Top-Tier Colleges That Produce Rhodes Scholars

Given the intense competition for admission, if you aspire to attend an Ivy League or similarly elite college, then you’re an ambitious person. Perhaps you’re even more ambitious than that and have set your sights on one of the ultimate achievements for an American undergraduate — a Rhodes Scholarship.

An imperialist’s imperialist, Cecil John Rhodes was a 19th century British mining magnate who turned a near-monopoly in the diamond trade into a vast fortune and political power in Africa. In his last will and testament, he provided for the establishment of the Rhodes Scholarship Trust, the world’s first international study program. The scholarship enabled students from territories under British rule like India and Burma or formerly under British rule such as the United States, Canada, and Australia, to study at his alma mater, the University of Oxford.

Rhodes’s aims were twofold. First, he sought to promote leadership among “young colonists” who were marked by public spirit and good character, thereby fostering friendship among the great powers. Secondly, he envisioned “the furtherance of the British Empire, the bringing of the whole uncivilized world under British rule, the recovery of the United States, and making the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire”. This delusion seems to have died with him.

Rhodes’s legacy specified four standards by which applicants were to be judged:

• Literary and scholastic attainments.
• Energy to use one’s talents to the fullest, as exemplified by fondness for and success in sports (now energy used in many ways, not solely through sports).
• Truth, courage, devotion to duty, sympathy for and protection of the weak, kindliness, unselfishness and fellowship.
• Moral force of character and instincts to lead; to take an interest in one’s fellow beings.

Each country’s scholarships vary in selectivity. In the United States, applicants first pass an intra-institutional endorsement. Then they proceed to one of the 16 U.S. district committees. In 2016, about 2,500 American students sought their institution’s endorsement for the scholarship and 832 were selected to proceed to the district level. Of the 128 students pre-selected by the committees, the Trust selects two students annually from each of the 16 districts. Students may represent either their home state or the state in which their school resides.

Since 1902, the Rhodes Scholarship program has been the most prestigious award granted to graduates of American colleges and universities. The 32 American scholars chosen annually since the program’s inception have included many highly accomplished people in both public and private life. Some of the more notable among them are listed in Table A with their alma mater and fields.

Table A: Notable American Recipients of Rhodes Scholarships

Name	Institution	Accomplishments/Field
Edwin Hubble	Chicago	Astronomer
John Harlan	Princeton	U.S. Supreme Court Justice
J. William Fulbright	Arkansas	U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Robert Penn Warren	Vanderbilt	Poet, Author, Critic
Carl Albert	Oklahoma	Speaker – U.S. House of Representatives
Dean Rusk	Davidson	U.S. Secretary of State
Daniel Boorstin	Harvard	Author and Librarian of Congress
Walt Rostow	Yale	U.S. National Security Advisor
Howard K. Smith	Tulane	Broadcast Journalist
Byron White	Colorado	Football Player, Supreme Court Justice
Nicholas Katzenbach	Princeton	U.S. Attorney General
Stansfield Turner	U.S. Naval Academy	Director of Central Intelligence
John Searle	Wisconsin	Philosopher
Ron Dworkin	Harvard	Academic
Paul Sarbanes	Princeton	U.S. Senator
Richard Celeste	Yale	Governor of Ohio, Director of Peace Corps
David Souter	Harvard	U.S. Supreme Court Justice
James Woolsey	Stanford	Director of Central Intelligence
Lester Thurow	Williams	Economist
Terence Malick	Harvard	Film Director
Robert Reich	Dartmouth	U.S. Secretary of Labor
James Fallows	Harvard	Journalist, Edito

Rachel Maddow	Stanford	Broadcast Journalist
Kris Kristofferson	Pomona	Singer, Songwriter, Actor
Bill Clinton	Georgetown	President of the United States
Cory Booker	Stanford	U.S. Senator
Bill Bradley	Princeton	Basketball Player, U.S. Senator
Naomi Wolf	Yale	Author, Critic
Wesley Clark	U.S. Military Academy	Supreme Allied Commander – NATO
Russ Feingold	Wisconsin	U.S. Senator
Nicholas Kristof	Harvard	Journalist, Columnist
Susan Rice	Stanford	U.S. National Security Advisor
Kurt Schmoke	Yale	Mayor of Baltimore, Dean of Law School
E. J. Dionne	Harvard	Journalist, Commentator
Michael Kinsley	Harvard	Journalist, Editor
Strobe Talbott	Yale	Diplomat, Journalist
Ira Magaziner	Brown	Senior Advisor to the President
George Stephanopoulos	Columbia	Broadcast Journalist, Campaign Manager
Ashton Carter	Yale	U.S. Secretary of Defense

The list of colleges and universities from which our Rhodes Scholars have graduated represents a wide spectrum of American institutions. From 1902 to 2017, there have been 304 institutions that have produced at least one Rhodes Scholar. As you might expect, the Ivy League and several other schools have produced more than their fair share, as noted in Table B below:

Table B: U.S. Schools With the Most Rhodes Scholars (1902-2017)

Institution	Scholars
Ivy League: Harvard	358

Yale	243
Princeton	209
Dartmouth	63
Brown	55
Cornell	31
Columbia	27
Pennsylvania	20
Universities:
Stanford	99
Chicago	51
MIT	45
North Carolina	44
Duke	42
Washington Univ. – St. Louis	27
Kansas	27
Michigan	26
Vanderbilt	26
Colleges:
U.S. Military Academy	92
U.S. Naval Academy	46
U.S. Air Force Academy	38
Williams	35
Reed	32
Swarthmore	28
Davidson	23
Bowdoin	22
Amherst	20
Haverford	20