Inside the Interviews

One thing I never considered (or, at least, didn't consider very deeply) when applying for the Rhodes is what the public attention would be like if I got it. Apply; hope for the best; go to Oxford if it all worked out. That's all I thought about. The odds of getting the scholarship were so small that it wasn't worth lingering on what the morning-after feeling would be like. Of course, I knew about the prestige of the Rhodes scholarships, but I failed to imagine that it would be much different from the other awards I'd won before: get some congratulatory messages from friends and family, be gracious, move on after a day or two. Instead, it's been a media and recognition flurry incomparable to anything I've ever experienced.

More on that later, but for now I'm truly humbled. One big piece of advice that the Stanford Overseas Resource Center kept giving, throughout the entire application process, was to try to forget about the name of the scholarship I was applying for and focus only on what I wanted to do. It's a little impossible to forget the "Rhodes" specter, at least completely, but I did succeed in putting aside any thought of accolades as I wrote my application. Which I wrote almost entirely in a tank top and shorts on my kitchen table in the New Mexico summer heat. I wasn't worried about expressing my personal aspirations through writing; it's where I feel most comfortable. What I fretted about most were the interviews.

I was convinced that the Rhodes interviews, notoriously tough and demanding at all levels, would be my downfall. Committees in the past have been known to ask everything from relevant personal questions to random trivia, ethical questions, and baffling gems such as "Name five reasons why manhole covers are round." It's often said that there's no surefire way to prepare. I've never been very confident in my ability to win over people in person, mainly due to my deafness and continuing worries about my speech and my eloquence in thinking on my feet. My confidence drops when I make the transition from the page ( = freedom, robustness, and wordplay) to my physical body (when I sometimes put so much energy into keeping up with my world that I cannot think of what to say). It was too bad, I thought, that I could be one person in writing and stumble over myself in the flesh. I think life has had a different message for me, though, because all of the interviews went very well.

The first was the campus interview in September, before the fall quarter started. (The campus panel, which must endorse each candidate's application to the national competition, requires all application materials and almost half the letters of recommendation by early September.) I'd enrolled in a one-week intensive graduate seminar and rushed over that day to meet the panel at my assigned time after being in class nonstop from 8am to 5:30pm. A professor had suggested that I go for a hike or ride a horse earlier on to unwind. Unfortunately that hadn't been possible, but I calmed myself as best as I could. The campus panelists were a combination of Rhodes and Marshall scholars; at that time I was shooting for the Marshall as well as the Rhodes, so some of their questions aimed at my proposed course of study for the former, which was slightly different from my proposed degree program at Oxford, as well as some more general UK/ambassadorship topics. (Example: describe trends of British political thought within the last 100 years. I was flummoxed.) Despite tripping over myself a few times, their feedback was generally positive. I needed to engage more with my personal story, they said, and remember to smile instead of looking so serious. Over the next 24 hours, I waited to hear whether the campus committee would endorse my application. Compared to the national selection process, this hurdle isn't as difficult to jump, but it's still an important one! The next day I heard. Check. Time to summon my last few references, polish up my application one last time, and let it be what it would be.

I hadn't revised my personal statement much beyond the second or third draft (despite being told to prepare for 10 or 15 drafts). This is fairly common for me, so I submitted and proceeded to forget about it for the next several weeks. I could have spent those weeks obsessing over Oxford and my prospects, but though the scholarship always lingered in the back of my mind and my everyday reading habits, my focus turned to living. Reading. Riding. Enjoying what Stanford had to offer. By early November, I heard. I'd gotten the interview. I was shaking. Colorado Springs, November 17. Had I prepared enough? Could I sound smart? Did I even deserve this? I turned to Wikipedia-ing the most outrageous things over the following two weeks, reading a wider range of news than I have in the last year, poring over my transcripts and preparing to talk about any obscure corner of my life. Anything could have been fair game,  but as it turned out none of it was necessary.

The Rhodes interview process is, I believe, designed to be arduous in the way that Oxford is arduous. It begins with a two-hour reception on Friday night to allow candidates and panelists to meet each other, then continues with a half-hour interview at some point on Saturday. The committee members convene on Saturday afternoon/evening and then announce the two scholars a few hours later. I'd had a practice interview at Stanford the previous week with some favorite professors and had, surprisingly, enjoyed the foray into discussing the world of literature; however, I was warned that the real thing would be much more difficult. Prepare to be challenged on a range of ethical, philosophical, and political issues, and do not back down.

The reception was, as someone described it to me earlier in the week, a very nineteenth-century Oxford kind of event. We turned up in formal attire, attempted to remember the names of all the candidates and committee members, and made conversation over food and refreshments for two hours. Just relax, smile, take the opportunity to meet new people, and don't look like an idiot were my only goals going into the evening. Actually, forgetting about the reception as a Rhodes event and approaching it as an opportunity to converse with other very intelligent people wound up being what saved me. I stayed relaxed and was surprised to find how much I enjoyed myself. The committee members were kind and engaging, and many of them asked me about horses. (It was my most-asked question of the evening, a good way to feel positive about the next day.)

My interview had been scheduled for 11am on Saturday morning, so I took the chance beforehand to go out for breakfast in Colorado Springs (yes, in jeans) before changing into a business suit for my interview. I'd been nervous about meeting and working with unfamiliar interpreters, but it wasn't any different from the norm, really. They made small talk in the few minutes beforehand and I tried my best not to be nauseous. My palms were sweating instead of shaking, though, which was a good sign.

The entire thing was over before I expected. The committee members, instead of being as aggressive and nearly hostile as I'd heard Rhodes panelists could be, seemed interested in what made me tick, though they pushed me several times to clarify or reconsider my thinking. I wasn't completely sure if their interest was genuine, if I was winning them over, or if I sounded like a fool and they were just being nice, but I kept talking anyway. We spent ten minutes talking about Middlemarch, after I mentioned it as a novel I'd recommend to one of the committee members. Then the questions turned to other topics. A sample of the questions is as follows:

You say all those things about the omniscient narrator in Middlemarch, but don't you think the novel is ultimately tragic? Why on earth would you want her to read it?
Who was George Eliot, anyway?
What do you think about the novel's most famous line? (and here the committee member, himself an English professor, quoted to me a line I knew by heart: "If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we would die of that roar that lies on the other side of silence." I couldn't help it; I love that line, and I started grinning.)
Taking the idea that we will never completely understand other minds and are bound to fail, what role does literature have in the world?
What about the gender roles in Middlemarch? Mary Anne Evans was a woman, but how about how she perceived men?
Tell me about that famous line in Jane Eyre, "Reader, I married him." Who is the novel's reader? (Here I started grinning again.)
What if the reader doesn't buy into the premise or narrative style that the novel presents?
Why should we care about disability or about including those who are on the outskirts of society?
Who's your favorite essayist and why?
Here's an ethical question. If there were suddenly a miracle cure or technology to cure deafness, would you take it? And why?
You told me last night that, while riding a horse for the first time, you were not afraid. What are you afraid of?
Your writing is remarkable for being beautiful, in the aesthetic sense. What connection do you find between riding a horse and achieving that aesthetic beauty on the page?

There were a few others, but the last one listed above was by far my favorite. No lie, I had been hoping I would get that question. I'd been asked the same thing in my practice interview, as well as the same kinds of questions about Middlemarch (however inexplicably). As for how I answered these questions... I won't elaborate here, but suffice it to say I was astonished by how well the panel understood me and how relevant all the questions were. Not one of them came out of left field like I'd been fearing. The committee challenged me and my views and opinions, but from a place of intellectual curiosity and respect. This was supposed to be terrifying or difficult? I found it enjoyable, even fun. I'd heard beforehand that Rhodes interviews, when going well, could be fun, but I don't think I'd believed it. In truth, I was almost disappointed when it was over. The greatest relief was that I'd felt thoroughly like myself, down to being able to articulate and assemble my thoughts and engage with the committee members. Having each interpreter stand on opposite sides of the table and behind each committee member as he/she spoke helped, too. Whatever happened, I couldn't be disappointed in my performance.

The rest of the afternoon felt like it was designed to make us squirm. The Rhodes Trust provided lunch at a local restaurant, then I caught a few hours of down time at the hotel before heading back to the main conference rooms in case the committee wanted second-round interviews. I, and the other candidates, proceeded to sit in a tiny conference room for two hours, alternately making nervous small talk and sinking into dead silence. I kept sweating, and even Cervantes's Don Quixote couldn't hold my attention. Finally, in a moment of levity, someone pulled out a DVD of Beauty and the Beast and started playing it on her laptop. That's how we Rhodes candidates spend our time, I say! Around 5pm, as dusk was settling, the committee called back two candidates (not me) for eleventh-hour second round interviews, and the atmosphere became much more tense. The Beast had just rescued Belle from the wolves in the forest when they reached their decision. We packed up, shuffled back into the main lobby, and met all the committee members waiting there for us. The secretary made some remarks about the day and the high quality of all the candidates this year, and then she said the first scholar's name. And then she said mine.

Cue everything surreal.