DiBerardino ’11, Jia ’10 win Rhodes; Agrawal ’11 wins Mitchell

DiBerardino, a music major from Westport, Conn., plans to earn a master’s degree in music composition at Oxford.

The Rhodes announcement came less than one week after he learned that he had won a Marshall Scholarship, which would have funded two years of study at the Royal College of Music in London. Because the Rhodes Trust mandates that recipients accept the scholarship, DiBerardino had to turn down the Marshall Scholarship.

“The Marshall was such a great opportunity ... that it was hard to turn down, and I had to go into the Rhodes interview knowing I’d take Oxford over RCM,” DiBerardino said in an e-mail. “It’s such an honor, and I’m not sure it’s ever going to sink in.”

At Princeton, DiBerardino founded the Undergraduate Composers Collective, a group devoted to writing and studying music composition. He is currently composing a string quartet for his senior thesis.

“He’s developed really quickly during these last few years, moving from compositions that were clearly the product of a young student ... to his more recent compositions which really seem mature and focused,” said music professor Dimitri Tymoczko, who advised DiBerardino on his junior independent work.

DiBerardino said he plans to pursue further music education after completing his studies at Oxford. He said he believes music can be “a concrete vehicle for social change,” a sentiment echoed by Rockefeller College master Jeff Nunokawa, who has known DiBerardino since his freshman year.

“He exhibited even then a kind of social sensitivity and generosity which was difficult to distinguish from his intellect,” said Nunokawa, who said that he felt “almost parental pride” upon hearing the news. “Nick knows how to bring out the best in people.”

A member of Phi Beta Kappa, DiBerardino received the Shapiro Prize for Academic Excellence in 2008 and 2009.

DiBerardino said that receiving the award has caused him to feel renewed gratitude not only for the opportunities available to him, but for the support of his music teachers, friends and family members.

“To say I couldn’t have done this without them would be an understatement. I did this because of them, and I’d say that’s the most significant feeling I have right now: gratitude,” he said.

Jia, from Waltham, Mass., was a Wilson School major and earned a certificate in East Asian studies. He is currently working at the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing as a Princeton-in-Asia fellow, teaching constitutional history and American politics.

Jia, who plans to study politics at Oxford, is primarily interested in Chinese legal reform and hopes to be involved in reforming the Chinese constitution as the nation democratizes.

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“I am very excited about studying at Oxford,” Jia said in an e-mail. “I think it will be a tremendous opportunity to study comparative government and Chinese politics with some of the finest scholars in the world.”

His senior thesis, “Legal Aid and the Rule of Law in the People’s Republic of China,” was awarded prizes from both the Program in Law and Public Affairs and the Program in East Asian studies.

Wilson School professor Lynn White, Jia’s senior thesis adviser, commended his persistence in working with the Chinese government for his research. After a government official “had more or less agreed to the research proposal, he asked Mark bluntly to portray Chinese legal aid in a positive light, even if the results were less impressive,” White said. “Mark’s response was principled and effective: He explained that it would serve nobody’s interest to concede ground with respect to academic integrity and objectivity.”

“He is ‘book smart,’ but he is also willing to go out and collate knowledge that brings social benefits,” White said.

Born in China, Jia was president of the Chinese Students Association and managing director of the Princeton Progressive Nation at Princeton. He also served as a deputy national field director of the Students for Barack Obama campaign.

“It’s great that my high opinion of him and my recommendation were taken seriously,” said visiting Wilson School professor Martin Flaherty ’81, who led one of Jia’s junior-year task forces and wrote him a recommendation letter for the scholarship. Jia was such a “standout” in his task force that Flaherty asked him to be a senior commissioner in the task force he led the next year, Flaherty said.

Jia will defer matriculation at Harvard Law School until after completing his studies at Oxford. After unsuccessfully applying for the Rhodes as a senior, Jia said he was humbled to learn that he was a winner in this year’s competition.

“I was shocked, particularly after meeting the 14 other finalists, all of whom were so accomplished and talented in their own ways,” he said.

Both DiBerardino and Jia said they found last weekend’s interviews to be an enjoyable process, though DiBerardino said it was hard not to be somewhat nervous.

Jia said his first interview focused on his areas of academic and professional interest, while the second focused much more on personal qualities such as his work on the Obama campaign and his “biggest mistake.”

“The questioners on these panels will be trying their hardest to understand what motivates you at your core — what you ideally hope to accomplish, specifically how you want to accomplish it and why, so the best preparation you can have is a strong sense of self and purpose,” DiBerardino said. “Do what you love, do it as well as you can, and do it with as much conviction as you can muster.”

Agrawal, of West Lafayette, Ind., is a mathematics major pursuing certificates in applied and computational mathematics and applications of computing.

He will study economic policy evaluation and planning at the National University of Ireland, Galway, and hopes to work on economic policy at The World Bank, the United Nations Development Program or the Treasury Department in the future.

Like DiBerardino, Agrawal was a competitor for multiple national scholarships. He was selected as a finalist for the Rhodes, but because the interviews for the two scholarships were on the same day, Agrawal chose to interview for the Mitchell. He was also a finalist for the Marshall.

The Mitchell was more suitable given his interest in macroeconomics and its policy implications, Agrawal explained, and the one-year program would also allow him to more quickly begin a Ph.D. in economics or economic finance.

“It will be like living in an experiment,” Agrawal said, referring to Ireland’s current dire economic situation. He also noted that Galway is known for its exceptional economics faculty.

After his sophomore year, Agrawal led a project to design and build a library in Ghana along with a team from the student group Engineers Without Borders, of which he has served as co-president. Also a member of Phi Beta Kappa, he was awarded the Shapiro Prize for Academic Excellence in 2008 and 2009 and received the George B. Wood Legacy Sophomore Prize.

Gordon MacInnes GS ’65, a former Wilson School visiting professor, taught Agrawal in a graduate-level course, WWS 528C: Issues in Education Policy. Agrawal was the only undergraduate in the course and was admitted as a sophomore, MacInnes said in an e-mail.

“He talked his way in by impressing me with the intensity of his interest in the subject, his knowledge about educational politics in his hometown and state, and the fact that he was a mathematics major,” MacInnes explained. He added that Agrawal, who “sets a very high bar for himself,” will be studying in Ireland at a time when the country “is under greater stress than the U.S. or the rest of Northern Europe.”

Agrawal said his background in international foreign aid may have helped him stand out to the selections committee. “It was amazing to see three years of hard work come into fruition,” Agrawal said.

The 32 American Rhodes Scholars were selected from a pool of 837 students endorsed by 309 different institutions. Like Princeton, Yale had two winners this year, and Harvard, Stanford and the University of Chicago each boasted three recipients. A Harvard Medical School student also received a Rhodes. The only other Ivy League school represented was Dartmouth, which had one recipient. Including this year’s winners, Princeton has had a total of 195 American Rhodes Scholars since the Rhodes Trust was established in 1902.

Mitchell Scholarships were awarded to 12 Americans nationwide, from a pool of 262 applicants representing 163 institutions. The scholarships fund a year of post-graduate work at universities in Ireland.

Correction: An earlier version of this article implied that Mohit Agrawal ’11 was a competitor for two national scholarships, the Rhodes and Mitchell Scholarships when, in fact, he was also a finalist for the Marshall Scholarship.