Summary: I travelled back to the US to attend my Rhodes Scholarship finalist interview. Unfortunately, I didn’t win, and in all honesty, I’m still kind of reeling in the whole experience. But in the end, I'm learning a lot about setbacks and have also recognized the gift it was to see family and friends back home.
On October 30, I got an email during my class notifying me that I was selected as a finalist for the Rhodes Scholarship in the Los Angeles district. The Rhodes Scholarship funds 32 students from the States to study at Oxford in the UK for two years. I had started the long application process back in April without certainty of how far I’d get, so when I got the email, excitement overwhelmed me. I couldn’t really function when that happened, so I told my students to take 10 minutes to work on an exercise as I quickly left the room to jump up and down and call my mom.
I arrived in Los Angeles two days before the interview weekend, and I had spent my entire plane trip and time at home preparing for my interview, pondering all the questions they could ask me. What policies would I suggest to Biden at the APEC Summit with Xi next week? How should I respond if they call me a sell-out for having spent a summer at Goldman Sachs? Where do I see myself in 15 years? What if they ask me to sing?
The interview weekend was held at Caltech University, and it was a two-part process. On Friday night, we had a dinner with all the other finalists and the interview panel as we rotated around tables to get to know each other. Then on Saturday, we each had a 20 minute interview, and then had to wait in the same building the whole day until they announced the two winners in-person. Unfortunately, I was not one of the two winners.
In the immediate aftermath, I actually wasn't distraught. If anything, I felt relieved that it was over, and my mentality was "oh well, nothing else I can do." Even if feelings of regret were apparent, I don't think I was able to process them due to me having to quickly go back to Mongolia. But now a week later, typing up this blog post thousands of miles away, I think those feelings of regret are finally surfacing.
Out of the best intentions, family and friends have told me to be proud of how far I got, but the thing is, that's the difficult part - realizing that I was so close. All the finalists were incredible, but I knew I was a strong contender. I felt like I had good interactions with the interviewers and provided strong, insightful answers in my interview. But, there were 1 or 2 moments in my interview that I wish I had approached differently that have now become would’ve, could’ve, should’ve moments that I can’t do anything about.
Yet, even more harder was feeling like I let so many people down. My university paid for my $2,000 flight. The advisors at our fellowship center had worked tirelessly with me since April. So many members of my church congregation had been praying for me and sending my mom encouraging messages. My dad, who never boasts, excitedly told everyone he met that his son was a finalist. I wished I could bring better news to my five incredibly supportive professors who had taken their time to read my personal statements and past work to write letters of recommendation for me.
I've been told a couple of times that the Rhodes didn’t work out because even better doors are going to open for me. The current version of me at this moment in time finds it difficult to think that there's something possibly better than a funded two-year study at Oxford. But deep inside, I know that is true. I’ve had too many experiences where better things have come my way for me to linger on this setback for too long.
Having setbacks also naturally remind me to intentionally thinking of the positives with gratitude. Yes, not everything I had hoped for worked out, but the interview opportunity allowed me to come home for a short break, and I got to celebrate my dad’s birthday on Sunday. I made a good friend with one of the other LA finalists from my school who I couldn't get through this weekend without. I saw my two cousins who are only 6 years old but already above my waist. I also ate all this amazing food I had missed and brought some needed supplies from the States. And hey, my room in Ulaanbaatar is very warm, so there’s not too much to complain about.
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