For the tenth year in a row, Wheaton College has ranked as one of the top universities for producing Fulbright scholars in United States. According to the Wheaton website, “The Fulbright U.S. Student Program provides grants for individually designed study/research projects or for English Teaching Assistant Programs. A candidate will submit a Statement of Grant Purpose defining activities to take place during one academic year in a participating country outside the U.S.”
This exciting news was confirmed through the list released by the U.S. Department of State called “Top Producers of U.S. Fulbright Scholars and Students”. This list was included with the article in the Chronicle of Higher Education and released on Feb. 12. The ranking was broken down into four categories according to the type of university; Research institutions, Master’s institutions, Bachelor’s institutions and Specialized institutions. Wheaton College ranked 16th under Bachelor’s institutions with 26 applicants and 9 awards. This is an improvement from last years ranking in which Wheaton college was ranked 30th with 27 applicants and 5 grants.
It was also stated that “Wheaton’s nine Fulbright scholars placed it in a tie with four other institutions (Hamilton, Lewis & Clark, Grinnel and College of the Holy Cross), producing the seventh-most number of scholars among liberal arts schools. The college ranked sixth overall in the percentage of Fulbright nominees who win the award, with a 35% success rate. The average success rate among top Fulbright-producing colleges is 25%.” The winners for this years Fulbright awards are Nicholas Cicchinelli ’14 (Moldova), Jennifer Irving ’14 (Malaysia) Bailey McWilliams ’14 (Panama), Alexis Nieves ’14 (Brazil), Montana Rogers ’14 (Bulgaria), Matthew Sexton ’14 (Poland), Savannah Tenney ’14 (Taiwan) and Ashley Wich ’14 (Greece).
Besides producing excellent candidates for Fulbright awards, Wheaton also prepares its students for competing for various scholarships including but not exclusive to: Rhodes scholar, Marshall and Truman scholarships. This year to date, Wheaton students have won various scholarships like “The Thomas A. Watson Fellowships (Tianna Lall ’14 and Carrie Decker ’14), a Beinecke Scholarship (Sarah Estrela ’15), a Resolution Fellowship (Jenish Amatya ’17), and a 100 Projects for Peace Award (Jorge Clemente de Leon Miranda ’14).”