来源：宾大校报作者：Jesse Zhang

进入美国大学申请的offer季，又是几家欢乐几家愁。今年的offer季比往年冷清了一些，很多美国名校在中国学生录取的名额上大幅缩减。

日前，宾大中国学生Jesse Zhang在宾大校报上撰文，回顾2年前自己的申请历程。当时Jesse申请的藤校中全部据了她，仅有宾大给了waitlist。虽然最后转正去了宾大，但是她认为宾大并非是最适合自己的学校，选择宾大仅仅是几个最好的朋友也去这个学校。

Jesse坦言，美国大学录取不是一个数学公式，录取结果与否也不是对个人的评价。以下是全文——

我们中的很多人很快就会收到大学申请录取结果。

首先，祝贺你能够完成大学申请工作，这本身就是一项壮举。接下来的几周和几个月可能会是一个充满兴奋、祝贺和满足感的时刻，因为你在高中期间付出了辛勤的努力将得以回报，我真诚地希望你也能如此。

但是接下来的时间，你也可能被困惑、沮丧和愤怒所主导。两年前我也站在你们的位置上，这里我想分享一些我在你们开始大学入学之旅的过程中学到的东西和感受。

我清楚地记得2020年3月27日，那一年的常春藤发榜日。

作为一名有抱负的记者，我当时梦想中的学校是西北大学，该校也在常春藤日公布了录取结果。

当我时钟上的指针慢慢移动到晚上7点时，我紧张地活动指关节，充满了一丝希望。当电子邮件开始进来时，我在卧室里一个接一个地打开了它们。我的父母在客厅里急切地等待着，希望听到我兴奋地欢呼或尖叫。

但是我没能欢呼或尖叫。事实上，整个经历完全令人扫兴——我被每一所常春藤联盟大学拒绝了，除了宾夕法尼亚大学，它给了我waitlist。还有西北大学也把我waitlist。面对这一结果，我不知所措。此外，我被另一所排名前20的大学录取，另一所也给我waitlist。

除了向三所waitlist学校发信表忠心外，接下来的几天里没有太多事情要做。

当时COVID-19在全球范围内达到高峰，我在宾夕法尼亚南部的高中因为COVID-19而关闭，因此我飞回中国。

天天呆在家里，我的脑袋中不停自问：发生了什么？是我的GPA不够好，还是我没有做足够的课外活动？我的文书没有说服力吗？我不够好吗？

当时我的大部分精力也花在了解录取我的那所top 20的大学上。别误会我的意思——这是一所很棒的大学，我很幸运被录取，随着对学校的了解，我越来越期待去那里。

回顾过去，我骄傲地认为事情会按照我希望的方式发展。但是我们必须面对现实——大学录取过程几乎不是公式化的数学方程式。有很多因素在起作用：运气、时机，还有很多其它因素。我们所能做的就是做到最好，推动事情往前走，录取与否绝不是对我们个人的评价。

大约一个月后，一所waitlist大学把我转正；三周后收到了来自宾夕法尼亚大学的同样消息。我最终选择了宾夕法尼亚大学。

我很高兴我通过waitlist来到了宾夕法尼亚大学。但这段时间我发现，无论是宾夕法尼亚大学还是其他任何一所大学都不是万能的。

当我在等待waitlist结果的这段时间，我深入了解另外两所大学，我意识到它们有很多东西可以提供：课程、课程、朋友等等。虽然没有两所大学拥有完全同等的机会，但是每一所大学都有足够的机会让我们去探索和发展。

当我过去分享我的大学录取故事时，有些人说，“你很容易说一切都会好起来，因为你进入了宾夕法尼亚大学！”

他们说得对，我很幸运。

虽然说实话，我第一次来宾夕法尼亚大学时并不喜欢它——我选择它是因为我的三个最好的朋友会和我一起去。

事实上，只是在过去的几个月里，宾大对我的影响越来越大。在此之前，我难以想象，如果没有与我如此亲密的朋友，我的大学经历将会是如何。我不认为宾夕法尼亚大学是适合我的学校，尽管我永远也不会知道我是否会在其他学校发展更好。

我在书面上和生活中对自己的（大学录取）资格提出的问题从未得到回答，也永远不会得到回答。

然而，我现在知道，评判这些问题的不应该是大学招生官员或任何外部参与者，而应该是我自己。

此外，仅仅因为我们没有被我们梦想中的大学录取并不意味着这个过程失败了；它通过意想不到的途径来促进意想不到的成长和发现。通过这一切，我们只能相信一切都是有原因的，无论这些录取结果把我们带到哪里，我们都会成长并发现新的自己，这会让我们自己感到惊讶。

祝你好运！

宾夕法尼亚大学简介:

一所可以拥有最多亿万富翁校友的学校！

宾夕法尼亚大学（University of Pennsylvania ），简称“宾大（UPenn）”，是一所全球顶尖的私立研究型大学，著名的八所常春藤盟校之一，美国大学协会14所创始成员之一。坐落于美国第四大城市费城。宾大由本杰明·富兰克林创建于1740年，是美国第四古老的高等教育机构，也是美国第一所从事科学技术和人文教育的现代高等学校。根据《福布斯》最新发布2021年全球亿万富豪排行榜中，这所学校培养出19位亿万富豪，数量位居全美第一！

这所历史悠久的美国大学同样是中国很多名人的摇篮。著名的建筑大师、清华大学建筑系的奠造者梁思成，他的太太才女林徽因，也同样毕业于宾夕法尼亚大学的美术系。

与此同时，这所大学也拥有全世界最强大的校友网络，包括数十位在各自领域的最高奖项获得者（如诺贝尔奖、图灵奖等）以及许多美国国家院士。

学院相关排名：

2022QS世界排名第13名
2021U.S. News世界大学排名第14名
2021U.S. News美国最佳大学排名第8名

学院设置：

在所有藤校中，宾夕法尼亚大学的规模最大，大学下设12个学院，一共有将近25,000名学生，其中本科生有一万多人，每年招收2,500人左右。

带你走进宾夕法尼亚大学

附原文如下：

Jesse Zhang | Dear High School Seniors

J to the Z | What I learned in the ups and downs after college admission decisions

Credit: Alice Choi

Dear high school seniors,

A lot of you will be opening your college decision letters soon. To start, congratulations on arriving here without losing your mind in the college application process (or maybe you did) — which is a feat in itself. The next few weeks and months could be a time filled with excitement, congratulations, and a sense of satisfaction for the hard work you’ve put in throughout high school, which I sincerely hope to be the case for you. Or it could be dominated by confusion, frustration, and anger. Having been in your shoes two years ago, I want to share some of the things I learned and emotions I felt along the way as you begin your college matriculation journey.

Though it feels like an eternity ago, I distinctly remember what transpired on March 27, 2020, that year’s Ivy Day. An aspiring journalist, my dream school at the time was Northwestern University, which released its decision on Ivy Day as well. As the hands on my clock inched toward 7 p.m., I popped my knuckles nervously, teeming with a bit of hope. As the emails began to come in, I opened them one by one in my bedroom. My parents waited eagerly in the living room, hoping to hear me cheer or scream out in excitement.

I didn’t cheer or scream. In fact, the whole experience was utterly anticlimactic. I was rejected by every single Ivy League university other than Penn, which had waitlisted me. I was also waitlisted by Northwestern, a decision that flattened me and left me dazed. Otherwise, I was accepted to one other top-20 college and waitlisted by another.

Other than sending follow-up letters to the three schools by whom I was waitlisted, there was not a lot to do in the following days. The COVID-19 pandemic was at its height globally, and I flew back to China as my high school in southern Pennsylvania was closed due to COVID-19. Without much opportunity to go outside, questions perfused my mind: What happened? Was my GPA not good enough, or did I not do enough extracurricular activities? Were my essays not convincing? Was I not good enough?

A lot of my focus was also spent getting to know the college that accepted me. Don’t get me wrong — it is a great college, I was very lucky to get accepted, and I looked forward to going there more and more as I got to know the school. Retrospectively, it was conceited to assume that things would go the way I wanted them to because let’s face it — the college admission process is hardly a formulaic math equation. There is a lot at play: luck, timing, and more factors excluding those on paper. All we can do is be our best and let things unfurl, knowing that acceptances and rejections are in no way holistic judgements of our character.

About one month later, I got off the waitlist at one university and received the same message from Penn three weeks after that. I ended up choosing to enroll at Penn. In many ways, I am glad I went through two waitlists to get to Penn: It showed me that neither Penn nor any other university is everything. As I got to know the other two universities along the process, I realized they have so much to offer: programs, classes, friends, and more. Though no two colleges have the exact same opportunities, at the end of the day, every one of them has plenty for us to explore and thrive in.

When I shared my story in the past, some have said, “It is easy for you to say that everything will work out for the best, you got into Penn!” They are right in that I was very lucky. Though in all honesty, I didn’t like Penn when I first visited — and I chose it very much under the sway of the fact that three of my best friends would be coming with me. Admittedly, the community and the school has grown on me in the last few months, and I could not imagine a college experience without the friends I have come to be so close with. I didn’t think Penn was the school for me, and though I will never find out whether I would have thrived more at other schools, I now firmly believe this is the community that is best for me. It is almost strange how puzzle pieces I thought wouldn’t fit together did at last.

The questions I asked about my own eligibility on paper and in life were never answered, nor will they ever be. However, I now know that the judge of those questions should not be college admissions officers or any outside players but myself. Moreover, just because we didn’t get accepted to our dream college doesn’t mean the process has failed; it takes unexpected routes to foster unexpected growth and discoveries. Through all of it, we can only trust that everything happens for a reason, and that regardless of where those decision letters take us, we will grow and discover, to our own surprises, new aspects of ourselves.

Best of luck on your next adventure,

Jesse

JESSE ZHANG is a College and Wharton sophomore studying Marketing and Communication from Shenzhen, China.

原文链接：https://www.thedp.com/article/2022/03/college-admissions-decisions