Rhodes Scholars Include 2 Local College Seniors
By Dan Wing
OXFORD, Pa. (CBS) - This year's batch of Rhodes Scholars includes two college seniors from the Philadelphia area.
Out of the 857 applicants endorsed, only 32 students made the cut. Evan Behrle of Oxford in Chester County was one of them:
"I was astounded," he tells KYW Newsradio. "I was shocked. I mean it just didn't feel real. I looked down at the floor, just sort of in disbelief, and I still feel that way."
Behrle is a senior at the University of Virginia, where he's studying government and foreign policy. He's also dedicated a lot of time to the University's Honor Committee, which, he says, was a major factor in his being selected.
He plans to work on fighting poverty in American cities, and feels the experience of studying abroad will help towards that goal:
"I'm someone interested in poverty in American urban poverty, I don't know anything about poverty in cities outside of America and I'm going to be with people who live in British cities, who come from German cities or Asian cities who can just talk in sort of casual way about those things."
The other winner from the local area is Alexander Wang of Doylestown, who studies at New York University, Abu Dhabi, where he's studying social research and public policy. The Rhodes Trust says Wang has worked to improve the living conditions of immigrant workers in Abu Dhabi.
