USNEWS美国大学排名真的靠谱吗？ 听听耶鲁招生官怎么说

很多学生和家长在选择学校的过程中，总喜欢参考美国大学排名，而且大部分都是大学排名的铁粉，但是耶鲁大学招生官Jeffrey Brenzel 以独特的视角给出了值得思考的建议。

现翻译了分享给各位森姐的宝宝们：A Few Thoughts From Jeffrey Brenzel, Dean of Admissions, 2005-2013Every year, U.S. News & World Report, Money, and a few other national magazines publish college rankings. And every year, Yale is at or near the top of the lists. I am writing to say that there are many excellent reasons to apply to Yale, but Yale’s position in the rankings is not one of them.每年U.S. News & World Report, Money等国家级杂志刊登大学排名，而且每年耶鲁大学都位列榜单前列。这里我想说，耶鲁大学有很多地方可以俘获学生的芳心，值得申请，但排名绝非其中之一。

Make no mistake: the publication of college rankings is a business enterprise that capitalizes on anxiety about college admissions. Ranking lists do not provide much useful information for making decisions about where you should apply. Their main flaw is obvious but worth stating: the more or less arbitrary factors that go into the ranking calculations often have little to do with what will be important to your educational experience.
不要搞错了：大学排名的公布只是企业试图利用学生和家长对大学申请的忧虑。排名榜单并不能为学生选择申请的学校提供太多有效的信息。他们的主要缺陷是显而易见的，但还是值得说明一下：统计排名时参考的多少有些主观的因素，通常和对影响你教育经历的重要因素并无太大关系。

I do not mean to vilify the magazines that create such lists. They merely respond to consumer demand. Rather, I would like to illustrate the hazards of relying on the rankings and to make a case for a more personal and holistic approach to deciding on your list of colleges.
我并非要诽谤制作这些排名列表的杂志。他们只是回应消费者的需求。相反，我只想说明依靠排名择校的危害，并给出如何从个人实际情况出发进行全面考虑来最终决定大学申请名单的建议。
To better understand the phenomenon of the rankings, it is important to look at three things: why they are so popular, what is wrong with them, and why they have a bad influence on college decision-making.
为了更好地了解排名现象，需重点关注三个问题：为什么它们如此受欢迎？它们哪里不好？以及为什么他们对大学的选择会造成不良影响？

What Drives Public Interest in Rankings?
什么激发了公众对排名的兴趣？
The college search process can be a formidable task of sifting through enormous amounts of information, and the stakes are high. Ranking systems have an immediate and obvious appeal: they seem to simplify making sense of complicated and confusing information.
We have also become accustomed to relying on rating systems as consumers. When buying a vacuum cleaner or a television set, we can turn to Consumer Reports, which employs testing labs, engineers, surveys, and independent experts. By these means, they are able to condense and filter a great deal of information. We’ve learned from experience that there are good reasons to trust their advice, and the college ranking lists depend on people making the assumption that they are providing a similarly useful service.

大学的搜索需要筛选大量信息，是一个非常艰巨的任务，而且利害攸关。排名体系有一种直接和明显的吸引力：它们似乎简化和弄明白了扑朔迷离的信息。作为消费者我们也习惯于依靠评分系统。当购买吸尘器或电视机时，我们可以参考《消费者报告杂志》—杂志充分利用了检测实验室、工程师、调查问卷和独立专家。通过这些方式，他们能够汇总和筛选大量的信息。我们从经验中得知，有充分的理由相信他们的建议。大学排名就利用了人们错误的认为它们会提供简单有用的建议。

What’s Wrong with College Rankings?
大学排名究竟哪里不好？
A college, however, is not a vacuum cleaner. Choosing a school is a far more personal, subjective, and ultimately expensive decision. Yet despite the greater importance and complexity of selecting a college, college rankings systems all take a far less thorough and scientific approach than Consumer Reports does when testing vacuum cleaners.

然而，一所大学不是吸尘器。选择一所学校是极具个人感情色彩，主观性强，需要承担巨大代价的决定。然而，尽管选择大学更为重要和复杂，但大学排名体系与《消费者报告杂志》在测试吸尘器时所采用的方法相比，远远不够全面和科学。

Another problem with rankings is that they allow the dominant player – U.S. News and World Report, a magazine that has actually gone defunct and exists now only as a purveyor of rankings – to exert undue influence. A former Yale admissions officer, now working in college counseling at a high school, shared this story with me. Each year, she helps students who have just completed their junior year create a list of colleges that are a good fit with their interests, personalities, and achievements. Each summer, the students visit those schools with their families to get a first-hand look.

When they return to high school in the fall, despite what they have seen on their visits and what they know about their prospects, many of the students have created new lists of their college preferences. These new lists always seem to correlate with the rankings in U.S. News. Students tend to discard excellent and appropriate colleges ranked lower in U.S. News and to add “stretch” schools that are unlikely to offer them admission. She tells me she had this experience with “truly depressing regularity.”
排名体系存在另一个问题是，U.S. News and World Report 独占鳌头，这本杂志实际已经不复存在的，现在似乎成了排名的承办商，但却具有不恰当的影响力。一名前耶鲁大学招生官，目前在高中从事大学申请辅导工作，与我分享了一个故事。每年，她根据学生的兴趣、个性和成就帮助11年级的学生选定大学申请名单。

每年暑假的时候，学生们都会和家人们一起去参观学校，得到第一手信息。当他们在秋天回到高中时，尽管他们在访校中有所了解，知道自己的前景，但是许多学生已经拟好了新的偏好名单。这些新的名单似乎与U.S. News排名有很大关联。学生倾向于放弃比较优秀适合自己但在U.S. News排名较低的学校，并增加了一些不太可能被录取的“勉强类”学校。这个前耶鲁招生官告诉我，她已经习以为常了,但还是令人沮丧。

---

任何择校/备考相关问题

欢迎扫码联系下方翰林择校顾问