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The real reason you didn't win
7 a Rhodes Scholarship
When it comes to helping its top
students win prestigious scholarships, the
University just can't keep up with the Ivies.
Jf you have your heart set on
becoming a Rhodes Scholar,
the first thing you should do is
transfer to Yale.
As soon as you arrive in New
Haven, you'll want to go directly
to the Yale office of International
Education and Fellowship Pro-
grams, located at 55 Whitney Ave.,
New Haven, Conn.
Once you get there you should be
in good shape.
Don't worry too much about the
application; the Yale advisors will
take care of almost everything. Just
sit back and let them handle it. Before
long,you'llbe readytojointhe scores
of other Yale students who have won
the most prestigious scholarship in
the world.
It is not that it is impossible to
win a Rhodes Scholarship if you're
applying from the University of
Michigan - it happened as recent-
ly as 2005. It's just that if you go to
Harvard or Yale, your chances of
doing it are much better.
This year, students from Yale
took seven of the 32 Rhodes Schol-
arships handedoutannually.Appli-
cants from Harvard won six.
The University has not hada stu-
dent win the Rhodes since 2005,
when Joseph Jewell, a physics
graduate student who had attended
the California Institute of Technol-
ogy as an undergrad, won one. That
year, Harvard students took five
Rhodes Scholarships.
Is it the University's fault or are
our applicants being pushed aside
because of the University's sub-Ivy
reputation?
"The Rhodes keeps its prestige
up by selecting a lot of students
from Harvard and Yale," said Les-
ter Monts, vice provost for academ-
ic affairs.
Even if the Rhodes committee
does prefer Ivy League applicants,
that bias might be the least of the
problems of Rhodes hopefuls at the
University.
THE NOMINATION PROCESS
The reason Harvard and Yale
students regularly account for
about 40 percent of Rhodes Schol-
arship winners isn't because their
top students are substantially
brighter than their peers at other
prestigious colleges.
Harvard and Yale students fare
better because their schools are
better at identifying, recruiting and
coaching students who are bright
enough to win prestigious scholar-
ships and awards.
Most scholarships require an
applicant to submit essays, let-
ters of recommendation and cur-
riculum vitae. But some of the most
competitive and prestigious schol-
arships - Rhodes, Marshall and
Mitchell - also require applicants
to be endorsed by their college or
university.
At the University of Michigan,
the endorsement process is the
responsibility of the provosts coun-
cil on student honors, which is run
out of the vice provost for student
affairs office.
Gretchen Weir, assistant vice
provost for academic affairs, over-
sees the council. In an interview
last December shortly after the
Rhodes decisions were handed
down in November, Weir said the
council's primary goal is to identify
exceptional students from across
the University and encourage them
to apply for the prestigious British
scholarships.
The council e-mails all students
whose GPA is over 3.7 to encourage
them to attend informational ses-
sions about the scholarships held
each January and February. She
estimates that about 100 students
attend the sessions each year, and
about 17 to 20 of those students
apply for University endorsement.
After deliberation, the council,
which is made up of faculty from
all schools and colleges, endorses a
handful of students for the Rhodes,
Marshalland Mitchellscholarships.
In recent years, the University has
endorsed about five students a year,
most of whom were endorsed for all
three scholarships. And sometimes
the University endorses the same
students multiple years.Alum Lyric
Chen, who won the Marshall schol-
arship this year, was endorsed for
the Rhodes, Marshall and Mitchell
scholarships by the University the
previous year as well.
Weir said the University does not
have a set rule regarding how many
students to endorse, but she said
they want to make sure the Univer-
sity's candidates are not competing
"needlessly" against each other.
"We try to add value to each of
our nominees," Weir said. "If the
You didn't win a
Rhodes scholarship.
But it might not
be your fault.
University submitted 10 nominees,
that would undercut the University
in the eyes of the Rhodes commit-
tee."
But routinely nominating 20 or
more students does not seemto have
undercut schools like Harvard and
Yale in the eyes of the Rhodes com-
mittee. Ahough since the scholar-
ships are handed out based on 16
geographic regions, schools like
Harvard and Yale probably ben-
efit from drawing the top students
from around the country.
MISSING APPLICANTS
The University's Rhodes drought
seems to have more to do with hav-
ing too few applicants than having
too many nominees.
Monts acknowledged that the
University has a hard time recruit-
ing Rhodes applicants compared
with schools like Harvard and
Yale.
"We just don't have the mecha-
nisms that some of the smaller
prestigious private schools have,"
Monts said.
At schools like Yale, students
interact closely with faculty for
their whole college career. Small
classes - ones taught by profes-
sors, not graduate students - are
a regular feature of a student's
schedule from their first day on
campus. This close contact allows
Yale faculty to identify outstand-
ing students early, refer them to the
Yale office of International Educa-
tion and Fellowship Programs and
encourage then to apply.
The University of Michigan does
not have a similar infrastructure.
The first time most students hear
about the scholarships from the
University is when they receive a
mass e-mail from Lester Monts'
office - an impersonal message
that is neither signed nor has a
reply address. Not surprisingly, few
students attend the informational
sessions put on by the council and
even fewer apply for University
endorsement.
Furthermore, Monts said the
University does not an internal
recruitment mechanism like that
of Yale or Harvard. Many students,
especially underclassmen, aren't
close enough to their professors to
get noticed.
"Many times we don't really dis-
cover the genius of students until
they are nominated by faculty,"
Monts said. "In a way, our stu-
dents are on their own the first two
years."
UNTAPPED POTENTIAL
The University does not lack
potential Rhodes Scholarship win-
ners. Every year, University of
Michigan graduates gain places in
the most prestigious graduate and
professional schools in the world.
The quality of students is high,
but the University still doesn't win
its share of Rhodes Scholarships.
LSA senior Dan Ray is one exam-
ple of missed potential. Ray, who
will be attending Harvard Law
in the fall and who teaches LSAT
courses, won the University's most
competitive merit-based scholar-
ship. But even though the Univer-
sity singled out Ray as one of its top
four students by awarding him the
Bentley Scholarship, they did not
make a significant effort to encour-
age him to apply for a prestigious
British scholarship.
Ray simply received the same
mass e-mail that every other 3.7
GPA student at the University
does.
The University's lack of Rhodes
infrastructure is not insignificant.
Applying for a Rhodes, Marshall
or Mitchell scholarship is a lot of
work. An applicant must secure
numerous letters of recommenda-
tion and be prepared for intensive
interviews if they are selected
as a finalist. The University does
provide mock interviews and
help with letters of recommen-
dation for the students it decides
to endorse. But the preparation
pales in comparison to a nominee
from Yale. There, applicants are
walked through the process by
a few employees who work full-
time coaching Yale students for
prestigious British scholarships.
By contrast, the University hasn't
dedicated even one full-time
employee to the undertaking.
Monts said the students nomi-
nated by the University should
have no trouble winning presti-
gious awards.
"We get people to the national
levels," Monts said.
"And after the national level, it is
a crap shoot."
There is a bit of subjectivity to
all highly competitive,. interview-
based awards. I
But the reason the University
does not win more Rhodes Scholar-
ships is not because of the random
nature of the process, as Monts.
suggests.°
Rather it is because the Univer-
sity does not make a serious effort
to tap its vast potential of competi-
tive Rhodes applicants and fails to
give them the support they need to
win.
TALKING
POINTS
Three things you can talk about this week:
1. "Bong hits 4 Jesus"
2. Alberto Gonzalez
3. The end of the Tommy Amaker era
And three things you can't:
1. How drunk you were on
St. Patrick's Day
2. American Idol
3. The relative experi-
ence of the 2008 presi-
dential candidates
BY THE NUMBERS
Dollars the University is dedicating to create new positions for
workers who will be displaced when corporate giant Pfizer Co. leaves
town
Number of jobs that will be lost once Pfizer leaves
New research positions that will be created by the fund, though it
was also used to make existing positions more attractive toformer
Pfizer employees
Source: University News Service
YOUTUBE
VIDEO OF
THE WEEK
RC student does
not bring sexy back
Justin Timberlake probably
never thought he would be outdone
by a Residential College freshman.
But if he's seen the YouTube video
"Chunkyback," he may change his
mind.
Try watching this captivating
yet slightly disturbing "Sexyback"
parody, and you'll understand why
"there's more to love."
The RC student and his friends
perform to lyrics about "thunder
thighs," "fried chicken" and "flesh
fat," all the while reminding you to
"get your chunky on." They sporad-
ically molest a Paris Hilton cut-out
in the stairwell and spend a consid-
erable amount of time gyrating in
the halls of East Quad.
The highlight of the video is the
student's outfit. He takes the stage
in a tight blue tee and white booty
shorts that leave nothing to the
imagination.
For those who feel stifled by soci-
etal pressures or maybe yearn for a
return to the days when chunky was
high fashion, thisvideo is liberating.
J.T. might benefit from a little time
in the East Quad dining hall.
- EMILYANGELL
See thisaand other YouTube videos of
the week at
-n ' -'lo nm yr ^/mrl -rnnln
Wednesday,M 2007 The Michigan Daily - P.
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
A lot oftimes whenI "Any kid with a ruler and a
camera can make a contribu-
was short, I would cre- tion."
ate a level of activity - WILLIAM PIKE, a British weather observer for
the Royal Meteorological Society, on the difficulty of
beforehand that would pinning down evidence that frisbee-sized snow flakes
really do exist. Scientists have deemed it likely that
drive the futures.... It's giant snow flakes regularly fall around the globe.
a fun game." "(On) Saturday I rose from
- JIM CRAMER, host of the popular TV show the dead and then died again.
"Mad Money," admitting illegally manipulating Tt's not that strange."
the markets via his show in a video that's been --- s a e
popular on Youtube.com. Cramer said it wasn't SINBAD on the flood of concern and sympathy he
something most people would admit and added'received after someone on Wikipedia.org edited the
I'm not going to say that on TV. article to say that he had passed away.
William of Orange counter celebration - If you
were annoyed by all the Papist revelry on the 17th,
throw a Northern Irish, protestant party instead.
Start pouring the orange beer and have fun reenact-
ing the Battle of the Boyne.
Throwing this party? Let us know. TheStatement@umich.edu
I
WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE
OF THE WEEK
"The Victors"
The Victors is the fight song of the University of Michigan. It
was composed by University student Louis Elbel in 1898 following
the last-minute football victory over the University of Chicago that
clinched a league championship. It was later declared by John Philip
Sousa as "the greatest college fight song ever written." Today, it is
one of the most memorable and famous college fight songs.
An abbreviated version of the fight song, based on the final
refrain, is played after the football team either scores or makes
a big defensive play, such as an interception. Its full lyrics span
several verses that run over two minutes long. The melody of the
fight song is very similar to the trio section from The Spirit of Lib-
erty March. This song is often referred to as "Hail to the Victors,"
which is not correct.
The phrase "champions of the west" is generally understood to
be a reference to the fact that the sport of football was then gaining
popularity west of the Appalachian Mountains and that, moreover,
the Big Ten was widely known as the "Western Conference."