美國(guó)斯坦福招生官給學(xué)生的一封信：什么東西真正影響我們的一生？

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2021年3月，我們的招生辦公室向3萬(wàn)4千多名申請(qǐng)我們普通錄取的盼望著想在斯坦福度過(guò)自己四年大學(xué)生涯的高中學(xué)生發(fā)出了郵件。

即便我已經(jīng)負(fù)責(zé)招生工作長(zhǎng)達(dá)30年之久，在這個(gè)周末，我依然為那些沒(méi)能如愿以償拿到offer的年輕人而感到遺憾。

同時(shí)，我也能預(yù)見(jiàn)到很多家長(zhǎng)會(huì)因?yàn)樽约旱暮⒆佑兄謨?yōu)異的教育背景，很高的SAT成績(jī)但最終被斯坦福拒絕而感到心煩意亂。

我一直相信斯坦福的教育水平是無(wú)與倫比的。但我的經(jīng)驗(yàn)告訴我，當(dāng)這些孩子被斯坦福拒絕的時(shí)候，他們家長(zhǎng)會(huì)比他們更感到沮喪。

我能體會(huì)到這些家長(zhǎng)的感受。當(dāng)我的女兒在等待大學(xué)的錄取決定時(shí)，我也曾經(jīng)緊張和不安。現(xiàn)今的孩子們已經(jīng)承受了太多的壓力，在這里，我想與所有家長(zhǎng)分享三條理念。

首先，一切都是相對(duì)的

雖然每年錄取的本科生人數(shù)已經(jīng)保持不變數(shù)年之久，斯坦福像他同一級(jí)別的其他學(xué)校一樣，每年會(huì)收到超過(guò)42,000份申請(qǐng)。

先不管錄取時(shí)對(duì)申請(qǐng)人資質(zhì)的側(cè)重和傾向問(wèn)題，每年都會(huì)有數(shù)千學(xué)生會(huì)被無(wú)情的拒絕掉。毫無(wú)疑問(wèn)的是，這些被拒掉的學(xué)生中，絕大多數(shù)是符合斯坦福的申請(qǐng)要求的。實(shí)際上，有著GPA4.0的申請(qǐng)者的數(shù)量是我們實(shí)際錄取人數(shù)四到五倍。

我也希望有這么一個(gè)公式來(lái)解釋誰(shuí)能夠被錄取，誰(shuí)會(huì)被拒掉，但決定是否錄取一名學(xué)生是一門(mén)藝術(shù)，而并非科學(xué)。

每一個(gè)課堂就像一個(gè)交響樂(lè)團(tuán)，需要其獨(dú)特的組合和聲音；我們的目的是營(yíng)造一個(gè)和諧而多元的環(huán)境，這就意味著額外的貝斯手是沒(méi)必要的。

另外，即便是在我的同事內(nèi)部，我們也對(duì)申請(qǐng)者持有不同的看法和意見(jiàn)。但我想告訴你們的是：世界不會(huì)因?yàn)槟惚凰固垢＞芙^了而否定你自己的價(jià)值和努力。

其次，看得長(zhǎng)遠(yuǎn)一些

即使現(xiàn)在的媒體稱(chēng)現(xiàn)在的年輕人是垮掉的一代，就我所審核的這些申請(qǐng)斯坦福的年輕人來(lái)看，他們是無(wú)與倫比的出色。通常來(lái)說(shuō)，這些被我們拒絕的學(xué)生最終會(huì)被其他同一級(jí)別的大學(xué)錄取。從高中升入大學(xué)，是人生的一個(gè)重要的里程碑。對(duì)于年輕人來(lái)說(shuō)，如何完成這個(gè)轉(zhuǎn)變而從此走上人生新的階段要比在哪里完成重要得多。在這個(gè)時(shí)候，家長(zhǎng)們需要注重自己孩子取得的成就以及享受他大學(xué)四年中帶來(lái)的驚喜。

最后，教育成就人。

不可否認(rèn)，不同的大學(xué)之間教育資源的差距是存在的，但他們都能給予學(xué)生學(xué)習(xí)和成長(zhǎng)的資源和空間。

這讓我想起了1975年加州Sunnyvale的一名高中畢業(yè)生。他申請(qǐng)了斯坦福和另外一所學(xué)校。當(dāng)他得知被斯坦福拒絕之后十分沮喪，但后來(lái)他卻被另一所名校，加州大學(xué)伯克利錄取了。

他后來(lái)在MIT完成了他的博士學(xué)位，隨后成為了華盛頓的卡內(nèi)基學(xué)院的研究員和約翰霍普金斯大學(xué)的教授。2003年，他加入了斯坦福的醫(yī)學(xué)院，并在2006年獲得了諾貝爾獎(jiǎng)。

Andrew Fire在當(dāng)年申請(qǐng)斯坦福的學(xué)生中，并沒(méi)有什么過(guò)人之處。現(xiàn)在的斯坦福哲學(xué)教授John Etchemendy當(dāng)初也沒(méi)能拿到斯坦福本科的offer。實(shí)際上，他們和所有被斯坦福拒絕過(guò)，但仍然取得了輝煌的人生成就的人一樣。

一個(gè)斯坦福的本科學(xué)位，亦或是任何一所常青藤盟校的本科學(xué)位，在漫長(zhǎng)的歲月中只會(huì)成為你簡(jiǎn)歷中的最不起眼的一行字而已。所有正在申請(qǐng)大學(xué)的學(xué)生和家長(zhǎng)應(yīng)該懂得的是，不論你是被錄取了還是拒絕了，進(jìn)入大學(xué)，相對(duì)于漫漫人生路來(lái)說(shuō)，只是一個(gè)簡(jiǎn)單的紀(jì)念碑。

下面是這封信的英文原文：

THIS AFTERNOON, my office sent out over 34,000 email notifications to high school seniors who applied Regular Decision and were waiting with anticipation to learn whether they would be invited to spend the next four years at Stanford.

Even though I have been in the admission field for over 30 years, I still feel quite a bit of pain at the end of this week (as I do each year) about the many exceptional youths who were not offered a space in the class. I also expect that in the following weeks I will hear from parents who are understandably distraught that their sons and daughters with top high school class rankings, very high SAT scores and some truly impressive extracurricular accomplishments were denied entry.

Clearly, I believe that a Stanford education is wonderful, but my experience suggests it’s often parents who are more upset about our admission decisions than the kids. I can relate to their concerns: I found myself getting jittery as my own daughter waited for her college application decisions. But given that today’s teens already have enough pressure in their lives, I wish to impart three credos to these parents.

First, it’s all relative. While the number admitted into the undergraduate class has remained unchanged for years, Stanford, like many of its peer schools, has had a record number of total applicants – more than 42,000. Regardless of arguments over whether too much preference is given to one category over another, thousands of students are going to be turned away, and there is no doubt that the vast majority of them could have met the demands of a Stanford education. We could, for instance, have filled incoming classes four or five times over with applicants who achieved grade point averages of 4.0 or greater.

I wish there were a formula to explain who is accepted and who isn’t, but the decision-making is as much art as it is science. Each class is a symphony with its own distinct composition and sound; the final roster is an effort to create harmony, and that means that some extraordinary bass players don’t get a chair. What’s more, even among my staff there are legitimate differences about applicants. The bottom line: The world is not going to judge anyone negatively because they didn’t get into Stanford or one of our peer institutions.

Second, celebrate the bigger picture. Despite the constant media buzz about the turbulent state of youth today, most of the applications I reviewed – as well as those reviewed by my colleagues at Stanford and elsewhere – are truly remarkable. And in most cases, those denied admission to some schools are admitted to others. The transition from high school to college is a monumental turning point, and it’s more important to focus on how a young adult is moving on to a new stage than where that stage happens to be. This is the moment when parents should mark the success of their children and rejoice in the excitement that the next four years will bring.

And that leads to my final point: Education is what a student makes of it. Of course, certain schools have resources that others don’t, but they all offer opportunities to learnand to grow.

I am reminded of a teenager graduating high school in Sunnyvale, Calif., in 1975, who applied to only Stanford and one other school. He was understandably disappointed when denied admission here, but he later excelled as an undergraduate at the distinguished university across San Francisco Bay, UC Berkeley.

He went on to earn a doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and to become a research scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins. In 2003, he joined the Stanford University School of Medicine and was the co‐winner of the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 2006.

Andrew Fire is not atypical when it comes to Stanford applicants. Nor for that matter is John Etchemendy, the Stanford provost and philosophy professor who also was denied admission as an undergraduate. Nor are any of the thousands of others who aren’t accepted to Stanford and go on to have fulfilling lives.

An undergraduate degree from Stanford, or an Ivy League college, may well end up being only one line at the bottom of a resume. What parents and college applicants across the country need to remember is that the news they receive, whether good or bad, is but a single step on a much longer journey.

本文發(fā)表于《洛杉磯時(shí)報(bào)》，原題“Rejected by Stanford? You'll live”。作者：Richard H. Shaw，斯坦福大學(xué)招生和助學(xué)辦主任。

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