"We took a 6 a.m. flight the next morning," he said. "Even on two hours of sleep we had pretty good interviews, I think."

The Chair of the Fellows Committee at the IOP, Atwan was the treasurer and a founding member of the Harvard-Radcliffe Republican Alliance.

An economics concentrator, he hopes to study modern Middle Eastern studies and economics at Oxford, focusing on the economic and political implications of the peace agreements in the Middle East.

Another of the scholars said he was relieved that the week of interviews was over. "I feel great. It was a long week and I'm glad that it ended this way," Toloui said.

An economics concentrator, Toloui refuted the notion that Rhodes scholars share any special characteristic.

"I think that you don't do anything special," he said. "Just study hard in school, take your vitamins every morning. I think really at the end it's just focusing in the interview."

Among the questions the scholarship committee asked Toloui during his three interviews, he said, the most memorable were "What's the difference between knowledge and belief?" and "What should the U.S. do about human rights violations in China?"

Toloui said the committee also asked about his favorite piece of art-work (Picasso's "Guernica") and his favorite ancient Persian king (Xerxes, because of his "clever politics during the Peloponnesian War").

In addition to serving as the editor-in-chief of the Harvard International Review, Toloui was the community outreach director of the Small Claims Advisory Service and a member of the board of the Harvard International Relations Council.

"I would like to become involved in academia, to be involved in foreign policy-related academic research," he said.

One winner professed to having mixed emotions. Wu said he experienced "shock and an unreal kind of feeling" upon hearing that he had won the Rhodes.

"I felt that I did really poorly at my first interview," he said, adding that he believed he made up for it in the second interview.

Wu, who was active in the Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations, also worked as a tutor and participated with Phillips Brooks House (PBH) programs. He is a joint concentrator in social studies and East Asian studies.

He described the quality that he said he believed helped him win the scholarship.

"For me, at least, it was just having passion about what you want to be doing and articulating that well in an interview," Wu said.