The Road to the Rhodes

A peculiar thing happened this week. For the first time in 70 years, a Harvard student was not among the 32 college seniors and recent graduates selected as American Rhodes scholars.

After tipping your hat to Tegan S. Shohet '01, who was named a Canadian Rhodes Scholar in a separate competition earlier this month, ask how it could be that the University, who usually sends four or five and once even 10 of its own on this most prestigious of scholarships, suddenly sends none. Have Harvard students in the Class of 2001 lost their edge?

Calling this year's results a "random fluctuation," Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 attributes Harvard's non-showing to an unavoidable statistical aberration that was bound to happen one year or another. Elliot F. Gerson '74, American Secretary of the Rhodes Scholarship Trust, deems it an "inevitable" event into which no "great significance" should be read. While chance no doubt played a part in Harvard's poor showing, I would add to that an entirely non-random factor.

To understand why Yale, Stanford and West Point surpassed Harvard in the American Rhodes competition, look no further than the process by which Harvard selects its candidates for the award. While well-meaning, Harvard's Rhodes endorsement competition, carried out by the college and administered by the Office of Career Services (OCS), consistently denies qualified candidates university endorsement, as Gerson himself and the Warden of Rhodes House noted on a recent visit. Even though college officials moved to address Gerson's concerns by raising the number of endorsements by 21 percent this year, so many clearly qualified candidates remained on the sidelines that it's no surprise Harvard was denied outright this time around.

Every fall, over 80 Harvard students apply for University endorsement, a necessary prerequisite for applying to the Rhodes scholarship itself--though many schools bypass this process and instead endorse all their applicants outright. Harvard's complex, two-tiered endorsement committee consistently rejects more than half who apply. Before getting started, these potential Rhodes Scholars are stopped in their tracks, deemed unworthy by the committee of even having a shot at the mystical award.

The ostensible justification for severely restricting who Harvard sends on presumably rests on the University's desire to ensure high standards among endorsees--though OCS has never explicitly addressed why it turns away so many seemingly qualified applicants, other than to say that the Rhodes process is inherently demanding and that only the most qualified prevail. It seems reasonable to allow institutions the chance to veto applicants with substantial disciplinary records or whose academic and extracurricular credentials are so lacking that their application would prove an embarrassment for all involved. Outside of this criterion, it seems unreasonable for Harvard to exclude anyone, especially when one considers the inadequate and error-prone endorsement system now in place as well as the serendipitous nature of the Rhodes selection process.

As it stands, the OCS endorsement committee passes judgement on the basis of a substantially limited evaluation of candidates that explicitly excludes their most telling credentials: the eight letters of recommendation Rhodes committees request. By reviewing only a candidate's transcript, 1000-word personal statement and one-page activities list (one page shorter than in the official application), the selection committee forms its opinion on a gravely impoverished set of information. Not only does this deny a full accounting of candidates' extra-curricular and academic accomplishments, thereby discounting any attribute not captured in a letter grade or activity listing, but it also has the effect of biasing the committee towards candidates with strong transcripts at the expense of those whose contributions have come in other places. The OCS process also fails to include an interview, the most important and infamous feature of the Rhodes selection process.

In light of the paucity of OCS's endorsement procedure, it is particularly disconcerting to learn how many seemingly viable candidates are turned away on the assumption they would not be competitive. In my own entryway, three candidates with compelling credentials were not endorsed. One was a captain of a sports team who was also the best athlete in the Ivy League in his sport, another a leader of one of Harvard's top four student groups and the third was yours truly, who admittedly dampened his chances with, of all things, a sloppy essay. Perhaps all three of us never had a shot, but then again, perhaps our promise was grievously underestimated, just like that of an advanced standing classmate of ours who after not being endorsed for the Rhodes last year went on to win a Marshall.

Understanding these flaws helps explain why Harvard students won't be sailing to Oxford come September. The reason is not that Harvard didn't field good candidates. Those endorsed are among the best of the best. It's that Harvard didn't field all the candidates it could have.

The good news is that this can be easily fixed by the powers that be, who in this case happen to be Dean Lewis. The most ideal solution is simply to endorse all nominally qualified applicants. With the notoriously intense Rhodes interview process, which while not random is certainly a hit or miss experience, it is in Harvard's best interest to field as many candidates as possible. When those tossing the questions are so unpredictable, it's best to give everyone the chance to hit a home run. If Harvard wishes to continue restricting the number of candidates it endorses for institutional reasons, then at the very least OCS can ensure a full accounting of candidates' worthiness by bringing its endorsement competition in line with the Rhodes selection procedures. This would mean including a full slate of letters of recommendation and perhaps even a round of interviews.

If these changes are made, Lewis and Gerson can rest assured that Harvard's present impotence in the Rhodes competition is indeed a statistical fluke and not the result of a miscalibrated endorsement process. Future applicants too can then know it was the stars that were aligned against them rather than the system.

Christopher M. Kirchhoff '01 is a history and science concentrator in Winthrop House. His columns appear on alternate Wednesdays.