Marshall Scholarship
The Marshall Scholarship is a postgraduate scholarship for "intellectually distinguished young Americans [and] their country's future leaders" to study at any university in the United Kingdom.[1] It is widely considered one of the most prestigious scholarships for U.S. citizens, and along with the Fulbright Scholarship, it is the only broadly available scholarship available to Americans to study at any university in the United Kingdom.[2][3][4]
Marshall Scholarship
Americans to study for a graduate degree in the United Kingdom
Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission
1953
Created by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1953 as a living gift to the United States in recognition of the generosity of Secretary of State George C. Marshall and the Marshall Plan in the wake of World War II, the goal of the scholarship was to strengthen the Special Relationship between the two countries for "the good of mankind in this turbulent world."[5] The scholarships are awarded by the Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission and are largely funded by the British government.[6] The program was also the first major co-educational British graduate scholarship; one-third of the inaugural cohort in 1954 were women. With nearly 1,000 university-endorsed and selected applicants in recent years, it is among the most selective graduate scholarships for Americans, with an acceptance rate of around four percent, and as low as 3.2 percent in 2015.[7]
There are over 1,900 Marshall Scholar alumni.[7] Many of these alumni have achieved distinctions and hold prestigious careers. In the government, current alumni include Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, the director of the CIA, members of Congress and presidential cabinets, and state governors. Alumni are CEOs of companies such as LinkedIn and Dolby Labs, and managing editors of Time magazine and CNN. They are also deans of Yale Law School, Stanford Law School, the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard College; and presidents of Duke University, Wellesley College, the Cooper Union, and Caltech. They also include a Nobel Laureate, a winner of the Kluge Prize, four Pulitzer Prize–winning authors, twelve MacArthur Genius Grant awardees, NASA's youngest astronaut, two Oscar nominees, and one awardee of the Distinguished Flying Cross for service during the Iraq War.
Academic destinations[edit]
Nine institutions are traditionally the main destinations of selected Marshall Scholars: University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, London School of Economics, University College London, University of Edinburgh, King's College London and Imperial College London.[7] SOAS and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine have also sometimes been highly preferred.[7]
In 2015, there were 69 Marshall Scholars in residence at British universities including those who were selected for the classes of 2012, 2013 and 2014.[20] During this time, there were 27 scholars at the University of Oxford, seventeen at the University of London (including five each at the London School of Economics and King's College London, and one at University College London), thirteen at the University of Cambridge, and four at Imperial College London. Of these scholars, 46 were studying arts and social sciences while 23 were studying science, engineering or mathematics.[20]
Comparison to other post-graduate scholarships[edit]
In structure and selection criteria, the Scholarship is most similar to the American Rhodes Scholarship and the Fulbright Program. Like the Fulbright available for study in the United Kingdom, Marshall Scholars can study at any university in the UK. However, under the Fulbright, applicants compete in separate pools for 43 specified universities of varying selectivity, except for two awards tenable at any university.[21]
The Marshall Scholarship is more flexible than the Rhodes Scholarship, in that Marshall Scholars can study at any British university, and can also attend a different university each year during a Scholar's tenure.[2] In addition, a limited number of one-year Marshall scholarships are available. Unlike Rhodes Scholars, Marshall Scholars must be American citizens (in comparison, approximately eighty Rhodes Scholarships are given annually to citizens of over a dozen countries). In the process, the Marshall Scholarship is roughly as selective as the Rhodes and Mitchell Scholarships: the Marshall was awarded to 3.4 percent of university-endorsed applicants in 2014, compared to 3.7 percent for the Rhodes in 2014, and 3.2 percent for the Mitchell Scholarship in 2017.[22][15][7] The Gates Cambridge Scholarship is slightly more selective with 1.3% of applicants receiving an award.[23] Also, because the selection processes of the scholarships discussed above differ, the likelihood that an applicant will be granted a final round interview is different for each scholarship. In 2014, 15.9 percent of university-endorsed applicants for the Marshall Scholarship received a finalist interview, compared to 24 percent of Rhodes applicants and 5.4 percent of Mitchell applicants.[22][15][7]
While the selection committees continue to emphasize academic potential, over time "the Marshall program has become more Rhodes-like, stating that it is seeking persons who also demonstrate leadership potential." In general, "nearly all Rhodes Scholars are willing to admit that, by and large, the Marshalls are superior if one looks just at grade point averages and other signs of academic achievement," but this is a point of both "admiration" and "disdain."[24]: 293 Walter Isaacson, describing Rhodes Scholars as "fairly intelligent, well-rounded, honest people who could be counted on to be upstanding citizens," has said that "the real geniuses...were the Marshall Scholars," perhaps because of the expectation that Rhodes Scholars be "all-rounders." In practice, the Marshall and Rhodes have engaged an "informal rivalry," but in career trajectory after the completion of their fellowships, "the line between [the fellowships] is not so evident," with scholars pursuing similar fields with similar success. In general, a higher percentage of Marshall Scholars "go on to careers in academia and research, whereas Rhodes Scholars are more evenly scattered through the full range of professional occupations."[24]: 357
Association of Marshall Scholars[edit]
The Association of Marshall Scholars (AMS) was formed in 1988 as a charitable organization.[25]
The organization has been led by several notable board and advisory members, including Kathleen Sullivan, Reid Hoffman, Nannerl Keohane, Peter Orszag, Harold Koh, Roger Tsien and Daniel Yergin.[26]
In 2017 the Association of Marshall Scholars, in partnership with the German Marshall Fund and the British Embassy, Washington, hosted the Harvard Marshall Forum at Harvard University to mark the 70th anniversary of the Marshall Plan and focused on its legacy and impact today. The event featured 30 speakers including Madeleine Albright as well as Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer and Neil Gorsuch, both Marshall Scholars.[27]
In 2018, the AMS partnered with the British Consulate General in San Francisco and the Bechtel International Center at Stanford University to host a Marshall Forum on Innovation. The Forum focused on the pipeline of scientific invention in fields such as biomedicine and genetics that are of particular interest to the United States and the United Kingdom. Distinguished speakers included Reid Hoffman, a Marshall Scholar, and David Reitze, Director of LIGO Laboratory. The forum highlighted societal challenges and opportunities raised by explosive innovations in these fields as they interact with advances in machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data science.
In 2019, the AMS hosted the Marshall Forum with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, focusing on peace and prosperity. The Forum featured 17 speakers including the Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney, the Director of U.S. National Security Agency General Paul Nakasone, former U.S. Ambassadors Michael Froman, Carla Hills, and William J. Burns, and former British Ambassador to the United States Kim Darroch.[28]
The Association of Marshall Scholars releases an annual public opinion poll in partnership with Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. The poll measures the American public's perceptions of the United Kingdom.