Rhodes chooses scholars in November preceding the year of award. For example, 2013 scholars, below, were named in 2012.
The latest list of Rhodes Scholars (awarded in November 2012 for the year 2013) includes seven recipients from Yale, six from Harvard, two from Cornell, and one from Brown, giving the Ivy League half of the 32 awards for 2013.
The most prestigious academic award in the world, Rhodes Scholarships fund two or three years of study at Oxford; at total of 838 students applied this year. The approximate yearly value of a Rhodes Scholarship is $50,000.
The service academies at Annapolis and West Point had two winners each. Stanford also had two.
State universities with winners in 2013 are Georgia, Georgia Tech, Montana State, North Carolina Chapel Hill, Oklahoma, UC Berkeley, and Virginia. Virginia and North Carolina are the leaders among all state universities in the number of Rhodes Scholars earned by their graduates.
Special congratulations to University of Georgia honors graduate Juliet Elizabeth Allen, and kudos to the great public institutions in the Southeast.
Other state university leaders in total Rhodes Scholarships are Washington, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, UT Austin, Kansas, Mississippi, Arizona, Georgia, and Nebraska.
In previous posts we have written about the dominance of elite private institutions when it comes to winning prestigious national awards, such as Rhodes, Marshall, Truman, Gates Cambridge, and Goldwater scholarships. There is no question that Harvard, Princeton, Yale, MIT, Stanford, and a few other elite schools dominate some of these awards, especially Rhodes scholarships.
But what about the performance of other leading private universities, including those in the top tier of the U.S. News rankings? We have analyzed the record of 20 private universities ranked 24 to 83 in the 2013 U.S. News rankings. The average ranking for the 20 schools is 54.4. We then compared their performance with that of the 50 universities whose honors programs we evaluated. The average U.S. News ranking of the 50 public schools is 74.16, down from an average of 72.82 in 2012.
The 20 private universities are the following: Notre Dame, USC, Wake Forest, Boston College, NYU, Case Western Reserve, University of Miami, Boston University, George Washington, Tulane, Fordham, Northeastern, SMU, Syracuse, American, Baylor, Denver, Marquette, Tulsa, and TCU.
We analyzed the full history of Rhodes, Truman, Churchill, Fulbright, Goldwater, and Udall awards, and we adjusted for size of undergraduate enrollment in the case of Fulbright Student Scholarships because of the high number of those awards (about 1,500) in a given year. We also analyzed Marshall and Gates Cambridge awards from 2001 through 2012. One point was assigned for each award.
On a scale with 25 being the highest score, the mean score for the private universities was 7.21 and for the public universities it was 11.86. Below are some interesting specifics:
The University of Tulsa had the highest overall score for the private universities, mainly due to the impressive number of Goldwater awards for undergraduates studying STEM subjects (51), which would place Tulsa at number 9 among all 70 universities in this comparison. The leaders in Goldwater awards (among our 50 public schools) are Illinois (63), Penn State (61), Virginia (59), Wisconsin (56), Arizona State and Minnesota (54), and Michigan and Washington (52).
Overall, the mean score for Goldwater awards (raw numbers) was more than twice as high for the public universities as it was for the private schools (33.7 versus 16.2).
The mean score for Rhodes Scholarships was likewise much higher for the public schools, 12.16 versus 5.25.
Tulane led private schools in total Rhodes Scholarships with 18, followed by Notre Dame (14), Wake Forest (13), Case Western (10), Boston University (8), USC (8), and Denver (7). The leading schools among the 50 we reviewed are Virginia (46), North Carolina (41), Washington (39), Wisconsin (31), Kansas and UT Austin (27), and Michigan (25).
The four private schools that had a total scaled score that was above the mean for the 50 public schools were Tulsa, Tulane, Notre Dame, and NYU.
The strongest performance for private schools was in earning Fulbright awards, probably because of the adjustment for size of undergraduate enrollment. The mean score for the private schools was 7.21 versus 3 .07 for the public schools.
The mean scores for Truman Scholarships were close, with private schools averaging 8.8 and public schools 9.3. American University and Wake Forest led private schools with 15 Truman awards each, followed by USC (14), SMU (13), Boston College and Tulane (12), and Syracuse and Tulsa (11). The leading public schools are North Carolina (32), UT Austin (26), Michigan and Virginia (24), Wisconsin and Arizona State (17), and Arkansas and Delaware (16).
The public universities in this comparison score significantly higher in earning Gates Cambridge and Marshall scholarships since 2001. However, NYU students have won an impressive 8 Gates Scholarships, the only private university in this comparison to win more than 3. Illinois has 10, Penn State 7, Rutgers and Florida 6 apiece, and Georgia, Georgia Tech, NC State, and Michigan 5 apiece.
The public universities dominate Udall Scholarships, although American University has 10 and Tulsa 9. Arizona State has 29, Arizona 21, Penn State 20, Kansas 16, and North Carolina 15.
In the last decade, the LSU Honors College has grown and improved, and with a recent emphasis on prestigious scholarships and an expanded honors residence hall, the college is a strong option in the South.
Now with about 1,200 students, the College is in our category of “smaller” programs–those with fewer than 1,800 honors students. It appears that the recent trend in honors colleges is to establish residential scholars’ communities of 1,000–1,200 students.
Admission to the College is selective, with a “recommended” SAT of 1330 (ACT 30), plus an essay. A minimum score of 660 on the SAT critical reading portion is also recommended. An ACT composite score of 29 is acceptable if the English score is 31. The deadline to apply is November 15.
The Honors House Residence is located in West Laville Hall (renovated in 2010) and now in East Laville Hall, newly renovated and open to students in the Fall of 2012. Both are located adjacent to the 459 Dining Commons and the French House, home of the College. About 600 students can be accommodated in the halls, both of which have central air conditioning with individual room controls. One important feature is that the halls are available to students for all four years of residence. Although the baths are corridor style, each room has its own sink.
Next to the Honors House is the academic center of the Honors College, the French House, an historic building resembling a French chateau, where small seminar classes are held, students meet with specialized advisors, and all Honors College events take place, ranging from classical concerts to Quiz Bowl tournaments.
The honors curriculum is substantial, requiring 32 hours of honors credit, including a thesis; an overall GPA of 3.5 is required for graduation. (This overall requirement compares very favorably with those of the fifty honors programs we have formally evaluated.) At least 6 honors hours must be in seminars, and at least 12 hours must be upper-division courses, including the thesis.
Students can earn “sophomore honors distinction” if they complete 20 hours of honors work in the first two years, including 6 hours of honors seminars. Upper division honors distinction requires exemplary work in junior and senior courses along with an excellent honors thesis.
Honors credit may be earned in honors-only seminars; in small versions of regular classes, with an honors component; and in honors “option” courses, requiring the student to arrange individual instruction with a professor. Honors students have priority registration for honors courses.
Since 2005, when LSU established the Office of Fellowship Advising within the Honors College, LSU students have won 13 Goldwater awards for undergraduate research in STEM fields, and have had 15 finalists for the Truman Scholarship for postgraduate studies. LSU students also earned seven National Science Graduate Research Foundation grants in 2012. The establishment of a fellowship office within the honors college or program is an important consideration for prospective students who have an interest in prestigious awards.
Honors students are also encouraged to travel and study abroad “to enrich their education and to gain a wider perspective on the future of this country. The Honors College sponsors summer study trips to China and to South Africa, where students learn foreign languages, engage with students from those countries and learn about their cultures.”
The annual Forbes best college rankings have not been friendly to public colleges, but this year, because of changes in methodology, the rankings include six public institutions among the top 50 colleges, up from five in 2012 and only two in 2011. If the service academies are included, the three major academies are also in the top 50.
The 2013 rankings continue a welcome trend on the part of the magazine that now yields a more sensible list with fewer wild variations. A list of public universities in the top 100 appears at the end of this article.
Some observers of college rankings accept the Forbes position that the magazine’s rankings, put together by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity (CCAP), under the leadership of one of the most outspoken critics of public universities, Richard Vedder, are better than others because they focus only on “outputs” rather than on subjective data, such as academic reputation.
One of the main problems with the Forbes rankings has been their high variability from one year to the next. It is surprising, for example, that the University of Wisconsin ranking would change from 316 (in 2011) to 147 (in 2012) and to 68 (2013). Not to mention that it was ranked number 212 in 2010. On the other hand, the continuing methodological changes at least are moving toward a more equitable consideration of the public institutions and appear to be indicative of more stability in the overall rankings.
In 2011 only the University of Virginia and the College of William & Mary barely cracked the Forbes top 50. In 2012, the top 50 included UVA (36) William & Mary (40), UCLA (45), UNC Chapel Hill (47) and UC Berkeley (50).
For 2013, UC Berkeley has jumped all the way to number 22; UVA to 29; UCLA to 34; and UNC Chapel Hill to 38.
More indicative of the positive developments is that for 2013, the University of Michigan also appears in the top 50, at number 30, a big leap from 57 in 2012. (In 2011, Michigan ranked 93rd.)
Other public universities shared in the upward trend in 2013, with a total of 18 now ranked in the top 100. Illinois has moved from 147 in 2011, to 86 in 2012, and now to 53 in 2013. UT Austin, a particular target of Richard Vedder in recent years, has risen from 185 in 2011, to 104 in 2012, and to 66 in 2013.
The original Forbes methodology was clearly biased, using data from Who’s Who listings as one indicator. Now the methodology appears to have settled into the following pattern:
–37.5% for post-graduate success, measured by salaries on Payscale.com, listings in “power” profiles, and winners of Nobel, Pulitzer, National Academy of Science, Guggenheim, MacArthur, and other awards, including Oscars, Emmys, Tonys, and Grammys;
–22.5% for student satisfaction, with two-thirds of the measure coming from RateMyProfessor.com and the other third from the percentage of students being retained after the freshman year;
–17.5% based on student debt load and loan default rates;
–11.25% based on four-year graduation rate;
–11.25% based on attainment of prestigious student awards, including Rhodes, Fulbright, National Science Foundation, and other scholarships, and on the percentage of graduates who earn PhD’s.
One interesting feature of the rankings is that they combine national research universities and liberal arts colleges into one large group. This allows readers a direct rather than implied comparison, the latter being the option with the U.S. News rankings. Therefore, while Stanford is ranked number 1 by Forbes this year, tiny Pomona College is ranked number 2.
Because Forbes has focused on four-year graduation rates rather than five- or six-year rates, renowned public engineering schools such as Purdue and Georgia Tech have risen gradually in the rankings but remain lower than they would be if six-year grad rates were used: Georgia Tech was 397 in 2011, improved to 135 in 2012, and now ranks 83 under the new methodology; Purdue ranked 311 in 2011; 195 in 2012; and now ranks 106.
A final comment: Forbes is applauded for not using subjective data, such as that for academic reputation. Nevertheless, our own work has shown a significant correlation between academic reputation and Fulbright and NSF awards, and academic reputation and the percentage of bachelor’s students who go on to obtain a Ph.D., the latter a new metric for the magazine. Academic reputation also has a positive correlation with graduation rates. Therefore, the influence of academic reputation is present in the Forbes rankings, though indirectly, just as it is in our own rankings.
From time to time we become mildly wonkish and write about the implications of some of our data, including information that we did not include in A Review of Fifty Public University Honors Programs.
Recently, we have been looking at correlations between faculty reputation and honors curricula on the one hand, and the attainment of prestigious scholarships, such as Rhodes, Truman, Goldwater, Fulbright, and National Science Foundation (NSF) graduate research grants on the other.
A significant correlation that stands out is that between faculty reputation and prestigious NSF grants, awarded for research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and, to a lesser extent, research in the social sciences.
We did not find that our data for honors curricula correlated significantly with the attainment of NSF grants. This does not mean, however, that participation in honors programs is not important to STEM majors, for honors programs are the surest way to connect serious undergraduates with research opportunities supervised by high-quality faculty. In addition, of course, honors curricula typically provide more scope and depth to the overall education of all honors students.
We also found a lesser but still significant correlation between faculty reputation and the attainment of Fulbright Student awards, given in a variety of disciplines. Again, the correlation of these awards with curricula was minimal; but the same access to strong faculty mentors via involvement in honors, along with the broader honors education, still points to advantages in pursuing honors.
The impact of honors curricula is clear, however, when it comes to Truman and Goldwater awards, and when curricula are correlated with a metric that combines all prestigious scholarships (including Rhodes, Marshall, Gates, and Udall) except for NSF grants. Honors curricula are a stronger factor than faculty reputation with respect to the combined scholars metric, but both curricula and reputation are important.
It is interesting that curricula correlate with the undergraduate Goldwater awards, also given for STEM research, but not with the NSF grants. The impact of faculty reputation was minimal when correlated to Truman Scholarships.
So what is the “take home” message from all this number-crunching? For STEM majors, strong faculty along with honors research opportunities are probably as important as the general honors curriculum. Departmental honors, with a thesis requirement, are also important if the honors program does not require a thesis.
Editor’s Note: There is a full, updated profile and detailed rating of Macaulay Honors College in our book, INSIDE HONORS. You can see a list of the highest rated honors programs here.
Students who are residents of New York State have the unique opportunity of qualifying for free tuition and other benefits at the Macaulay Honors College, which is affiliated with eight senior colleges of the City University of New York. Admission to Macaulay for state residents not only makes them Macaulay Scholars with free tuition but also presents to them the Big Apple in all its fascinating dimensions.
Out-of-state students who meet CUNY New York State residency requirements can also receive the full tuition scholarship. And for those who do not qualify for the free tuition support, CUNY provides one of the best values in higher education. In addition, the student will receive all of the enhanced benefits of a Macaulay education.
Macaulay students study at the following CUNY campuses: Baruch College, Brooklyn College, City College, Hunter College, John Jay College, Lehman College, Queens College, and the College of Staten Island (CSI). There are special honors housing packages at City College and Hunter College. All the other colleges have residence options. Macaulay Honors College is housed in an elegant, renovated brownstone located in the Upper West Side, near Central Park and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
In addition to free tuition, Macaulay students receive a $7,500 Opportunities Fund “to pursue global learning, internships, and other service and learning opportunities”; a MacBook Pro laptop; a “Cultural Passport” that permits free or discounted admission to arts, cultural, and educational institutions across the city; and specialized advising through the Macaulay Advising Program (MAP).
The laptops are an integral part of Macaulay’s plan to enable students to participate in social and academic programs at campuses other than their home campuses and to prepare and present e-portfolios of their college work, with the help of Instruction Technology Fellows (ITF’s) assigned to each of the honors seminars. “ITFs are CUNY doctoral students in a wide range of academic disciplines, carefully selected for their familiarity and experience using technology both in the classroom and in research,” according to the Macaulay site.
Admission to Macaulay is selective, with an average SAT score of 1410 and grade average of 93.9. In addition, co-curricular activities, essays, and letters of recommendation are required. The acceptance rate was 29% for the Class of 2016; approximately 540 freshmen will be entering Fall 2013.
The honors curriculum for the first two years is focused on the city of New York itself:
“Seminar 1 introduces Macaulay Scholars to the arts in New York City and the Cultural Passport. During the semester, students attend theatrical, operatic, and musical performances, exhibitions of visual art, and other highlights of the current cultural season, and help to create the annual “Snapshot of New York City” exhibition.”
“During Seminar 2, Macaulay Scholars investigate the role of immigration and migration in shaping New York City’s identity–past, present, and future. Visits to archives, interviews, mapping and walking tours allow students to create the collaborative Neighborhood Websites, presenting their research through audio, video, photography, and other media.”
“In Seminar 3, Macaulay Scholars analyze issues in science and technology that have an impact on contemporary New York. Students work together to create scientific posters and presentations for a Macaulay-wide conference of their peers and others in the Macaulay community.”
“The purpose of Seminar 4 is to analyze the ongoing interplay of social, economic, and political forces that shape the physical form and social dynamics of New York City. Throughout the semester, students engage in a team research project, sometimes including Public Service Announcement Videos, to be presented at a model academic conference.”
Macaulay’s upper-level seminars encourage students to integrate course work and their own primary research, in a richly collaborative and supportive interdisciplinary setting. Recent topics include Sexuality and American Culture, Imagining the End of the World, The Future of Education, Religion and Public Policy, and Women and Global Public Policy Since the 1960s.
As for off-campus opportunities in New York City, Macaulay students benefit from special access to network with New York’s most dynamic firms.
“Macaulay students often use some of their $7,500 Opportunities Fund to develop customized programs that enable them to explore different professional paths, or to gain additional hands-on experience in fields they wish to pursue in graduate school or professionally after college.”
Examples of recent internships are New York Life, HBO, The New York Historical Society, The Earth Institute Center for Environmental Sustainability (EICES), NYU Langone Medical Center, BBC Worldwide Americas, The New York State Office of the Attorney General, US Trust, Free Arts NYC, The Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA), and Northwestern Mutual.
Over 90% of Macaulay students intend to study abroad. Again, they can use their Opportunities Fund, outside fellowships, and additional resources CUNY makes available to them to pursue a wide range of semester and year-long study abroad programs, at universities around the globe.
Students might analyze marine life in the Galapagos, study drama at Trinity College of Dublin, learn Arabic at Bosphorus University in Istanbul, or study mathematics at the City University of Hong Kong.
Other examples of recent study-abroad locations are the following: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Barbados, Brazil, China, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, England, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Lithuania, Morocco, Netherlands, Puerto Rico, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, and Turkey. Macaulay students have studied on every continent with the exception of Antarctica.
Macaulay graduate, David L.B. Bauer of City College, became something of an undergraduate “brainiac” celebrity, who chose Macaulay over the Ivies after he won the Intel Science Talent Search as a high school student in 2005. A winner of Goldwater, Rhodes and Truman Scholarships while at Macaulay, Bauer focused on research in clinical medicine at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics (WTCHG) at the University of Oxford, where he worked during his junior year at CCNY. Bauer is currently a DPhil candidate in clinical medicine at Oxford.
A second Rhodes scholarship was awarded to a Macaulay student in October, 2011 to Zujaja Tauqeer (Macaulay and Brooklyn College ’11). Zujaja, who graduated with a BA/MD, is studying the history of medicine in a two-year program at Oxford.
Based on an analysis of National Science Foundation research grants for 2011 and 2012, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Michigan, and the University of Texas at Austin lead public universities in the number of students who go on to study science, engineering, and social sciences at Ivy schools and other prestigious private graduate programs.
In a previous post, “Public Universities that Ivy Leaguers Choose for Grad School,” we discussed the leading public choices for Ivy students awarded NSF grants. This post looks at the reverse phenomenon: public university students who received NSF grants to do research at elite private universities.
About 29% of the graduates of public universities who receive NSF grants go on to prestigious private schools for grad work. This is almost exactly the same percentage of Ivy grads who opt for public research universities for their graduate work.
Please bear in mind that many more students from public universities attend elite private schools, even in science and engineering fields, but do so without NSF grants.
UC Berkeley stands out either way you view the analysis: far more grads of elite private schools choose Berkeley for graduate work than they do any other public institution, and Berkeley sends a much higher number of its grads on to the elite private schools for research than do other public universities.
The private universities included are Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Chicago, Penn, Cornell, Brown, Dartmouth, Duke, Johns Hopkins, and Northwestern.
Below is a list of the leading public universities who send the most graduates with NSF grants to study at elite private institutions:
UC Berkeley
Harvard (12), Princeton (1), Columbia (4), Stanford (16), MIT (18), Caltech (5), Cornell (6), Brown (1), Duke (4), Johns Hopkins (1), Northwestern (3)
Michigan
Harvard (4), Princeton (2), Stanford (2), MIT (6), Caltech (2), Chicago (2), Brown (1), Duke (2), Johns Hopkins (1), Northwestern (3)
UT Austin
Harvard (1), Princeton (2), Columbia (1), Stanford (7), MIT (7), Caltech (2), Chicago (1), Cornell (1), Duke (1), Northwestern (1)
Washington (tie with Wisconsin)
Harvard (5), Yale (2), Columbia (1), Stanford (2), MIT (4), Penn (1), Cornell (1), Duke (2), Northwestern (1)
Wisconsin (tie with Washington)
Harvard (4), Princeton (1), Columbia (1), Stanford (1), MIT (4), Caltech (1), Penn (1), Brown (1), Duke (2), Johns Hopkins (2), Northwestern (1)
Arizona (tied with Illinois)
Harvard (2), Yale (1), Columbia (1), Stanford (7), MIT (1), Caltech (1), Cornell (2), Duke (1), Northwestern (1)
Illinois (tied with Arizona)
Yale (2), Columbia (1), Stanford (2), MIT (6), Caltech (2), Chicago (1), Cornell (1), Duke (1), Northwestern (1)
UC San Diego
Harvard (3), Yale (1), Columbia (1), Stanford (4), MIT (3), Caltech (1), Cornell (1), Northwestern (1)
Maryland (tied with UCLA)
Harvard (1), Stanford (1), MIT (2), Caltech (1), Penn (1), Cornell (1), Duke (4), Johns Hopkins (2), Northwestern (1)
UCLA (tied with Maryland)
Harvard (1), Princeton (1), Columbia (1), Stanford (4), MIT (1), Caltech (2), Penn (1), Duke (1), Johns Hopkins (1), Northwestern (1)
Virginia
Harvard (2), Yale (1), Princeton (1), Columbia (1), Stanford (3), Chicago (1), Penn (1), Duke (1), Johns Hopkins (1)
Georgia Tech
Columbia (1), Stanford (4), MIT (4), Cornell (2)
The following universities are tied, at 10 each:
Florida
Columbia (1), Stanford (1) MIT (2), Chicago (1), Penn (1), Duke (1), Johns Hopkins (1), Northwestern (2)
Minnesota
Harvard (1), Yale (1), MIT (1), Caltech (3), Cornell (2), Duke (1), Northwestern (1)
Ohio State
Harvard (1), Yale (1), MIT (3), Cornell (2), Duke (1), Northwestern (2)
The following universities each had four or more NSF recipients who attended one of the private institutions listed above:
UC Santa Barbara (9)
Arizona State (9)
Rutgers (9)
UC Davis (8)
Penn State (7)
Pitt (7)
Clemson (6)
NC State (6)
Stony Brook (6)
Alabama (5)
North Carolina (5)
UC Irvine (5)
Georgia (4)
Indiana (4)
Massachusetts (4)
South Carolina (4)
Texas A&M (4)
The University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Texas at Austin lead public universities in the number of National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships awarded in the last two years, with UC Berkeley far in front. The University of Michigan and the University of Washington lead public universities in Fulbright Student Awards.
NSF fellowships are for research in science, engineering, and the social sciences. Fulbright scholarships are for work in foreign countries and cover a broader range of disciplines.
In this post, we are not limiting our report to the 50 universities we follow, but will list awards for all leading public universities, including the University of California, Berkeley.
A more detailed discussion of these awards and the relative performance of public and private universities will appear as a separate page on the home menu.
Leaders in NSF Awards:
1. UC Berkeley
2. UT Austin
3. Washington
4. Georgia Tech
5. Michigan
6. Wisconsin
7. Florida
7. Illinois
9. UCLA
10. Maryland
11. UC Davis
12. Arizona
12. UC San Diego
14. Minnesota
15. Ohio State
It is true that graduates of Ivy League and other elite private universities who continue their studies beyond the bachelor’s level tend to do so at other private elite universities, but it appears that about 30% choose graduate programs at leading public universities, especially at the University of California, Berkeley.
Indeed, many California universities were often in the plans of the new grads. Often the grads were attracted to UC programs in biology, marine sciences, and environmental studies.
We recently analyzed the graduate school choices of 2011 and 2012 recipients of National Science Foundation Graduate Research Grants. Of course, most of the grants are for graduate work in the sciences and in engineering.
Of 723 recipients who were Ivy League grads or grads of other elite private universities (MIT, Caltech, Chicago, Stanford, Duke, etc.), a total of 220 chose to attend graduate school at a public university. Of these, 72–almost one-third–chose UC Berkeley. In second place was the University of Washington with 18. UC San Diego, UC San Francisco, and UC Davis were also favorite choices.
Very generally, grant recipients who chose graduate programs outside of California and Washington tended to be pursuing studies in computer science or engineering more than in the sciences.
Only 6 of the 220 attended public universities that are not included in the 50 major institutions that we follow on this site. Aside from UC Berkeley, those schools were the Universities of Alaska, Idaho, Nevada-Reno, Utah, and Wyoming.
Below is a list of public universities that enrolled three or more NSF grant recipients from the most prestigious private universities:
UC Berkeley(72)
Washington (18)
UC San Diego (14)
UC San Francisco (13)
UC Davis (12)
Michigan (9)
UT Austin (9)
Illinois (7)
UC Santa Barbara (6)
North Carolina (5)
UC Santa Cruz (5)
Georgia Tech (4)
Maryland (4)
Wisconsin (4)
Colorado (3)
NC State (3)
UC Irvine (3)
Virginia (3)
The Hertz Awards are surely among the most prestigious academic awards that a student can earn: only 15 are awarded each year, chosen from 600 highly-qualified applicants, and the awards have a five-year monetary value of $250,000.
The Hertz Foundation says that its fellowships for “gifted young leaders” are “considered to be the nation’s most generous support for graduate education in the applied physical, biological, and engineering sciences,” and you can, so to speak, take that to the bank.
Fellows have the freedom to innovate in their doctoral studies without university or research restrictions. “The Hertz Foundation nurtures these remarkable scientists and engineers as they develop and explore their genius,” said Foundation President Dr. Jay Davis. “We help genius find itself.”
The Livermore, California Foundation says that for “nearly a half century, the Hertz Foundation has fostered the scientific and engineering strength of the nation by finding the best and brightest from those disciplines. During the past decade, there has been a major shift of the candidates towards those who apply physical and computational tools to the problems of biomedicine and health.”
The Foundation noted that at least 30 students were worthy of the awards, but funding required keeping the total actually awarded to 15. The Foundation plans to extend its fund-raising efforts to provide additional support.
Included in this 50th cadre of Hertz Fellows (2012) are six students from public universities, including four from the universities whose honors programs we follow. Three of these are present or former students in honors programs: Anjali Datta, University of Texas Plan II-Engineering Program; Grant Newton Remmen, University of Minnesota Honors Program; and Yun William Yu, General and Departmental Honors, Indiana University. Kelly Dare Moynihan is a Distinguished College Scholar in Engineering at the University of Texas.
The cadre for 2011 included students from Georgia Tech, the University of Kansas, and the University of Wisconsin.
Here is the complete list of 2012 winners:
Cheri Marie Ackerman, Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley
Nicholas Ranieri Boyd, Computer Science University of California, Berkeley
Allen Yuyin Chen, Bioengineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Anjali Datta, Electrical Engineering, University of Texas, Austin
Arvind Kannan, Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology
Brian Lawrence, Mathematics ,California Institute of Technology
Max Nathan Mankin, Chemistry, Harvard University Kelly Dare Moynihan, Biomedical Engineering, University of Texas
Austin Vyas Ramanan, Bioengineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Grant Newton Remmen, Physics/Astrophysics, University of Minnesota
Jonathan Robert Russell, Biotechnology, Harvard University
Jacob Noah Steinhardt Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
James Ryan Valcourt, Quantitative Biology/Bio-Engineering, Princeton University
Christian T. Wentz, Bioengineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Yun William Yu Applied Mathematics Indiana University, Bloomington
