每年的这个时候，随着早申放榜，注定是几家欢喜几家愁。申请美国大学被拒在所难免，可如果你的自信就此被摧毁，那才是真正可怕的事情。斯坦福大学招生官Richard·H·Shaw曾经给所有被拒的同学和家属发过一封邮件，言辞恳请地表示决定是否录取一名同学是一门艺术，而非科学。如果觉得这句话有点意思，就往下把原文一起看了吧。
图片来自网络
申请美国大学被这件事，斯坦福是这样认为的
Richard · H · Shaw（斯坦福大学招生官）
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.
今天下午，我们向34000名申请者发出了邮件，他们都递交了斯坦福RD轮的申请，并期待着受邀在斯坦福度过接下来的4年。
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 ed 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.
尽管我已经在招生领域工作了超过30年，但每年这个时候，我还是感到非常难过，因为许多优秀的年轻人没有被录取。而且我预计，在接下来的几周内，我将会听到家属们的抱怨——他们的子女在高中班级名列前茅、SAT分数非常高，在课外活动方面也很出色，但依然被斯坦福拒绝。
（图片来自：网络）
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.
我非常确信，斯坦福大学的教育是很棒的，但是我的经验表明，当一个同学被拒绝，家属反而比即将接受教育的同学本人更加沮丧。我能理解他们的这种心情——当我自己的女儿在等待大学的最终决定的时候，我也非常紧张。但是，考虑到现在的年已经在他们的生活中承受了足够的压力，我希望可以把以下三条理念分享给家属们。·
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.
首先，一切都是相对的。虽然被录取的本科生人数多年来保持不变，但是斯坦福大学和很多同类院校一样，在申请人数上创下一次又一次新高，每年我们会受到至少42000份申请。先抛开录取时对申请人的偏好的争论，每年都有数千名同学必须被无情地拒绝。而毫无疑问的是，他们中的绝大部分人都是符合斯坦福的录取要求的，实际上，GPA4.0的申请者数量是我们实际录取人数的4~5倍。
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.
我也非常希望有一个公式来告诉我们谁能够录取，谁会被拒绝，但是实际上决定是否录取一个同学更像是一门艺术，而非一门科学。每一节课都是一场交响乐，需要由独特的组合和声音，我们的最终目标是创造一个和谐多元的环境，而这就意味着有些本身能力非凡的贝斯手没有多余的位置。更重要的是，即便是在我们的同事内部，也对申请者是否应该被录取有着不同的看法和意见。但无论如何我想说的是：世界并不会因为你被斯坦福拒绝而否定你。
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.
其次，要把目光看的更长远一些。尽管现在的媒体总是在宣扬年轻人是垮掉的一代，但就我们看到的这些申请斯坦福大学的年轻人来说，他们都是的了不起。通常来说，被我们拒绝的同学最终都会被其他同一级别的大学录取。从高中到大学，是人生中的一个重大的转折点，对于年轻人来说，如何完成这个转变、进入人生的新阶段，比在哪里完成转变要更重要。父母应该关注他们取得的成功，并未他未来四年即将带来的惊喜而感到欢欣鼓舞。
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 opportunities to learnand to grow.
这就引出了我要说的最后一点：教育需要是同学自己成就的。不可否认，不同大学之间的教育资源有差异，但是他们的本质都是为同学提供学习和成长的机会。
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.
这让我想起了1975年加州森尼韦尔的一名高中毕业生，他只申请了斯坦福和另外一所学校。当被斯坦福拒绝的时候，他的失望显而易见，但是他后来被另一所学校——加州大学伯克利分校录取了。
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.
————————————申请美国大学被拒——————————
后来，他在MIT完成了自己的博士学位，并成为了华盛顿的卡内基学院的研究员和JHU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 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.
在所有申请者中，Andrew Fire并不是一个个例——现在的斯坦福大学教务长、哲学教授John Etchemendy当年也没有拿到斯坦福的本科录取，还有成千上万没有被斯坦福录取，却依然获得非凡成就的人。
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.
不论是斯坦福的本科学位也好，其他常青藤院校的学位也好，它们很有可能只会在简历的最后一行出现。而家属和同学需要记住的就是——他们收到的消息，无论是好是坏，都只是更长的旅程中的区区一步而已。
事实上，当你已经把世界知名的院校列入自己选校的范围的时候，从一定程度上就已经是对你这几年努力的一种肯定了，而“人生不如意十之八九”，比得到梦校录取更可贵的，是无论在哪一种境遇中都不放弃学习和向上的品格。
不论最后的结果如何，都希望大家放平心态，戒骄戒躁。到达既定的终点固然重要，但更宝贵的是这一路的风景。
当然啦，还是希望所有同学都能如愿以偿，早日收到梦校的橄榄枝！
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