Willy Oppenheim 01 Selected as Rhodes Scholar

Country School Alumni, William Oppenheim III ’01 was among 32 students named Rhodes Scholar representing the United States.

 

“We are extremely proud of all of Willy’s accomplishments, and future endeavors,” said Tim Bazemore, Head of School. “The Oppenheims have been a part of the Country School community for 20 years, with their youngest child Rosey, currently an eighth-grader here. We are all certain that this is not the last time that Willy will make national headlines for his outstanding volunteerism.”

 

Even as a sixth grader at Country School, Willy knew he would take the road less traveled. Unlike most of his peers, Oppenheim opted out of going straight to college after graduating from the Taft School, and instead traveled to Dharamsala, India where he taught Tibetan refugees.

 

“I spent my adolescent summers idolizing the laborers with whom I worked construction in rural Maine. The chasm between this environment and my affluent Connecticut hometown made me self-conscious of my privilege and determined to forgo college until I felt certain that my elite education could benefit someone other than myself,” Oppenheim wrote in his Rhodes Scholar essay.

 

He recently visited Country School to spread awareness about possible volunteer efforts with Omprakash. Sarah Wyllie, Editor-in-Chief of the Country School’s student-run newspaper, The Column, said she was inspired by the Omprakash Foundation. Wyllie said she hopes to model an existing Omprakash program that connected a journalism club at a private school in California with a journalism program at a girls’ school in Kenya.

 
To date, Omprakash has more than 100 educational partners in 26 countries. As a first-year student at Bowdoin, Oppenheim got involved with Tedford Housing, a non-profit in Brunswick Maine, that helps provide shelter, housing and services for the homeless. He also founded the Global Citizens Grant, which provides students with the opportunity to pursue summer volunteer and public service projects outside the U.S., with the intent of supporting student projects that are independently-designed and focus on providing direct service by working in local communities.

 
Oppenheim admits the Rhode Scholarship was not even on his radar. An opportunity arose where he could lead outdoor leadership courses in the mountains of Washington State after graduating in May. It was just before leaving on this lengthy expedition that he sent in his application for a Rhodes scholarship. Had it not been for the Omprakash Foundation, Oppenheim said he would have passed over the application process until a friend put his vision into perspective.

 
“He told me that ‘whatever I was trying to accomplish the Omprakash Foundation, I could do it better with the Rhodes Scholarship.’ ” So he pondered a bit, and entered his application. About 50 days later, when he emerged from the mountains of Washington State, he saw an email stating that he made the next round.

 

That was on Nov. 8 and he was due in New York 12 days later for weekend of rigorous interviews. Oppenheim said the competition was “fierce”, however, by the end of the weekend, he felt pretty comfortable. He felt it easy to talk about the foundation that he had been working on for five years and that dedication helped him land the scholarship.

 

“I felt like I could be 100 percent honest and myself,” he said. “Our mission is not to give away X amount of money per year, but to keep the Web site going.”

 

His next step is to study comparative and international education at Oxford University, use what he learns to continue running his foundation, and help grassroots organizations around the world represent themselves on the Internet.