又一个令人欢喜令人愁的申请季结束了，不论是申请Undergraduate的高中生，还是申请Graduate School的大学生，在未来几年的命运都将在这个月的择校中决定。在这个几家欢喜几家愁的季节，INSIGHT 想与大家分享一篇来自斯坦福招生官Richard H. Shaw写给斯坦福被拒学生的邮件。希望这封信能给在后申请季中的你带来许些relief，也希望广大出国党通过篇文章明白：

进入大学相对于漫漫人生路只是一个简单的纪念碑

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.

在今天下午，我们的招生办公室向3万4千多名申请我们普通录取的盼望着想在斯坦福度过自己四年大学生涯的高中学生发出了邮件。

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 offered 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.

即便我已经负责招生工作长达30年之久，在这个周末，我依然为那些没能如愿以偿拿到offer的年轻人而感到遗憾。

同时，我也能预见到很多家长会因为自己的孩子有着十分优异的教育背景，很高的SAT成绩但最终被斯坦福拒绝而感到心烦意乱。

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.

我一直相信斯坦福的教育水平是无与伦比的。但我的经验告诉我，当这些孩子被斯坦福拒绝的时候，他们家长会比他们更感到沮丧。

我能体会到这些家长的感受。当我的女儿在等待大学的录取决定时，我也曾经紧张和不安。现今的孩子们已经承受了太多的压力，在这里，我想与所有家长分享三条理念

First, it’s all relative. While the number admitted into the undergraduate cla