How to Survive the College Admissions Madness

Frank Bruni

美國的高中畢業(yè)生和中國的一樣，都面臨著選擇大學(xué)以及被大學(xué)選擇的境遇。為了進(jìn)入名牌大學(xué)、歷史名校，學(xué)生們竭盡所能，不斷努力，卻不是都能得到理想大學(xué)的青睞。我們的未來是否就在此時此刻被決定了呢？失利者又該如何走出低谷，走向成功呢？本文作者將給你一些建議，或許還能讓你重拾信心。

Here we go again. At Harvard, Emory, Bucknell and other schools around the country, there have been record numbers of applicants yearning for an elite degree.1. Emory: 埃默里大學(xué)，一所全美頂級私立研究性大學(xué)；Bucknell: 巴克內(nèi)爾大學(xué)，美國一所私立文理大學(xué)；record: 創(chuàng)紀(jì)錄的；yearn for: 渴求；elite: 精英的，卓越的。They’ll get word2. get word: 得到消息。in the next few weeks. Most will be turned down.

All should hear and heed3. heed: 注意，留意。the story of Peter Hart.

Peter didn’t try for the Ivy League4. Ivy League: 常春藤盟校，是由美國東北部地區(qū)的八所大學(xué)組成的體育賽事聯(lián)盟，包括哈佛大學(xué)、耶魯大學(xué)、普林斯頓大學(xué)、哥倫比亞大學(xué)、賓夕法尼亞大學(xué)、達(dá)特茅斯學(xué)院、布朗大學(xué)及康奈爾大學(xué)。除了這八所學(xué)校外，還有25所精英大學(xué)因其高質(zhì)量的教育和不斷取得的國際學(xué)術(shù)成就而受到越來越多學(xué)生和家長的青睞，被稱為“新常春藤”院校。. That wasn’t the kind of student he’d been at New Trier High School, in an af fluent Chicago suburb.5. New Trier High School: 新特里爾中學(xué)，美國一所著名的公立高中；af fluent: 富裕的；suburb:郊區(qū)。Most of its graduating seniors go on to higher education, and most know, from where they stand among their peers, what sort of college they can hope to attend. A friend of Peter’s was ranked near the summit of their class; she set her sights on Yale—and ended up there. Peter was ranked in the top third, and aimed for the University of Michigan or maybe the special undergraduate business school at the University of Illinois.6. University of Michigan: 密歇根大學(xué)，美國歷史上最悠久的公立大學(xué)之一；special undergraduate business school: 特設(shè)本科商學(xué)院；University of Illinois: 伊利諾伊大學(xué)，美國最具影響力的公立大學(xué)系統(tǒng)之一。

Both rejected him.

He went to Indiana University7. Indiana University: 印第安納大學(xué)，美國最早期的綜合研究型大學(xué)之一，是一所享有盛譽(yù)的明星級大學(xué)。instead. Right away he noticed a difference. At New Trier, a public school posh enough to pass for private,8. posh: 奢華的；pass for: 被看做；private: 私立學(xué)校。he’d always had a sense of himself as someone somewhat ordinary, at least in terms of his studies. At Indiana, though, the students in his freshman classes weren’t as showily gifted as the New Trier kids had been, and his self-image went through a transformation.

“I really felt like I was a competent person,” he told me last year, shortly after he’d turned 28. And he thrived9. thrive: 興旺，成功。. He got into an honors program10. honors program: 榮譽(yù)課程，為程度較好的學(xué)生開設(shè)，課程較具深度，進(jìn)度也較快，并強(qiáng)調(diào)高級思考。for undergraduate business majors. He became vice president of a business fraternity on campus.11. vice president: 副主席；fraternity: 兄弟會，聯(lián)誼會。He cobbled together the capital to start a tiny real estate enterprise that fixed up and rented small houses to fellow students.12. cobble together: 拼湊到一起；capital: 資本；real estate enterprise: 房地產(chǎn)公司； fix up: 給（某人）安排住宿；fellow student: 同學(xué)。

And he finagled a way, off campus, to interview with several of the top-drawer consulting firms that trawled for recruits at the Ivies but often bypassed schools like Indiana.13. 他用蒙騙的方式在校外參加了好幾個頂尖咨詢公司的面試，這些公司經(jīng)常在常春藤撈人，卻忽略像印第安納大學(xué)這樣的學(xué)校。finagle: 用欺騙手段獲得；off campus:在校外；top-drawer: 最頂級的，最重要的； trawl: 搜尋，搜羅；bypass: 忽略。Upon graduation, he took a plum job14. plum job: 肥差。in the Chicago of fice of the Boston Consulting Group,where he recognized one of the other new hires: the friend from New Trier who’d gone to Yale. Traveling a more gilded15. gilded: 鍍金的。path, she’d arrived at the same destination.

He later decided to get a master’s degree in business administration, and that’s where he is now, in graduate school—at Harvard.

I don’t think Peter’s example is extraordinary: People bloom at various stages of life, and different individuals flourish in different climates.16. bloom: 興旺，處于繁盛時期； flourish: 興旺，成功；climate:（某一社會、時期的）風(fēng)氣，環(huán)境氣氛。For every person whose contentment comes from faithfully executing a predetermined script, there are at least 10 if not 100 who had to rearrange the pages and play a part they hadn’t expected to, in a theater they hadn’t envisioned.17. 如果一個人的滿足感源于如實(shí)地執(zhí)行預(yù)定劇本的話，那么在這個過程中，即使沒有100個人，也至少有10個人會不得不重新改編劇本，在意料之外的劇作中扮演著始料未及的角色。execute: 執(zhí)行；script: 劇本；rearrange: 重新整理；envision: 預(yù)想，期望。Besides, life is de fined by setbacks,and success is determined by the ability to rebound from them.18. setback: 挫折；rebound: 反彈，回升，此處指重新振作。And there’s no single juncture, no one crossroads, on which everything hinges.19. 并不是只一個關(guān)鍵時刻、一處十字路口就可以決定一切。juncture: 特定時刻，特殊關(guān)頭；hinge on: 依……而定，取決于。

So why do so many Americans—anxious parents, addled children—treat the period in late March and early April, when elite colleges deliver disappointing news to anywhere from 70 to 95 percent of their applicants, as if it’s precisely that?20. 那么為什么那么多美國人，包括焦慮的家長和迷茫的孩子，會把三月末四月初這段時間當(dāng)做決定一切的關(guān)鍵時刻呢？而在這段時間里，名校給70%到95%申請者的都是壞消息。addled: 頭腦混亂的。

For too many parents and their children, acceptance by an elite institution isn’t just another challenge, just another goal.A yes or no from Amherst or the University of Virginia or the University of Chicago is seen as the conclusive measure of a young person’s worth, an incontestable harbinger of the accomplishments or disappointments to come.21. Amherst: 艾姆赫斯特學(xué)院，昵稱安城學(xué)院，是美國知名的文理學(xué)院之一；University of Virginia:弗吉尼亞大學(xué)，簡稱UVa，是一所享有盛譽(yù)的世界一流研究型大學(xué)；University of Chicago: 芝加哥大學(xué)，享譽(yù)全球的世界頂尖高等學(xué)府，共有89位獲得諾貝爾獎得主在此工作或?qū)W習(xí)，為世界之最；conclusive: 決定性的；incontestable: 無可爭辯的；harbinger: 前兆。Winner or loser: This is when the judgment is made. This is the great,brutal culling.22. brutal: 殘酷的；culling: 挑選。

What madness. And what nonsense.

For one thing, the admissions game is too flawed to be given so much credit.23. flawed: 有缺陷的；credit: 信任。For another, the nature of a student’s college experience—the work that he or she puts into it, the self-examination that’s undertaken, the resourcefulness that’s honed24. resourcefulness: 足智多謀，智慧；hone: 磨煉，訓(xùn)練?！猰atters more than the name of the institution attended.

I spoke with Sam Altman, the president of Y Combinator,one of the best-known providers of first-step seed money for tech start-ups.25. Y Combinator: 美國一家著名風(fēng)險投資公司及創(chuàng)業(yè)孵化器；seed money: 種子基金；start-up: 新興企業(yè)。I asked him if any one school stood out in terms of students and graduates whose ideas took off26. take off: （想法、計劃等）開始獲得成功。. “Yes,” he responded, and I was sure of the name I’d hear next: Stanford.It’s his alma mater, though he left before he graduated, and it’s famous as a feeder of Silicon Valley success.27. alma mater: 母校；Silicon Valley: 硅谷，位于斯坦福大學(xué)旁，著名高新技術(shù)區(qū)。

But this is what he said: “The University of Waterloo28. The University of Waterloo: 滑鐵盧大學(xué)，是一所著名的綜合性公立大學(xué)，北美地區(qū)最優(yōu)大學(xué)之一。.” It’s a public school in the Canadian province of Ontario, and as of last summer, it was the source of eight proud ventures that Y Combinator had helped along.29. Ontario:（加拿大）安大略省；venture: 投機(jī)活動?！癟o my chagrin,” Altman told me, “Stanford has not had a really great track record.”30. chagrin: 懊惱；track record: 業(yè)績，成績紀(jì)錄。

College is a singular opportunity to rummage through and luxuriate in ideas, to realize how very large the world is and to contemplate your desired place in it.31. rummage through: 翻尋；luxuriate in: 沉浸于；contemplate: 沉思，思考。And that’s lost in the admissions mania, which sends the message that college is a sanctum to be breached—a border to be crossed—rather than a land to be inhabited and tilled for all that it’s worth.32. mania: 狂熱；sanctum: 圣地；breach: 闖入，破壞；till: v. 耕耘。