AGOURA HIGH GRADUATE NAMED RHODES SCHOLAR.

Byline: Enrique Rivero Daily News Staff Writer

The way Daniel P. Kim sees it, a couple years' stay in England as a Rhodes scholar could give the 21-year-old Harvard University student some insights into how Americans perceive art.

Kim, a 1993 graduate of Agoura High School, is studying American history and literature at the Ivy League school. And being a classical oboe player, he's had a nearly lifelong interest in the arts - and hopes one day to be involved in the field.

The Rhodes scholarship he just received to Oxford University in England could lead him in that direction, he said.

``In the United States, art seems a little removed from popular culture, and perhaps in Europe people participate in it a little more,'' Kim said Monday in a phone interview from Cambridge, Mass. ``It'll be interesting to live there the next two or three years and see why that is the case - or, if that is the case.''

On Saturday, the Rhodes Scholarship Trust named Kim one of 32 American recipients of the prestigious award. It entitles them to begin two or three years of study at Oxford University, beginning in October.

Although he had been going through the lengthy application and interview process since early October, Kim said he was still stunned when he was picked as a winner.

``They have all these applicants in the room and they just say very matter-of-factly these four people (are getting it) and there's complete shock in the room,'' Kim said.

He was still reeling Monday. ``I felt very disoriented at that moment and it still feels very surreal to me,'' he said.

Kim's mother, Sunny Kim, said she and her husband, Keun, were thrilled when their son called them about noon Saturday with the good news.

``We were expecting him to call either way, and when he called and said `I made it,' my husband just screamed,'' she said.

The Rhodes scholarships are an international study award created in 1902 through the will of British philanthropist and colonialist Cecil Rhodes.

In the United States, 990 applicants filed for the scholarship either in their state of legal residence or the state where they attend college, according to a spokeswoman from the Rhodes Scholarship Trust at Pomona College in Claremont.

Scholars also are selected from Australia, Bermuda, Canada, the Commonwealth Caribbean, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Applicants are judged on high academic achievement, integrity of character, spirit of unselfishness, respect for others, potential for leadership, and physical vigor.

Kim's other accomplishments include co-directorship of a homeless shelter in Cambridge. He also has served as an adviser to the Massachusetts State Senate's Committee on Education, Arts and Humanities.

On the musical front he has performed with Yo-Yo Ma; the Pacific Music Festival; the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute Orchestra; the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra; and a touring woodwind quartet with which he played took him to Tokyo, Taipei, Taiwan and Seoul, South Korea.