Blattler Vaults Over the Competition for Rhodes Scholarship

Senior Clara Blattler knows how to clear obstacles.

Having set the Harvard women’s pole vaulting record last year at the Heptagonal Championships by clearing 12 feet, six inches, the Leverett House senior is looking forward to her next big challenge: Oxford.

Named one of the 2008 recipients of the highly competitive and highly coveted Rhodes Scholarship in November, the Brookline, Mass. native will be joining the ranks of the Oxford Blues following her graduation this June.

“I first heard about it and thought about applying at the beginning of last summer,” Blattler reminisced. “Everybody gets these emails from their house fellowship advisors, and I guess my brother encouraged me to apply.”

But the process was no small task for Blattler.

The first essays for the application were due in September of last year. Select essays were then sent to the National Division in October and applicants were notified if they got an interview or not later in October.

The interviews were then held in November.

“That was actually really neat about the process...you sit in on your interview and interviews happen throughout the day and all the applicants are there sitting around and waiting so you get to know people. And then that day they come in and tell you who gets it.”

According to the scholarship’s official website, applicants must possess a combination of leadership skills, sound character, as well as academic and athletic success as expressed in the will of the British colonial pioneer and statesman Cecil J. Rhodes.

But according to Blattler, applicants don’t necessarily have to be involved in organized sports.

“I think the quote is ‘physical vigor’ or something like that,” Blattler joked, “‘the energy to use one’s ability to the fullest as best exemplified by a fondness for and success in athletics’ or something like that.”

Needless to say, Blattler has the whole package.

In addition to vaulting, the Earth and Planetary Sciences concentrator spends most of her hours either in the lab or playing music recreationally. So how does she balance it all?

“It turns that it’s a really great break in your day,” she said about her track and field involvement.

“You’re in class in the morning, usually you’re sitting down, you’re learning things. And then if you’re doing homework at night, you’re also sitting down. If you get up in the middle of the day and move around, run around, I think it’s a good mental break and it gives you energy to do things in the evening.”

Blattler has taken time off from track to focus on her primary concern, her schoolwork.

Last summer she spent two months in Namibia doing field work for her concentration with the geology professor, Paul Hoffman.

“It’s important to take breaks and keep things in perspective,” she said of her time in Africa. “I’m not obviously going to be a world class athlete at this point.”

Upon her arrival on the Oxford grounds, Blattler plans to join the Earth Science Program, where she’ll study Geochemistry.

“The advisor that I’d like to work with there is actually friends with my thesis advisor here,” she said.

And although she still hasn’t decided whether she’ll enroll in the two-year masters program or the three-year doctorate, she admits that “the three-year doctorate sounds appealing at the moment.”

But Blattler hasn’t completely discarded continuing pole vaulting across the Atlantic.

Since no NCAA undergraduate rules would apply for her at Oxford, she’s thought about vaulting for Oxford’s track club recreationally.

“Actually Harvard-Yale sends a combined team to compete against Oxford and Cambridge every couple of years,” she said. “It’s this long-standing tradition of competition.”

Not to mention, track and field has been an integral part of Blattler’s Harvard education.

“[Clara] and I always joked that we spend more time together than with any other people,” said fellow pole vaulter and senior captain Sally Stanton.

“A lot of people who saw me and knew I was interviewing they all said, ‘Good luck’ and ‘I hope you do well’ and ‘You’re a rockstar’ and whatever,” Blattler said of her track and field teammates. “And actually that, I thought, really helped my confidence. It was so nice to know that my teammates and friends and everybody were supporting me.”

And according to Stanton, Blattler’s success comes from maintaining the same mentality off the field as on it.

“We always joke that pole vaulters are head cases,” Stanton said. “But [Clara]’s super, super consistent as an athlete. [She] never misses a day, she’s never late, always excited, will do more situps, run an extra lap, do another interval. She’s a great example for the rest of the team.”

With the Heptagonal Championships coming up again on March 1, Blattler will have another opportunity to add on to her Harvard record.

As for her future pole vaulting plans, “I’m leaving it open.”

“Obviously, I don’t know what Oxford’s going to be like, but I hear it’s got a lot of opportunities and a lot of interesting traditions and things to explore so I’ll leave it open.”

But Blattler is still hesitant to offer any sage words for hopeful Rhodes Scholars.

“I don’t think I quite have the platform to say anything like that yet,” she said with a smile.

—Staff writer Dixon McPhillips can be reached at fmcphill@fas.harvard.edu.