Adventures of Andrew Lee

DINNER/RECEPTION- At the dinner- how much of a factor is the dinner/lunch/social gathering? What topics are generally discussed (cocktail conversation, like the latest book, etc.?)

A: The dinner/reception/lunch is extremely important. It is the first time to make a first impression and meeting every single panel member is an imperative. Some advice for this is:

• dress professionally
• treat questions as if you’re on the interview panel, but don’t clam up as if you were on the interview panel
• don’t oversell yourself
• be calm

At the end of the reception, the committee will stay behind and a person will volunteer to be the lead interviewer or to throw out the first question.

What is the diversity of the panel (is everyone a lawyer)?

A: Diverse panel, but everyone is smart, don’t try to pull a fast one on anybody. They won’t beat up on you, but they are all looking for good composition and a good interviewer.

Should we emphasize a sports component if we have one?

A: Some people do. If you feel that it is one of your strength’s then please highlight that component. Depending on the panel, some emphasize having at least one person with a sports background (because it is a life learning methodology), while others care more about the academic component.

Are there usually questions left at the end of the interview? Is that a bad thing?

A: Generally, panels feel that they get a good feel within the 20 minutes. If they have follow-up questions that are most pressing, they will call you in for a second interview. They will usually stick to the time limit. Don’t ramble or try to sound knowledgeable.

What do panels generally like (i.e. philosophical musings? interdisciplinary observations? humorous statements? or interesting esoteric facts?)

A: Whatever your strengths are. Shine through with those. Don’t spend all of your time learning interesting cocktail conversation.

PART II: Notes from Andrew

Preparing for the Rhodes was a great way to further refine my understanding of who I am and what I want in life. I apologize for any grammatical mistakes, spelling faux pas, or any other areas of generally unintelligible writing. None of our previous applicants have made this information available for popular consumption, so I’m going to try to tell as much as I can about my Rhodes experience and how you can prepare for it and stop (as of this writing) the 13-year drought on Rhodes-Marshall-Gates scholarships.

The Application

Unlike the Truman Scholarship, I was not responding to prompts, but rather given 1000 words and the task of condensing a theme and my life thus far. I will always cherish my Rhodes essay and the people that I met at the District XIII Interview. Here’s my advice on the application (remember that if you don’t get this right, you’re dead in the water).

The purpose is to show sides of you not apparent in the activities list, to show why you care about the things you care about, to put your accomplishments in context, to show what your future goals are (and how they are a natural outgrowth of your previous accomplishments), to show how Oxford will help you achieve your goals, and most importantly, to introduce you as a person to the selection committee.

I feel that the best approach (and it says this on the Rhodes website) is to use direct language and speak plainly about yourself. Don’t be overly creative (SEE MINE AND OTHERS PERSONAL STATEMENTS), but don’t kill your voice.

Also, remember that the focus should be 99.9% about YOU. Read other people’s personal statements (see your advisors, if they don’t have samples, then this school really doesn’t care about your future success). Although samples have flaws, it is clear when you read them why they were chosen for an interview. While it is good to be unique, there is a certain structure that seems to be working.

Here’s what one Rhodes and Truman scholar wrote to me:

That being said, there is a general format to follow in writing the essay. Your personal statement should tell a story about both your background and your future. As you will see in the essay that I attached, which I think is my absolute final draft but am not completely sure, there are a number of logical steps. First, start with a compelling story about your background. Second, tie that into your academic and professional experience, while simultaneously explaining why you have chosen the path/field you are on. Next, explain the program you would like to pursue at Oxford, and why that makes sense based on your background. Finally, explain your goal in life and how a Rhodes Scholarship and study at Oxford helps you achieve that.”

The Famed Interview

Probably the best resource, I found was this simple essay from a Yale Professor who has served as an interviewer many times:

Advice about Rhodes Interviews <http://www.yale.edu/iefp/fellowships/other/rhodes_interviews.html>

A faculty member who has been both a state and district selector for the Rhodes competition offers the following characterizations of the Rhodes interviews and advice:

After twelve years on two state committees and one district (all in the NE) I see a certain consistency of questioning in the 20 minutes allotted to each candidate. The first question, or short set of questions, is typically directed toward the candidate’s perceived strengths, as inferred from the academic major and accomplishments (rather than the “proposal”, although that may come into it). The first question may simply ask for an explanation of, say, what the experiment or senior essay is about and why it matters, where it might lead (not just at Oxford), and that usually opens up some critical issues including potential flaws, which is where committees hone in and test the candidate’s powers of response and think-through. This is often the heart of the interview. The Rhodes Trust stresses the prime importance of academic and intellectual ability measured in the fullest way.

But other things get in there, if not sequentially: no mere description of the athletic or leadership activities (obvious enough from the resume), but questions about their “interface” aspects. Should something be done to curb the commercialization of sports? If so, how? How can your work against AIDS in Southern Africa be effective given the attitude of the Mbeki government?

And finally, some questions try to assess the candidate’s honesty, unselfishness, and general personality. They can come through just about any topic, and are not always obvious.

The interview is the heart of the process. Not that other things don’t count, but that at this level they are not always enough to distinguish one strong candidate from another. To be sure, you will be done in by a transcript that is missing too much (a breadth, say, or achieved excellence in the major), or by a recommendation couched with too many caveats, or by a personal statement that is formulaic or self-congratulatory. Try to seal off those potential flaws ahead of time.

There are two keys to the interview itself. The first is to answer the question put, not the one you want to hear, or are best prepared for, or have been advised by your Yale coaches to expect. It may be a question in more than one part, with the sequent question(s) at least partly hidden. Make sure you hear the whole question, and answer it all.

Second: once you’ve grasped and briefly pondered the question(s), don’t tell the committee what you surmise they are looking to be told. If you are an economist, and there’s a professor of economics at the table, you can surely count on his or her expertise, to which you should defer without kowtowing. But committees are harder to read than you might imagine: members may have knowledge of subjects, and views on them, that would surprise you. Don’t assume that every north-eastern selector, for example, has predictably liberal views on military tribunals or the death penalty.

What matters is that you answer in your own voice, not that of your Yale coaches, or the one you attribute to your interlocutor(s). Answer clearly, thoughtfully, reasonably, concisely yet in enough detail to overcome vagueness and build an argument, and you will be persuasive. And it never hurts to smile.

PART III: MY INTERVIEW

OKAY, that being said, I have the following debrief to give on my Rhodes experience. It is tough writing about my interview especially when I feel that it was a bad interview (I didn’t even talk about Fantasy Congress!), but here was my experience:

Get a good night’s rest. So if an early morning flight will deprive you of sleep, DO NOT TAKE IT. You need sleep.

I arrived at the Hyatt Regency in Denver for a nice reception (no alcohol served, so I wasn’t able to exercise my already planned decision to not drink alcohol) and I met the rest of the scholars and interviewers. I was at ease with a number of the finalists, but at the same time, I let my guard down and didn’t establish a strong enough relationship with one of the panelists.

My panel consisted of the following:

• Gail Klapper, Klapper Law Firm- not Rhodes Scholar, ran for AG of CO in 1984
• Susan D. Campbell, HRO Law- Rhodes Scholar who read for history, graduate of Grinnell College
• Terry Velazquez- has a tattoo of the Zimbabwe bird (the Rhodes symbol of cultural transfer) somewhere and was a Rhodes Scholar, currently in emergency medicine in Arizona
• George Barisas- Baliol ’63, Rhodes Scholar, professor at CSU in lasers and biology (helps run their NSF program there)
• George Butte (CO)- AZ New ’68, Professor of English Literature and Narrative in Film, very into themes in literature
• Jessica Mellinger ’00 (WY)- currently North-western Med student
• Paul Carrese (Air Force Academy)- read for PPE, but didn’t finish the Economics, professor of government at Air Force

Generally, I handled everything well, but I really didn’t hit home any of my great stories. So, my first bit of advice for this part is that the reception should be treated like the interview, don’t let the opportunity to tell your important story go by. It is better that you get in your story earlier than not get it in at all. Thus, my main weakness was over questions such as “Why the interest in psychology? (I talked about Piaget and his theories of intellectual development),” “What will be happening with you in the future?” and if you have other scholarships (like the Truman) be prepared for a “But you have the Truman Scholarship, right?” Here you want to be like you’re at the Ath before the dinner speaker…

At the actual interview, my advice is the following:

1) Be prepared for a passive interview, thus you might need to drive the interview. If they don’t ask about something, you need to work it into your closing. I could have worked in my childhood, my family, Fantasy Congress in the last statement, but I didn’t, so I was only a lukewarm candidate in their eyes.

2) Hammer home what you think makes you the best of the types of candidates that you see around you. In my panel, we had a distinctive split between scientists and policy wonks, state university and private school, athlete vs. non-athlete, and Colorado and Arizona/New Mexico. No surprise that they chose the Duke athletic scientist from Colorado and the Yale glee club political scientist (who doesn’t do sports).

3) Try to have mock interviews the same length as the actual interview so you get an idea of how quickly the interview will go by. If I had had a better feel for the time, I would have known that I was late on driving the interview and would have formulated better responses that linked my themes.

4) You need differences in opinion in your interviews. Liberal government professors, conservative scientists, anybody you can find will help. You need the wide range of opinions or you’re going to get hit with oddities (like the literature professor who talked for five minutes on myth/legend and such).

5) Be prepared for a technical question related to your area of expertise. If your major is physics and one of the interviewers knows something about physics, they may ask you about it, even if it isn’t exactly the topic you have worked on. Elizabeth, who did an internship at the Federal Reserve, was asked a technical question about monetary and fiscal policy in a financial crisis.

The play-by-play is the following:

1) Jessica: I’m going to start… How do we balance the problems of water and increased growth?

2) Terry: How does a market work in water?

3) Gail: These markets already occur, aren’t you worried about agricultural land?

4) George Barisas: Well, generally, they don’t conserve, but sell off their ag land, so what do we do then?

5) Susan: I was driving to Iowa and I saw these great cornfields and I thought that it must take a lot of water to make them along with great amounts of CO2, how do we deal with global climate change in addition to these problems?

6) Carrese: I’m sorry, what is cap & trade?

7) George Butte: I will be switching things around a little bit. Who was the greatest 20^th century American philosopher?

I said Levinas, and somehow missed the American part.

7) Butte: I’m sorry; you may not have heard me. I said 20^th century American philosopher.

Paul Carrese: Since we’re on the topic of Rawls, what do you think of his Theory of Justice?

9) Butte: Let’s backtrack to Levinas… why?

10) Mellinger: I’m gonna challenge you on that, is it possible to have Levinas as a working political philosophy contrary to Rawls?

11) Butte: Doesn’t that seem impractical? You need to understand people to make public policies right?

Right, but as Terry and I discussed before we are human and our first reactions are to know, thus I think that Levinas is a personal philosophy while Rawls is a governmental one.

Somehow there seems to be a discussion of Ronald Coase and the Law and Economics framework (around the middle of this interview, happens before this though)

11) Carrese: Okay, so we’ve talked about markets, public policy and philosophy. I might have heard you wrong, but is economics what controls the three?

12) Butte: Interesting points about Levinas and Other. It ties into a larger question of myth in which a fundamental American phenomenon of how we treat the other occurs. The way that treats natural resources has a certain myth about it… (more about Myth)

I think it is a fundamentally American concept of myth. In the West, we have this notion of independence that couldn’t occur without much help from the government. It’s interesting because it shows that we have a need to be independent, but at the same time an other- a community.

13) Butte: See, you’re using myth as the veil of falsity, but I’m seeing it as the greater theme.

I guess it depends on our inter subjectivity.

14) Butte: continues to talk about myth

(PAUSE)

15) Klapper: Andrew, anything you’d like to add…

(BAD CLOSER, didn’t mention fantasy congress, the need to go to Oxford for its unique program, nor mentioned my family background story; I mentioned only a thanks for the opportunity)

I’ve incorporated the advice from Mary Dwyer from above and she laid it out perfectly along with the advice from the Yale interviewer. You should be ready for the interview, most of the time, the people who win are shocked because they think the guy next to them should have won, so at this level you need to go in thinking that you have nothing to lose. You don’t. Hope this helped and good luck.