetown, for example, would probably choose to compete in the DC/MD/KY/WV district because Hopkins would be the only real competition.</p>
<p>“Exactly. The success rate of NSF fellowships ranges from 10-14%, depending on the field. The Rhodes is awarded to a mere 32 students nation-wide”</p>
<p>Which out of 769 applicants makes the success rate around 4%. Same as the success rate for people in bioscience applying for NDSEG, and not too far off from the success rate in other disciplines (most are <10%). Can’t find the little chart for NSF at the moment, though their higher acceptance rates have more to do with availability of funds than lack of qualified candidates/competition. And as has been pointed out already, there’s a very large number of qualified candidates that don’t bother with Rhodes/Marshall, whereas I’d imagine most top candidates going to grad school in engineering/sciences apply for at least one of those two fellowships. There’s also the Hertz Fellowship, and though I can’t find numbers about how many people apply (it’s not as well known/publicized), there’s less than 32 of those going out each year.</p>
<p>I mean, I guess Rhodes/Marshall might be the best option available for people in the humanities/social sciences, but it’s certainly not a particularly distinguished option for people pursuing engineering/hard sciences.</p>
<p>The_prestige, I do not think there is a historic tally of Fulbright winners arranged by institution. I know Michigan has had more Fulbright awardees than any other university in the last 6 years, with 162. Michigan has led the nation in Fulbright winners 4 of the last 6 years. Only Harvard, Yale and Cal have come close, with 145, 143 and 135 respectively. </p>
<p>That is pretty impressive. At the same time, for purposes of comparing “apples to apples”, if I were to incorporate any historical scholarship data, I would break them down by a “per capita” basis (as I did with the National Merit Scholars). At first blush, from a normalized per capita basis, Harvard, Yale and Brown look the strongest over this recent time period.</p>
<p>the_prestige. What can I say? Michigan isn’t even in the same league to many here on CC as Harvard, Yale, and Brown and yet have had more Fullbrights conferred upon their students than any institution in this country over the past six years. Still there has to be a qualifier that since they have so many students, they should have even more Fulbrights awarded “at first blush.” It seems that there is nothing Michigan can do on these boards that put them up there with the big boys that someone won’t take a little backhanded slap at an amazing statistic for such a huge state school that believes in delivering, “an uncommon education for the common man.” It’s not pretty impressive in my book, it’s very impressive.</p>
<p>Saying that Harvard Yale and Brown have had more Fulbright scholars than UMichigan in the past 5 years on a per capita basis is a “backhand slap”?</p>
<p>Um, no, that is a statistical fact - you don’t even need a pencil or paper to do that basic back of the envelope math. If you find that insulting, I’d hate to see you open up a math book.</p>
<p>You were the one who compared the significance of Fulbright Scholarships to National Merit ones, not I. I think you completely missed my point. It doesn’t matter that a school like Michigan or Berkeley would lead in any category around CC with many posters on this board. Someone on CC always seems to put a qualifier on why it’s only “pretty impressive” when pertaining to these top public schools. I know I am sounding a bit defensive but seriously, can you at least see it from my viewpoint?</p>
<p>the_prestige, as I understand that HYPSM don’t admit students mainly based on if they win National Merit Scholarships, but I am curious to find out more info about what you did on this. Could you supply the link for me. Thanks.</p>