The Long and Grinding Rhodes

The qualities Cecil Rhodes specified in his will as desirable in Rhodes scholars are wide open for interpretation. "Literary and scholastic ability and attainments; qualities of manhood, truthfulness, courage, devotion to duty, sympathy for and protection of the weak, kindliness, unselfishness and fellowship; exhibition of moral force of character, and instincts to lead and to take an interest in his fellows; physical vigor, as shown by fondness for and success in sports." None of these are exactly standardized, nor have the will's executors standardized their definition of requisite qualities. Still, one thing is fairly clear about the will: Cecil Rhodes was not thinking of women.

Nonetheless, the Trustees of the Rhodes Trust asked the English Parliament this summer to pass an act that allows any endowed educational fund to petition to open the grant to members of both sexes, regardless of the donor's intention. When the act came before the House of Lords, Lord Blake, current warden of the Rhodes Trust, said, "I can safely predict that if this goes through the Rhodes Trust will be among the first single-sex educational trusts to make an application to the (English) Secretary of State."

Don K. Price, dean of the Kennedy School of Government and the first non-English member of the board of trustees for the Rhodes, says, "Everything had to be negotiated out before hand--if the members of the Rhodes Trust had made a lot of fuss about the changes it would have prejudiced their case badly." Price adds, smiling, that "it's a wonderful illustration of the way different countries do business,"--the Trustees had to be sure the government would accept the amendment to the Education Act before their proposal received any publicity.

The amendment passed, and the selection committees will begin to accept application from women next fall, But no one seems sure what kind of women the committees will be looking for.

Michael S. Rice, '63, secretary for the Massachussets Rhodes selection committee, says he feels the women who are chosen "will in effect select themselves--the selection committees are wholly dependent on who chooses to apply." Rice says he will look for women with "a good head, an active life in some important respect, a social role of some importance in some area, some evidence of achievement in other areas besides academics," and for women who are "honorable, compassionate, and principled."

Perhaps it's only natural that the qualifications for women are vague, since after all, those for men are equally unclear. The majority of Rhodes scholars have been in Group II as undergraduates, but they range from I to the bottom of Group III. The only definite specification is the emphasis on physical activity, and Price says the selection committees have "played down" even that requirement since the 20's.

"You don't have to be a great athlete," Price says, although he teases that "of course the committees realize that anyone who isn't disposed towards some pariticpation in physical activity is likely to die within two months in the Oxford climate." Joking aside, Price says he thinks athletics are "a good way to get to know people, to get involved in the Oxford community," and give the Rhodes scholars--there are 72 elected each year, only 32 of whom are American--something in common besides academic work.

One historian of the Rhodes Trust, himself an ex-warden of Rhodes House, calls the founder's vision one of "Oxford as a nursery of leaders, the energizing source of Empire and the womb of a thousand years of peace for mankind." Michael E. Kinsley '72, a second year law student and former Rhodes scholar, says that to the extent that Rhodes's idea was "to turn the future leaders of America into Anglophiles, it makes perfect sense for women to be admitted" to the foundation. Now that three Oxford colleges have gone co-ed, he says, there isn't really any reason for the Trust to remain limited to men.

And Kinsley admits that, well, he did in fact turn into an Anglophile while he was at Oxford. He confides that he felt miserable the first six months--his room was eight flights up with no bath, the people seemed unfriendly and the weather was awful, and he flooded the mail with unhappy letters. But in the spring, he began to get used to it, and, as he puts it, "it really did it--I don't see how you can live in a country for two years without liking it eventually." The application process for the Rhodes is gruelling, and the competition is intense. "You start out thinking it's made for me,--it's just whatI want, and I have all the qualifications; and then you realize how many people you're contending with, and how hard it is to make it all the way through," Lauren Zachman, staff assistant for fellowships at the Office of Graduate Career and Programs (OGCP), says--and she seems to be right. The Rhodes gives you two years at Oxford and a great deal of prestige, but everyone involved in the application process agress that it isn't worth going through unless you have a pretty good shot at the finals.

To start with, you send an application including a resume, three photographs, a copy of your transcipt and a 1000-word essay to the selection committee in either your home state or the state in which your college is located. A request for at least four and no more than eight names of "persons from whom information may be obtained concerning [your] qualification" is included in the application form. As an applicant who asked not to be named said, "Of course you don't want to give them less than eight names, and then you have to write to each of the people you're asking for recommendations to tell them what you'd like them to focus on--in effect, that's eight more essays."

Until this year, applicants needed the University's endorsement before they went on with the process. Last year 95 students from Harvard received endorsements, and five were among the final 32 who received scholarships. The Rhodes Trust eliminated this step this year, in response to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare's Title IX bill, which says that any educational institution that helps a student receive scholarships limited to one sex must set up an equivalent fund for members of the other sex.

"Most universities were terribly embarrassed by the prospect of being held liable for creating fellowships for women to study and travel abroad if they recommended a man for the Rhodes and he got it--it seemed capricious, because if your man didn't get it, you didn't have to give one to a woman," Price says, so the Secretary of the American Rhodes Trust decided simply to bypass the University endorsement entirely.

Rice says that applications have not risen alarmingly this fall, but that he imagines they'll all arrive just before the October 31 deadline.

Getting your application in is only the first step for a prospective Rhodes scholar. Each state chooses around 15 applicants for interviews, perhaps the most important part of the process--it is the emphasis on personal contact that makes the Rhodes application unique. Only two of the fifteen will go on to the regional interviews-- each state belongs in a region that will select four finalists, a way, Rice says, of avoiding bias toward any particular area.

Applicants arrive the night before the interview for a cocktail party that Kinsley describes as "absolutely nightmarish." Applicants and interviewers are expected to mingle. Rice says he finds the parties a good chance to get to know the applicant's strong points, but a little book at the OGCP with comments from people who've gone the route is full of descriptions in a slightly different tone. The applicants try hard to appear manly by clearly not trying to impress the committee members, and the committee members try to draw applicants out. One disappointed applicant called the result "the most stilted conversation I've ever heard."

Members of the state selection committees are usually former Rhodes scholars, although, Price says, the chairman never is. Some committees have included women in the past, and Price says he expects many of them will approach more this year in preparation for women applicants. The interviews--which are all done in the same day--are long and very thorough. Rice says he finds that day "the most stimulating one of the year," because it offers him a chance to learn not only about the concerns of the graduating classes but also about the subjects in which the applicants are interested. That afternoon, the candidates sit outside the interviewing room and wait to be called back--some are, some are not.

"They always tell you it doesn't mean anything if you're called back, but you can't help thinking it does," Kinsley says. In his own essay Kinsley says he gently ribbed his religious background and discovered to his horror that a member of his committee was what he calls "a real holy-roller type." They brought Kinsley back, and the active church-goer asked him if he wished to retract his comment about religion. Kinsley says he was in rather a quandary, because he could not decide whether to make the man happy or stick by the reference, which, after all, he hadn't really taken seriously when he wrote it. But he decided that he should be "manly" and principled, and he said he would not retract. The committee member beamed and said, "That's just what we wanted to hear."

Applicants who don't get such an obvious chance to display their manhood probably find the committee's decisions a little more arbitrary. Gregory S. Dube '76, who is applying from Maine, says, "the tales [of interviews] have planted the seeds of trepidation in my mind, but I think the interview process is probably the fairest way to do it--if you can't take the interview you probably won't like the other Rhodes scholars, since the committee members are pretty representative." Dube is fairly optimistic about his chances for at least the state nomination, but he shrugs and adds, "Of course there are no shoo-ins."

Each state picks two candidates, who go on to the regional interviews from which four out of twelve candidates will emerge as Rhodes Scholar-elects. Regionals are three days after the state interviews, and candidates are flown to the regional center at the Trust's expense. These interviews are similar to those at the state level, but they may be even more intense. One successful candidate told the OGCP, "I don't think anyone but someone who has gone through the process realizes how strong the losers are." The 32 who win the scholarships get two paid years at Oxford-- the losers just get flown home in time for Christmas.

In 1902, shortly after Rhodes's death, the first executor of his will told a convention of American university and college presidents that "provided they would select from each state the candidate most likely to become President of the United States, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court or ambassador to Great Britain, then Oxford and the Rhodes Trustees would probably be satisfied." There are some Rhodes scholars who never use their gifts, Rice says, but he adds that "if there's any quality that's common to Rhodes who haven't done much, it's that they see all the sides of a problem, and are paralyzed."

It's that kind of attitude which typifies people's view of Rhodes scholars. While they may not all shine academically, they must somehow be outstanding to get to the final stage--above all, the scholarships are intended for the future leaders of the world. Kinsley points out that "by its nature, the Rhodes is elitist--people who come from countries that don't have Rhodes, people who are not athletes, people who are, well stupid, are excluded." Cecil Rhodes was one of the great builders of the British Empire, and it would be surprising if his Trust didn't reflect the kind of attitude with which he justified colonialism.

But Rice says he feels the Rhodes is not discriminatory--that in fact "it's made a significant if narrow contribution to upward mobility," at least for individual members of minority groups.

"The Rhodes committees look for people who won't build a wall around themselves, who will give something of their experience to their communities," he says, and when the Rhodes gives people an advantage in getting jobs, he suggest, that "if it's an advantage that's fairly given, maybe that's a fair advantage."

Harvard graduates have disproportionately large contingents in the group that has finally gone to Oxford--last year nearly a sixth of the finalists came from Harvard. But even a Harvard diploma won't assure the scholarship--in fact, nothing will. So much depends on the competition you face, on the quality of your recommendations, and simply on the mood of your interviewers if you make it that far, that even the most impressive-looking resume may not help when you apply. But if you decide to try for a Rhodes when you graduate, well, good luck--and if you don't get it, remember that Pat McInally didn't get one either.