【美媒】申請美國大學的幾則好消息

發(fā)布時間：2014-07-11     來源：美國留學

 Reasons for Hope While Applying to College

關于申請美國大學的幾則好消息

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The bad news for students applying to selective colleges is that getting accepted to any one of them really is harder than it used to be. Many colleges have reduced the number of American teenagers they accept (in order to globalize their student bodies) at the same time that the American teenage population is growing, as I wrote last week.

對于申請名牌大學的學生來說，壞消息是，現在獲得任何一所名牌大學的錄取書確實比以前難了。很多高校都在削減美國學生的錄取名額(以便提高學生群體的全球化程度)，與此同時美國青少年的人數卻在增加，這個現象我已經在上周寫過了。

But there is some good news, too, and it’s worth spending a few minutes on it. It sheds some light on the right way for high school students to think about the application process.

但是也有一些好消息，值得花幾分鐘時間來講講。這些消息有助于高中生正確考慮大學的申請過程。

First, amid all the anxiety over this subject, students should remember that the college you attend matters less than many people think it does. Research has shown that students with similar SAT scores who attended different colleges — say, Stanford and the University of California, Davis — have statistically identical incomes. (Low-income students are the exception; the college they attend does seem to matter.) Yes, Harvard graduates make high salaries on average, but it doesn’t seem to be because they went to Harvard.

首先，盡管申請大學會引發(fā)種種憂慮，但是學生們要明白，就讀哪所大學，其實沒有很多人以為的那么重要。研究表明，SAT成績相似的學生，就算進入不同的院校——比如斯坦福大學(Stanford)和加州大學戴維斯分校(University of California, Davis)，從統(tǒng)計數據來看，他們的收入也大致相當。(低收入家庭的學生屬于例外，就讀哪所大學對他們似乎的確有影響。)確實，哈佛大學(Harvard)畢業(yè)生的平均工資更高，但這似乎并不是因為他們上了哈佛。

I recognize that this research will not convince many teenagers and their parents. They’ll still care enormously about the admissions process. So another bit of encouraging news is also worth considering: Even if an individual college is harder to get into, there seem to be more total spots at excellent colleges.

我承認，很多學生和父母不會相信這項研究，他們還是會非常關心錄取過程。所以，另一個令人鼓舞的消息也值得考慮：盡管進入某所特定的大學更難了，但總體來說，優(yōu)秀院校的招生總數似乎增加了。

Over the same period that colleges like Harvard and Stanford have been admitting more foreign students, several other changes in higher education have also been occurring. High school seniors, for their part, have started applying to more colleges than in the past. In the 1970s or 1980s, a top student from North Carolina might have applied to a couple of public colleges in the state, Duke, Wake Forest and maybe one college in the Northeast. Today, that student may apply to those schools as well as, say, Princeton, Macalester, Pomona, Vanderbilt and the University of Chicago.

哈佛和斯坦福這樣的大學，確實開始錄取更多的外國學生，但與此同時，高等教育也出現了其他一些變化。高中畢業(yè)班的學生，申請的院校數要比過去多。在20世紀70年代或80年代，北卡羅萊納州的尖子生可能會申請該州的幾所公立大學，杜克大學(Duke)，維克森林大學(Wake Forest)，也許還會申請一所東北部的高校。如今，這樣的學生可能還會申請普林斯頓(Princeton)、馬克萊斯特學院(Macalester)、波莫納學院(Pomona)、范德堡大學(Vanderbilt)和芝加哥大學(University of Chicago)。

This change has effectively nationalized the higher-education market. Harvard has fewer students from the Northeast than it used to, and colleges in the Midwest or South have fewer from their home regions. As a result, colleges like Vanderbilt and Rice are more national and less regional than they used to be.

這種變化實際上已經使高等教育的市場全國化了。哈佛大學來自東北部學生比以前少，中西部或南部的高校來自本地的學生與以前相比也減少了。因此，范德堡大學和萊斯大學(Rice)這樣的高校不再具有以往的地區(qū)性，而是變得更加全國化了。

And some of the colleges that have most successfully made the leap from regional to national have substantial enrollments, like N.Y.U. and the University of Southern California. These colleges are almost like new entrants into the national higher-education market, increasing the number of available spots. At many elite high schools — public and private — 20 years ago, no seniors would even have applied to N.Y.U. or U.S.C. Today, they have become dream destinations for some students at those high schools.

一些非常成功地實現了從地區(qū)性到全國性跨越的高校，比如紐約大學(NYU)和南加州大學(University of Southern California)，它們的招生量相當大。這兩所大學幾乎是剛剛進入全國性的高等教育市場，它們都擴大了招生人數。20年前，很多精英高中——包括公立和私立高中——沒有哪個畢業(yè)班的學生會申請紐約大學或南加州大學。但如今，進入這兩所大學已經成為精英學校學生的夢想。

Put it all together, and the number of top colleges that any given student can consider has grown.

綜合這些因素，任何一名特定的學生可以申請的優(yōu)秀院校數就增加了。

“In the old days, kids would think, ‘What is the right school for me?'” said John Katzman, who founded the Princeton Review, “and then work hard to be the kids that school wanted.”

“過去，孩子們會想，‘我應該去哪所學校?’然后努力成為那所學校想錄取的那種學生。”普林斯頓評論(Princeton Review)創(chuàng)始人約翰·卡茨曼(John Katzman)說。

Today, he said, students should worry less about shaping themselves to fit a specific college (or pretending to, in their application). They should instead pursue their own interests and look for a group of colleges that might be a good fit, without falling in love with a single one.

他說，現在的學生不用再那么關注于改造自己，去適應某所大??學(或在申請書中假裝成這樣)。學生應該追求自己的愛好興趣，并且多考慮幾所可能符合這些愛好的院校，而不要牢牢盯著某一所。

“You can’t try to be perfect for all of them,” said Mr. Katzman, who now runs Noodle, a company that provides advice on education decisions. “You have to think of this as a probability cloud and handle it in a statistically rigorous way.”

“你不可能嘗試做到對所有院校都十全十美，”卡茨曼說，他現在經營的Noodle公司提供有關教育決策的咨詢。“你要把它想象成一個‘概率云’，以嚴謹的統(tǒng)計方法來對待它。”

There is one more reason to remain upbeat about an application process that can often feel stressful and difficult: When it’s all over, you get to go to college.

學生在申請大學的過程中往往會遭遇壓力和困難，但還有另一個理由來幫助你保持樂觀：這一切都結束后，你就可以去上大學了。

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