One of the world’s most exclusive and prestigious scholarships goes to this Muscogee grad
A Muscogee County School District graduate has received one of the most exclusive and prestigious college scholarships in the world.
Mariah Cady, the 2019 Columbus High School salutatorian and now a senior at the University of Georgia, is one of 32 students in the United States and 103 worldwide from 64 countries to be named a 2024 Rhodes Scholar.
Each year, out of the thousands of applicants, the global acceptance rate is around 0.7%, according to the Rhodes Trust, a charity that supports the scholarship.
The Rhodes Scholarship, first awarded in 1902, is the world’s oldest international graduate scholarship program. The scholarship covers all fees and a stipend to study for two to three years at the University of Oxford in Britain — an estimated annual monetary value of $70,000, but the opportunity it affords is priceless.
Based on the Rhodes Trust’s list of recipients by institution and this year’s announcement, Cady is the 27th UGA student to become a Rhodes Scholar in 121 years, tied with Sewanee (University of the South), University of Kansas, University of Mississippi and Vanderbilt University, and trailing:
Harvard University 394
Yale University 265
Princeton University 218
Stanford University 104
U.S. Military Academy 104
Dartmouth University 65
Brown University 58
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 56
University of Virginia 56
U.S. Naval Academy 52
University of Chicago 51
Duke University 49
University of North Carolina 46
U.S. Air Force Academy 44
University of Washington 37
Williams College 36
Columbia University 33
Reed College 32
University of Wisconsin 32
Cornell University 31
University of Michigan 30
University of Oklahoma 30
University of Texas 30
Washington University in St. Louis 30
Georgetown University 28
Swarthmore College 28
University of Montana 28
“We are extraordinarily proud that Mariah has joined the long and distinguished list of University of Georgia students who have been honored as Rhodes Scholars,” UGA President Jere Morehead said in a news release. “I am confident that Mariah will make significant contributions to the world through her academic and professional pursuits.”
Cady is a Morehead Honors College student and Foundation Fellow at UGA. She also is a Security Leadership Program fellow in UGA’s School of Public and International Affairs.
“This remarkable honor is recognition of Mariah’s exceptional achievements as an undergraduate and a reflection of the excellence of UGA’s academic programs,” S. Jack Hu, the university’s senior vice president for academic affairs and provost, said in the news release. “I am particularly thankful for the faculty and staff of the Morehead Honors College and those across campus who have supported Mariah on her academic journey.”
Cady, from Midland, is a 2023 Boren Scholar majoring in Russian and international affairs with minors in geography, German and teaching English to speakers of other languages.
At Oxford, she plans to pursue two master’s degrees: the first in linguistics, philology and phonetics, the second in refugee and forced migration studies, to prepare for a career in diplomacy, according to the news release.
Cady wasn’t available for comment. She is studying in Kazakhstan at the Al-Farabi Kazakh National University. From April to September, she studied at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany on an international student exchange.
