Stride for stride, solid horse sense leads to scholarly achievement. For the second time in two years, the Rhodes Trust has awarded a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship to an Intercollegiate Horse Show Association (IHSA) college equestrian athlete to pursue post-graduate study at Oxford University.

This year’s recipient is IHSA hunter seat rider, Rachel Kolb, of Los Ranchos, NM, who is in her second year as president of the Stanford Equestrian Team, and co-terminal year at Stanford (CA) University (i.e., she will graduate this year with a BA in English and minor in Human Biology as well as a Masters in English).

Kolb is Stanford’s 2012 IHSA Regional Champion in Intermediate Flat and Fences, and has twice helped bring the team to the national Top Ten: At the 2010 IHSA Nationals, in Team Intermediate Fences, where Stanford finished fourth, and again at the 2011 IHSA National Championships, in Team Intermediate Flat (Stanford placed sixth).

In the classroom, Kolb earned an 2011 IHSA/EQUUS Foundation Scholarship and, in 2012, was recognized as an IHSA Senior Athletic Academic Achievement Award recipient, and led Stanford to the first Team IHSA All-Academic Award (since the creation of the distinction in 2011). Elected as a junior to Phi Beta Kappa, she is managing editor of the Leland Quarterly, a campus literary magazine, and an opinion columnist for The Stanford Daily. At Oxford, she plans to pursue a Master's degree in Contemporary Literature.

“I feel extremely honored to have received the Rhodes scholarship, and I am looking forward to studying at Oxford over the next two years,” Kolb said in an electronic interview. “The news is still sinking in, but I'm already hoping to find a way to ride while in England. I had the opportunity to study abroad at Oxford during my junior year at Stanford, which I loved, so I feel very fortunate to have the chance to return.

Our Mission

The mission of AARS is to bring Rhodes Scholars in America together in support of the Rhodes Scholarship, its values, and Oxford University through events, publications, networks and the web.

Resources

Contact