Princeton University Senior Named Rhodes Scholar For 2018

PRINCETON, NJ — A Princeton University senior is among 32 students who have been named to the American Rhodes Scholar Class of 2018. Jordan D. Thomas, of South Plainfield, was among the 32 scholars chosen from a pool of 866 candidates endorsed by their colleges or universities.

As a Rhodes Scholar, he will begin courses at the University of Oxford in the fall of 2018. The Americans will join an international group of scholars chosen from 64 different countries. Thomas is a major at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and is double minoring in Portuguese Language and Culture and African-American Studies.

“The entire moment was really quite surreal. After waiting in a suite at Yankee Stadium for what seemed like an eternity, the selection committee called all of the finalists into the other room and announced that they had reached a final decision,” Thomas said in a statement on the university’s website. “When I heard them call my name, I was in shock for a moment, and then my instant reaction was to shake the hand of all the other finalists and thank them for making this stressful weekend so enjoyable.

“My parents were outside waiting to drive me home, and so they were the first people I told,” he said. “They were so overcome with emotion that they had to pull over and wipe away tears of joy before we could continue driving.”

He was a Fulbright Summer Institute Fellow at the University of Bristol, where he studied the culture, heritage, and history of the U.K. He interned at the Office for Civil Rights’ Program Legal Group at the U.S. Department of Education as part of the Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative.

He is a co-chair of the Community House Executive Board at Princeton University. In that position, he oversees nine student-driven education projects to support under-represented youth in academic success.
Jordan plans to study for an M.Phil. in Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation at Oxford.

His senior thesis at Princeton focuses on the scope of school-based support services the Newark Public Schools District (NPS) offers pregnant and parenting teens.

“Specifically, this study aims to assess whether there is a gap between the standards and best practices established nationally and the actual services provided in the district,” Thomas said.

Thomas served as the student representative on the district’s advisory board in 2013-14, prior to coming to Princeton.

That year was one of the most turbulent in that district’s history, Thomas wrote in his Rhodes application. His experience led him “to make two commitments — one being that I would pursue a career in public service and advocate for those most in need of a voice and a helping hand; and the other being that I would always strive to act in the best interests of those affected by my leadership,” he wrote.

Applicants are selected on the basis of academic excellence but that is only describe as a threshold condition. Scholars should also have "great personal energy, ambition for impact and should be committed to make a difference in the world" among other things.

The program is highly competitive and this year, more than 2,500 students sought an endorsement from their college or institution and 866 received the endorsement.

The scholarship was created in 1902 by the Will of Cecil Rhodes, a British philanthropist and African colonial pioneer. The scholarship provides all expenses for two or three years of study at the University of Oxford.

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