斯坦福大学给被拒学生的信,美国留学妈妈圈微信公众号文章

美国人常说的一句话叫“put things in different perspective", 即用不同的视角看问题。一个斯坦福的本科学位，在漫长的岁月中真的只是你简历中的最不起眼的一行字而已，所以，Cheer up， move on！

THIS AFTERNOON, my office sent out over 34,000 emailnotifications to high school seniors who applied Regular Decision and werewaiting with anticipation to learn whether they would be invited to spend thenext four years at Stanford.

在今天下午，我们的招生办公室向3万4千多名申请我们普通录取的盼望着想在斯坦福度过自己四年大学生涯的高中学生发出了邮件。

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

即便我已经负责招生工作长达30年之久，在这个周末，我依然为那些没能如愿以偿拿到offer的年轻人而感到遗憾。同时，我也能预见到很多家长会因为自己的孩子有着十分优异的教育背景，很高的SAT成绩但最终被斯坦福拒绝而感到心烦意乱。

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

我一直相信斯坦福的教育水平是无与伦比的。但我的经验告诉我，当这些孩子被斯坦福拒绝的时候，他们家长会比他们更感到沮丧。我能体会到这些家长的感受。当我的女儿在等待大学的录取决定时，我也曾经紧张和不安。现今的孩子们已经承受了太多的压力，在这里，我想与所有家长分享三条理念:

First, it’s all relative. While the number admitted into theundergraduate class has remained unchanged for years, Stanford, like many ofits peer schools, has had a record number of total applicants – more than42,000. Regardless of arguments over whether too much preference is given toone 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 demandsof a Stanford education. We could, for instance, have filled incoming classesfour or five times over with applicants who achieved grade point averages of4.0 or greater.

首先，一切都是相对的。虽然每年录取的本科生人数已经保持不变数年之久，斯坦福像他同一级别的其他学校一样，每年会收到超过42000份申请。先不管录取时对申请人资质的侧重和倾向问题，每年都会有数千学生会被无情的拒绝掉。毫无疑问的是，这些被拒掉的学生中，绝大多数是符合斯坦福的申请要求的。实际上，有着GPA4.0的申请者的数量是我们实际录取人数四到五倍。

I wish there were a formula to explain who is accepted and whoisn’t, but the decision-making is as much art as it is science. Each class is asymphony with its own distinct composition and sound; the final roster is aneffort to create harmony, and that means that some extraordinary bass playersdon’t get a chair. What’s more, even among my staff there are legitimatedifferences about applicants. The bottom line: The world is not going to judgeanyone negatively because they didn’t get into Stanford or one of our peerinstitutions.

我也希望有这么一个公式来解释谁能够被录取，谁会被拒掉，但决定是否录取一名学生是一门艺术，而并非科学。每一个课堂就像一个交响乐团，需要其独特的组合和声音；我们的目的是营造一个和谐而多元的环境，这就意味着额外的贝斯手是没必要的。另外，即便是在我的同事内部，我们也对申请者持有不同的看法和意见。但我想告诉你们的是：世界不会因为你被斯坦福拒绝了而否定你自己的价值和努力。

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

其次，看得长远一些。即使现在的媒体称现在的年轻人是垮掉的一代，就我所审核的这些申请斯坦福的年轻人来看，他们是无与伦比的出色。通常来说，这些被我们拒绝的学生最终会被其他同一级别的大学录取。从高中升入大学，是人生的一个重要的里程碑。对于年轻人来说，如何完成这个转变而从此走上人生新的阶段要比在哪里完成重要得多。在这个时候，家长们需要注重自己孩子取得的成就以及享受他大学四年中带来的惊喜。

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

这就要提到我要说的最后一点上了：教育成就人。不可否认，不同的大学之间教育资源的差距是存在的，但他们都能给予学生学习和成长的资源和空间。

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

这让我想起了1975年加州Sunnyvale的一名高中毕业生。他申请了斯坦福和另外一所学校。当他得知被斯坦福拒绝之后十分沮丧，但后来他却被另一所名校，加州大学伯克利录取了。

He went on toearn a doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and to become aresearch scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington and an adjunctprofessor at Johns Hopkins. In 2003, he joined the Stanford University Schoolof Medicine and was the co‐winnerof the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 2006.

他后来在MIT完成了他的博士学位，随后成为了华盛顿的卡内基学院的研究员和约翰霍普金斯大学的教授。2003年，他加入了斯坦福的医学院，并在2006年获得了诺贝尔奖。

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

Andrew Fire在当年申请斯坦福的学生中，并没有什么过人之处。现在的斯坦福哲学教授John Etchemendy当初也没能拿到斯坦福本科的offer。实际上，他们和所有被斯坦福拒绝过，但仍然取得了辉煌的人生成就的人一样。

Anundergraduate degree from Stanford, or an Ivy League college, may well end upbeing only one line at the bottom of a resume. What parents and collegeapplicants 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.

一个斯坦福的本科学位，亦或是任何一所常青藤盟校的本科学位，在漫长的岁月中只会成为你简历中的最不起眼的一行字而已。所有正在申请大学的学生和家长应该懂得的是，不论你是被录取了还是拒绝了，进入大学，相对于慢慢人生路来说，只是一个简单的纪念碑。