Rhodes Scholarship - wish I won one.

Established through the Will of Cecil John Rhodes of the diamond company De Beers in 1902, the Rhodes Scholarship was a very progressive project in the new century. 120+ years later, the Rhodes Scholarships are the oldest and most respected international scholarship programme anywhere, enabling talented young people around the world to undertake full-time postgraduate study at Oxford Uni.

The reputation as the world's most famous academic scholarship rests not on the life of founder Cecil Rhodes, but on the enormous contributions scholarship-holders later made to the world. Thus the ideal personal and academic qualities (listed below) remain as important as ever. Not surprisingly, Oxford scored first in the Times Higher Education rankings each year from 2016-24 .

One of the founding aims of the Scholarship was to identify young leaders from around the world who, through being educated together at Oxford, would create long term links of mutual understanding and fellowship for the betterment of the world.

The following criteria were used to select Rhodes Scholars:
1.literary and scholastic excellence, intellectual distinction;
2.energy to fully use one's talents where teamwork is involved by mastery in areas like sports, music, debate, dance, theatre and arts;
3.courage, devotion to duty, protection of the weak, unselfishness and focus on public service; and
4.moral instincts to lead fellow humans.

When students from around the world came together in a shared spirit, the excitement began. The Rhodes Scholarship was a life-changing opportunity, starting when applications (aged only from 18-24) for each Rhodes Scholarship open early in each northern academic year. Today 100 scholarships a year cover all fees and a stipend for 2-3 years, with 300+ scholars in residence in Oxford at one time.

Each year, 9 Rhodes Scholarships are available for outstanding Australians to study at Oxford, each state offering one scholarship, awarded by a formal selection committee. Rhodes Scholars here have achieved distinction as politicians, academics, scientists and doctors, authors, entrepreneurs and Nobel Prize winners. Australia’s most famous winner was Howard Florey (1898-1968) received his medical training at the University of Adelaide and at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. This pharmacologist won a Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine in 1945 for isolating and purifying penicillin, shared with Alexander Fleming and German biochemist Ernst Boris Chain. Other Rhodes scholars became heads of state or heads of government, including Prime Ministers Tony Abbott, Bob Hawke and Malcolm Turnbull, and Deputy Prime Minister Kim Beazley.