Reading Yglesias taking issue with Andrew Sullivan’s bashing of Rhodes Scholars reminded me of a dirty little secret, about which the “public” seems unaware: namely, that Oxford faculty have a quite low opinion of Rhodes Scholars from the U.S., and that the colleges fight among each other to not admit them to their college. From the Oxford faculty I’ve talked to over the years, the consensus is that the selection process for the Rhodes simply doesn’t favor the most intellectually able or serious students. (Marshall scholars are viewed differently, at least in my experience.) Consider how few philosophers of distinction were Rhodes Scholars. I can think of only one: Thomas Nagel. Perhaps there are 2 or 3 others.

UPDATE: Nagel was not a Rhodes Scholar, but John Searle, Wilfrid Sellars, Thomas Hill, and Jeff McMahan, among others Americans, were. (Thanks to David Chalmers, Australian Rhodes Scholar, for this information.) (Why might Oxford faculty have a dim view of the intellectual merits of US Rhodes scholars? Look at the sample of writings by one recent one for an idea.)