Sydni Scott, CC '22, Awarded Rhodes Scholarship

Upper West Side NY

14 December, 2021

1:49 PM

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Columbia Daily Spectator BY ELLA ROSSI DECEMBER 13, 2021 Sydni Scott, CC '22, has been awarded a Rhodes scholarship to attend Oxford University in fall 2022. Scott, who competes in the long jump and the triple jump for Columbia's track and field team, is the first female athlete in University history to receive this honor. She plans to study comparative government at Oxford. The Rhodes scholarship is highly competitive, attracting an applicant pool from across the globe. Students are chosen for outstanding commitments and achievements in leadership, service, and scholarly work. This year, over 2,300 students submitted a Rhodes scholarship application, with 826 chosen as finalists. Scott was one of 32 winners from within the United States and one of three Columbia students. She will begin studying at Oxford next October in a cohort of 102 scholars from over 60 countries. In addition to being a Division I athlete, Scott, a political science major, is involved in the Women's Network of Columbia. She also founded an organization called the Amendment Project, which aims to increase reparations across the country and highlight Black artists, activists, and businesses. The Amendment Project team launched a campaign in June to support reparations proposed in Tulsa, Oklahoma by the Tulsa Oklahoma City Council. In these efforts, the Amendment Project created a Change.org petition that received over 10,000 signatures. Scott attributes her success to self-reliance, but she was frustrated by the lack of support provided to her by Columbia during the application process despite the University's reputation and financial resources. Scott believes that she faced more difficulty than other applicants at peer institutions during the application process. "Talking to people at peer institutions, they have said that the process for applying and the knowledge about the scholarships and the support that is available is very pervasive in the student body," she said. Historically, Columbia has had far fewer Rhodes scholars in comparison to peer institutions. Institutions such as Harvard University, Yale University, and Princeton University have consistently had multiple students win Rhodes scholarships each year. To date, Harvard has 375 winners, Princeton has 215, Yale has 255, Dartmouth College has 63, Brown University has 57, Cornell University has 31, and the University of Pennsylvania has 23. Columbia has 28, a disproportionate number given its undergraduate population of nearly 9,000 students, which is larger than most peer institutions with higher numbers of Rhodes scholars. Scott cited this lack of a Columbia Rhodes scholar alumni base as a reason why she did not feel prepared or supported during the application process. "There's no community of Columbia Rhodes scholars to serve as a positive and helpful support system," Scott said. While attending events as a finalist, she noticed that "at other universities" this community seemed to be present "more consistently." "The Undergraduate Research and Fellowships office has webinars and things like that, but you sort of have to already be signed up to their mailing list in order to receive information about what and when one that it is going to be hosted," she said. She says that at other institutions, "cultural understanding of the administration" allows students to feel "encouraged to apply by people within the university." Although Scott felt that the two current fellowship advisors were "really supportive," she believes that "part of what might have been difficult is that the fellowship office is just really small. It's just the two of them who are doing pretty much all of this work." Scott recognizes the importance of Columbia's advisors given the difficult process of applying. "It can be a very esoteric process," she said, but she "definitely felt like Columbia was there to provide support when you asked for it." Staff writer Ella Rossi can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @ellar0ssi. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.