One Eli wins a Marshall
Adam Bouland ’09 is Yale’s lone winner of this year’s Marshall scholarship, given annually to up to 40 American students for postgraduate study in the United Kingdom.
Bouland, a computer science and mathematics major, will spend two years at the University of Cambridge studying mathematics and physics, each for one year. In each of the past two years, two Yale students were offered Marshall scholarships. The number of Marshall scholars from any given institution routinely fluctuates from year to year, said Director of UK and Irish Fellowships Katherine Dailinger, adding that the...
Only 2 winners from HYP!!?? There seems to be something clearly wrong with their selection process.
Poisson Probability :
Assume 2 winners is "likely," then the probability of having only 1 is:
2^1 * (e^(-2)) / 1! = = 0.270670566
Wow! That's amazing! I mean, imagine getting two heads in row from flipping a fair penny. That never happens!
Congrats, Adam. This is not meant to detract from your well-earned honor; only that the fact that (G-d forbid) Yale only had 1 (!) winner should not be in the nut-graf, but rather the last sentence of the article.
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_distribution
That's the lede, not the nut-graf. Good try, though.
HYP = 6 winners, not 2
You state: "Only 2 winners from HYP!!?? There seems to be something clearly wrong with their selection process."
Actually, there seems to have been something "clearly wrong" with the graduation "process" your year. Clearly you didn't win a Marshall, because it requires some threshold reading and addition skills. As ser forth in the article: "The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the U.S. Naval Academy and Harvard all had the most Marshall scholars, with four each. The only other Ivies with Marshall scholars were Columbia and Princeton universities, which, like Yale, had one Marshall winner each."
4 (H) + 1 (Y) + 1 (P) = 6 HYP my dear supposed alum, not 2.
nut-graf:
"In each of the past two years, two Yale students were offered Marshall scholarships. The number of Marshall scholars from any given institution routinely fluctuates from year to year, said Director of UK and Irish Fellowships Katherine Dailinger, adding that the Marshall is “fiercely competitive” and “highly prestigious.” "
lede: "Adam Bouland ’09 is Yale’s lone winner of this year’s Marshall scholarship ..."
Oops. Both places ... even funnier.
#6: Thanks for clarifying, I missed the part about Harvard getting four. Indeed, this is (one of the reasons) why I didn't win a Marshall.
From 1986 through 2009, apparently, Harvardians have won 91 Rhodes and 104 Marshall scholarships, while Yale and Princeton combined have won 87 Rhodes and 92 Marshall scholarships.
http://www.k-state.edu/media/achievements/scholarstop10of5.pdf
Adam Bouland is the jam!