The end of Ivy League domination?

Prestigious postgraduate fellowships like the Rhodes, Marshall and Fulbright can take students who win them a long way. Winners are given a chance to spend from one to three years in prestigious centers of academia like Oxford or Cambridge, where they are placed among some of the most intellectual people in the world.

Historically, Ivy League schools have had an edge in winning scholarships available for American citizens, taking about 36 percent of those offered from 1947 to 1996.

But since 1996, the Ivy League has captured only 21 percent. More notably, Princeton's share dropped from 7.2 percent to only 1.8 percent.

On the other hand, more winners have emerged from state schools and some smaller institutions in the past five years. Students at less prestigious institutions like Temple University and Morehouse College are winning fellowships for the first time in their schools' histories.

Are the Ivy League schools losing their advantage in fellowship competitions? In a recent article, The Chronicle of Higher Education questioned the Ivies' ability to maintain their lead. The article asserted that recent wins at non-Ivy League schools have begun a steady increase in the range of advising opportunities offered in many schools. This has produced impressive results at these schools — last year, when Yale was denied a Marshall and Harvard a Rhodes, Arkansas was granted both.

The advising process at many schools has been criticized as going too far, however. Aside from simply conducting mock interviews or making suggestions on applications, some advisers at other schools go as far as to instruct students on what exactly to say and rewrite students' essays.

In comparison, at Princeton, applicants usually must explore the idea of a fellowship on their own, with minimal guidance from West College.

According to students who are applying or have won a fellowship, applicants at Princeton receive less one-on-one guidance than at other schools and as a result feel ill-informed about deadlines or dates for information sessions.

Assistant Dean of the College Marcia Cantarella — who leads Princeton's advising team — said that the University tries to make sure students know that the fellowships exist, the opportunities they hold and what they mean.

"We want to make sure that students interested in applying — who have plans for a graduate career or studies at professional schools — are fully prepared," she noted. "We try to make them comfortable about interviews, so we have mock interviews. We also help them make their personal statements powerful and compelling so they put the best of themselves forward.

"However, we never do work for somebody. Putting in their own effort is important because the value is in their understanding and appreciating the work," Cantarella added.

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She acknowledged that there is more competition for the fellowships these days, and that the fellowship committees have told her that there are more and more applications that are hard to separate because students appear equally excellent. She admitted that oftentimes outcomes are dependent on chemistry between the interviewers and the applicants, and therefore chance becomes a factor. This is why, Cantarella noted, strong candidates are often urged to apply for multiple fellowships.

When asked how she felt about Princeton garnering fewer awards in the past few years, Cantarella said that she thought that Princeton has a great number of talented students, "but we're not alone in that. We may have several [students] we endorse that we feel are really really strong candidates, and when they don't win, we're not disappointed because Princeton didn't get them, but because these wonderful people didn't get them."

Because competition has become so fierce, factors such as diversity and uniqueness are playing larger roles in the decisions. Committees look for "students who have had a lot to overcome, different family backgrounds or illness, but who also maintain a high degree of academic excellence and contribute to their school and community, or who have interesting jobs," Cantarella noted.

It is this emphasis on diversity and background that worries some applicants. Doug Callahan '02, who is applying for the Marshall and the Fulbright, said that "certain strategies work from year to year" and that it was hard to predict what committees are currently seeking.

He also felt that the process was extremely rushed, since the deadlines come up very early in the fall semester.

"I'm an RA, and I was busy taking care of the freshmen at the beginning of the year," Callahan said. Because Princeton has internal deadlines for students that are often a month or two before the real deadline, he said he had a difficult time scheduling and preparing for the application.

Callahan said he also felt strongly about Princeton's endorsement process. Princeton has its own Rhodes committee that decides which students to endorse and then assigns these applicants to committee members who assist them with the rest of the process. He said this screening process is problematic because it allows only those students whom the University feels have the best chances for winning to apply. Kelli Rudolph '02, who is applying for the Rhodes, said, "My assumption is that since Princeton endorses a rather large number of candidates, in comparison to a state school, they spend less time on the students at the beginning of the process when they are still unsure who will get an interview and — I imagine — the attention will focus as the actual interview deadlines get closer."

"I think Princeton should be having more fellowship winners than we are [currently having]," she noted. "A friend of mine, who attended a state school that had never before won a Rhodes, won the scholarship a few years ago. When I asked her about the process she went through on her campus [she said that] her Rhodes adviser, who had himself attended Oxford on a Rhodes, helped her edit and rework her essay [and] saw her through the entire process."

Rudolph said that her friend's adviser gave her three 20- to 30- minute mock interview sessions that were video-taped. All sessions were with different professors, who would examine her her physical appearance and her answers. They asked questions ranging from her academic interests to her political, social and moral beliefs, her background and her knowledge of current events.

Rudolph's experience at Princeton was less intense. "I found the best help I got on my statement was from the professors I went to individually and asked for help, both of whom had been at Oxford themselves," she said.

Rudolph's mock interviews were twenty minutes long, conducted informally before a panel of four, the dean and three professors who serve on the Princeton Rhodes committee. "Questions were interspersed with comments about my answers. In the end, constructive advice about delivery was given," she explained.

Career Services also holds sessions that may be helpful to students applying for fellowships. For example, it held a special etiquette dinner to help students whose interview, either for a job or a fellowship, involves a dining [or] reception situation.

"I certainly don't feel as prepared by the process as I would like, but it is still relatively early in the game," Rudolph said.

Susan Rea '00, who won a Marshall in 1999, said in an e-mail, "I felt that Princeton's advising system was adequate but did rely a fair amount on personal initiative.

"Having talked to other Marshall scholars from different schools, some — particularly the Naval Academy, Air Force Academy and the University of Kansas — had much more formalized application preparation systems, starting earlier on and with more guidance on personal essays and interview techniques.

"But in some ways I preferred having it left up to me because then it was really me that was being selected, not a slanted version of myself that had been shaped into a predetermined mold as some of these other programs seem to do," she noted.

Rudolph said she agreed: "I wouldn't want to win a fellowship that I had to contrive and convolute myself to obtain. I believe accurate representation of who I am and what I'm about is enough."