Nov. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Students from Harvard University won five Rhodes Scholarships and those from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were awarded three, leading the 32 U.S. recipients of the award for 2010.

Students from Yale University and the United States Military Academy, also known as West Point, in addition to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill each took two of the awards.

The Rhodes Scholarship is given in 15 international jurisdictions for study at the University of Oxford in the U.K., and can be worth as much as $175,000 for those who remain four years, the Rhodes Trust, which administers the award, said in an e-mailed statement. Almost 3,200 Americans have been awarded scholarships since the trust was created in 1902 by Cecil Rhodes, an African explorer and philanthropist.

“What we also see in this group is a dedication at an early age to global issues,” said Elliot Gerson, the American secretary of the trust, in a telephone interview. “They were focused on global health and poverty, and started programs in the developing world.”

The scholars are picked based on academic achievement, character and leadership potential.

The Ivy League dominated this year’s awards in the U.S. Before yesterday, Harvard had the highest total of Rhodes recipients with 323, followed by 217 from Yale in New Haven, Connecticut, and Princeton University had 192. Princeton and Columbia University had one winner this year.

Famous Recipients

This year’s winners include Zohar Atkins, a Brown University senior who leads weekly poetry classes at a maximum- security prison, and Alexandra Rosenberg, a West Point senior who has worked as an assistant physician in Gambia. Andrew McCall, a senior at Truman State University in Missouri, is his school’s first-ever Rhodes winner.

Former U.S. Supreme Court justice David Souter, novelist Naomi Wolf, and former president Bill Clinton are among past recipients. Others include actor-singer Kris Kristofferson, U.S. astronomer Edwin Hubble and former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley.

805 Endorsed

Rhodes candidates must first be endorsed by the colleges or universities they attend. The strongest candidates in each of the 16 districts throughout the U.S. are chosen to be interviewed by selection committees. With the exception of the chairmen, the regional boards are made up of past Rhodes scholars. This year, 805 students were endorsed by 326 different U.S. colleges and universities.

Scholarships were given also to candidates from Australia, Bermuda, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Jamaica, Kenya, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa as well as Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia and Swaziland.

Bowdoin College, Brown University, College of William & Mary, Regis University, Stanford University, Swarthmore College, the U.S. Air Force Academy, University of California at Los Angeles, University of Chicago, University of Louisville, University of Pittsburgh and Wesleyan University were the other institutions with winners, the trust said.

The winners were: Kira Allman; William & Mary; Ugwechi Amadi, MIT; Jordan Anderson, Auburn; Zohar Atkins, Brown; Henry Barmeier, Princeton; Matthew Baum, Yale; Elizabeth Betterbed, U.S.M.A.; Roxanne Bras, Harvard; Stephanie Bell, Chicago; Mark Dlugash, Swarthmore; Darryl Finkton, Harvard; Elizaveta Fouksman, UCLA; William Gohl, Regis; Raphael Graybill, Columbia; Caroline Huang, MIT; Jean Junior, Harvard; Eva Lam, Harvard; Elizabeth Longino, North Carolina; Monica Marks, Louisville; Andrew McCall, Truman State; Steven Mo, MIT; Brittany Morreale, Air Force; William Oppenheim III, Bowdoin; Eleanor Ott, Pittsburgh; Russell Perkins, Wesleyan; Alexandra Rosenberg, U.S.M.A.; Justine Schluntz, Arizona; Geoffrey Shaw, Yale; Daniel Shih, Stanford; Henry Spelman, North Carolina; Tyler Spencer, Virginia and Grace Tiao, Harvard.

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To contact the reporter on this story: Matthew Campbell in London at mcampbell39@bloomberg.net; Dan Hart in Washington at dahart@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 22, 2009 12:57 EST