USNEWS美國大學排名真的靠譜嗎？ 聽聽耶魯招生官怎么說

很多學生和家長在選擇學校的過程中，總喜歡參考美國大學排名，而且大部分都是大學排名的鐵粉，但是耶魯大學招生官Jeffrey Brenzel 以獨特的視角給出了值得思考的建議。

現翻譯了分享給各位森姐的寶寶們：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等國家級雜志刊登大學排名，而且每年耶魯大學都位列榜單前列。這里我想說，耶魯大學有很多地方可以俘獲學生的芳心，值得申請，但排名絕非其中之一。

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.
不要搞錯了：大學排名的公布只是企業試圖利用學生和家長對大學申請的憂慮。排名榜單并不能為學生選擇申請的學校提供太多有效的信息。他們的主要缺陷是顯而易見的，但還是值得說明一下：統計排名時參考的多少有些主觀的因素，通常和對影響你教育經歷的重要因素并無太大關系。

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.
我并非要誹謗制作這些排名列表的雜志。他們只是回應消費者的需求。相反，我只想說明依靠排名擇校的危害，并給出如何從個人實際情況出發進行全面考慮來最終決定大學申請名單的建議。
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.
為了更好地了解排名現象，需重點關注三個問題：為什么它們如此受歡迎？它們哪里不好？以及為什么他們對大學的選擇會造成不良影響？

What Drives Public Interest in Rankings?
什么激發了公眾對排名的興趣？
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.

大學的搜索需要篩選大量信息，是一個非常艱巨的任務，而且利害攸關。排名體系有一種直接和明顯的吸引力：它們似乎簡化和弄明白了撲朔迷離的信息。作為消費者我們也習慣于依靠評分系統。當購買吸塵器或電視機時，我們可以參考《消費者報告雜志》—雜志充分利用了檢測實驗室、工程師、調查問卷和獨立專家。通過這些方式，他們能夠匯總和篩選大量的信息。我們從經驗中得知，有充分的理由相信他們的建議。大學排名就利用了人們錯誤的認為它們會提供簡單有用的建議。

What’s Wrong with College Rankings?
大學排名究竟哪里不好？
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，一所大學不是吸塵器。選擇一所學校是極具個人感情色彩，主觀性強，需要承擔巨大代價的決定。然而，盡管選擇大學更為重要和復雜，但大學排名體系與《消費者報告雜志》在測試吸塵器時所采用的方法相比，遠遠不夠全面和科學。

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.”
排名體系存在另一個問題是，U.S. News and World Report 獨占鰲頭，這本雜志實際已經不復存在的，現在似乎成了排名的承辦商，但卻具有不恰當的影響力。一名前耶魯大學招生官，目前在高中從事大學申請輔導工作，與我分享了一個故事。每年，她根據學生的興趣、個性和成就幫助11年級的學生選定大學申請名單。

每年暑假的時候，學生們都會和家人們一起去參觀學校，得到第一手信息。當他們在秋天回到高中時，盡管他們在訪校中有所了解，知道自己的前景，但是許多學生已經擬好了新的偏好名單。這些新的名單似乎與U.S. News排名有很大關聯。學生傾向于放棄比較優秀適合自己但在U.S. News排名較低的學校，并增加了一些不太可能被錄取的“勉強類”學校。這個前耶魯招生官告訴我，她已經習以為常了,但還是令人沮喪。

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