Three Ivy League Student-Athletes Earn 2011 Rhodes Scholarships
William J. Zeng (Great Falls, Va.) is a senior at Yale where he majors in physics. His coursework ranges from quantum physics and mathematics to comparative literature, philosophy and Hindi. Will has done research at MIT and at the Quantum Device Lab in Zurich, and was an intern in New Delhi with the Indian Youth Climate Network. He has competed internationally on Yale’s lightweight crew, and has volunteered with the Special Olympics. Will plans to do the M.Sc. in mathematics and the foundations of computer science at Oxford.
Rhodes Scholarships provide all expenses for two or three years of study at the University of Oxford in England, and may allow funding in some instances for four years. Mr. Gerson called the Rhodes Scholarships, “the oldest and best known award for international study, and arguably the most famous academic award available to American college graduates.” They were created in 1902 by the Will of Cecil Rhodes, British philanthropist and African colonial pioneer. The first class of American Rhodes Scholars entered Oxford in 1904.