Over the past few weeks, applicants for the Rhodes Scholarship have begun to find out whether or not they advanced to the interview stage of the application process. Many fellowships and scholarships, including the Marshall and Rhodes, require extensive and structured applications, meaning institutional support is critical for students to succeed. While still not perfect, the Office of Fellowships for Columbia College and School of Engineering and Applied Science has received great praise for its improvement over the past few years. Both Barnard College and the School of General Studies must improve their systems for working with scholarship and fellowship applicants so that students have the best chance of winning these prestigious awards.
Since the creation of a separate fellowship office and the hiring of a dedicated fellowship dean, Columbia has seen an incredible increase in the number of fellowship applicants and winners. Though the office's services do not yet match those of some peer institutions, it has nonetheless come a long way in preparing students for the application process. While both Barnard and GS currently have some resources and administrators for fellowships, the process is less structured than it is at Columbia College. Neither boasts its own fellowship office, nor extensive means of grooming potential fellowship winners. Barnard students are directed to their Senior Associate Dean early in their senior year, and GS students are directed to a general adviser and a cursory online handbook. As a result, it is harder for students to learn about and pursue fellowship opportunities.
In order to better prepare their students, Barnard and the School of General Studies should devote more resources to the fellowship process. Prestigious scholarships seek students who are successful both in and out of the classroom. Applications for these scholarships require students to start writing essays and acquire recommendations well before the deadline. Indeed, colleges that regularly produce successful candidates groom their students in advance, helping them edit essays and learn the skills required for the interview. Doing so is in the best interest of the University. Fellowships do more than provide students with funding for postgraduate work—they speak to the prestige and scope of the University and encourage alumni to take pride in their alma mater.
Investing in fellowship resources can have tremendous tangible benefits for both individual students and the University. The recent creation of an Office of Fellowships for CC and SEAS has already been a great success and should serve as motivation for Barnard and GS to redouble their fellowship efforts.
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