【转原文+译文】 你能信赖（美国）大学排行榜吗？

译者： Sedimentaryrock


A college president says don’t be swayed byone-size-fits-all lists.
一位大学校长说，不要被一刀切的排名榜单所左右。

Imagine a magazine that claimed to rank all of the year’smusic releases in descending order of “quality.” No. 1 might be the latestalbum by a popular hip-hop artist; No. 2, a Beethoven symphony; No. 3, a moviesoundtrack; No. 4, an R&B collection. What an obviously silly idea! But itgets worse. Suppose the basis for these rankings turned out to be an arbitrarymathematical formula dreamed up by the magazine editors, and the data used tocompute the rankings all came from the record companies themselves.

设想一家杂志声称它将全年发布的所有音乐根据“质量”好坏按照降序排行。第一名可能是一个流行的Hip-Hop歌手的最新专辑；第二名是贝多芬交响乐；第三名是一个电影原声带；第四名是一个R&B精选。多蠢的主意！但是还有更差的。假如最终证明，排名的基础是杂志社的编辑们想出来的一个任意的数学公式，并且计算机排名所使用的数据全是来自进入排名的公司自己记录的数据。


You would throw the magazine in the wastebasket. Yet that,in essence, is a description of the most popular college rankings. They glossover crucially important variations in the curricular, pedagogical,philosophical, and social characteristics of different schools. They rely on amagazine editor’s guesswork about the factors to consider and the relativeweights to assign to those factors. And they depend on information—much of itunverifiable—that is supplied by the very institutions whose ranking willsupposedly determine their reputations in the marketplace.

你会将这本杂志扔到废纸篓里去。这就是对多数流行的大学排名的本质的描述。他们掩盖了至关重要的不同的学校在课程设置、教学、哲学以及社会的各种特征上的不同之处。他们依赖于杂志编辑关于排名考虑因素的猜想，和这些因素被赋予的相关权重。他们依赖的信息多数是未经证实的，是由各种机构提供的，而这些机构的排名决定他们在市场中的声誉。


Choosing which college or university to attend is a very bigdecision. Think of choosing a college as the equivalent of buying a verycomplicated product. The “product” is a package of services including classes,courses, academic advising, tutoring, athletic programs, entertainment, socialexperiences, accommodations, and food. This complex package provides not onlyfour years’ worth of experiences, but also a gateway to future graduate schoolsor jobs, a lifetime network of friends and connections, and a lastingprofessional and personal credential. Whatever the price you actually pay, thevalue of that package of services may be as much as several hundred thousanddollars.

选择哪一家学院或者大学参与排名是一项非常重大的决定。设想选择学校相当于购买一件非常复杂的产品。这个“产品”是包括班级、课程、学术指导、教师、体育运动安排、娱乐、社会活动和食宿等方面服务的集合体。这个复杂的集合体不仅提供四年的经历，还是未来进入研究生院或者工作的途径，是一生的朋友和各种关系的网络，是一个持久的职业和个人证书。不管你实际付了多少学费，这个服务的集合体可能价值几十万美元。


Making a decision of that magnitude cannot be reduced to aformula. So, having thrown the rankings in the wastebasket, what should you do?Start by asking a few hard questions about yourself and be ruthlessly honestwith the answers. What have you liked, and what have you disliked, about youreducational experiences? How do you learn best: by listening to lectures, insmall-group discussions, by sitting in front of a computer, by hands-onapplication? How do you feel about academic work? Do you enjoy it for its intrinsicvalue or do you do it because you feel you have to? Do you learn best when youtake subjects that you choose or when you discover new things that have beenchosen for you? What kind of person are you, and what kind of person do youwant to be: how intellectual, how creative, how social, how athletic? How muchdo you care about prestige and bragging rights? Do you need lots of structureor do you thrive with lots of freedom? How important is it to be surrounded bypeople similar to you or different from you? What kind of setting do you findmost supportive and stimulating: large or small, urban or rural, near to homeor far from home? What kinds of extracurricular opportunities are important toyou? And the big question: how difficult will it be financially for you toattend college?

做出这样重大的一个决定不能被降低到一个公式。那么，将排名扔到废纸篓之后，你该如何做呢？先问自己几个尖锐的问题并且非常坦诚地回答这些问题。在你的教育经历中，你喜欢的是什么，不喜欢的又是什么？你如何学习最有效：通过听课、还是小组讨论、或是坐在电脑前，还是自己动手？你对学术研究感觉如何？你是因为内在价值而喜欢还是你认为必须去做？什么情况下你能学得最好，是自己选择专题来做还是在为你选择的专题中发现新东西？你是个什么样的人和你想做什么样的人：智力如何，创造力如何，社会能力如何，运动能力如何？你对声望和吹嘘的权利有多在意？你需要许多框框还是愿意有很多自由？你周围的人和你是同类还是与你不同对你有多重要？什么地点对你有更大的支持和鼓励：大城市或小城市、城市或乡村、离家近还是离家远？什么样的课外机会对你是重要的？最大的问题：上大学对你来说在财务上有没有困难？


Having compiled answers to questions like these, begin yoursearch for colleges or universities that seem likely to fit. Of course the bestresource might be a college counselor, if you are lucky enough to have accessto one. But, even if you don’t, you can glean useful information from thisguide as well as college search sites like U-Can, College Navigator, CollegeSearch, Peterson’s, U.S. News, Princeton Review, and College InSight. Surfthese sites, not for rankings, but for search variables that seem like goodmeasures for the things you really care about. For example, if finances arereally tight, focus on average undergraduate debt at graduation. (By the way,don’t focus on published tuition because schools with the highest tuitions alsotend to have the most generous financial-aid programs.) If you learn best insmall settings, focus on measures of class size, such as average class size orpercentage of classes with enrollment below 20, or on student-faculty ratio. Ifyou really care about diversity, check the racial, ethnic, and nationalbreakdown of the student body. And if you—be honest!—care most about prestigeor reputation, focus on rankings, because that is all that most of them reallymeasure.

在将这些问题集中起来之后，你开始搜索看起来适合你的学院或者大学。当然，最好的资源是有一个辅导员，如果你能幸运地找到一个。但是，尽管你没有，你可以从本指南中获得信息，或者从大学的搜索网站获得信息，例如U- can、CollegeNavigator、CollegeSearch、Peterson's、U.S. News、PrincetonReview、和 CollegeInSight。浏览这些网站，不是看排名，而是看你真正在意的事情在各个学校之间不同的地方。例如，你的财务紧张，就注重寻找在毕业时平均大学生贷款（顺便说一句，不要看公布的奖学金，因为有最高奖学金的学校大概都有财务支持安排。）如果你在小地方学得好，专注于班级规模，例如班级的平均人数或者在 20人以下班级的百分比，或者看师生比例。如果你对差异化比较在意，看看学生中种族、民族和国家的分项统计。如果你真正最在乎的是声望或声誉，那就看排名，因为大多数排名就是按照这个标准。


Having narrowed your search in this way, take virtual toursby going on the Web sites of the schools you find attractive. Recognizing thatWeb sites are a form of advertising, you can still pick up a lot of informationabout what a school values by how it presents itself. If you can afford to doso, there is no substitute for personal visits to campus. Make an appointmentwith the admission office, and go when school is in session. Follow the cannedtour and information session, but then wander off to talk to students andfaculty. Spend a night in the dorms. Sit in on two or three classes. Check outthe library and the sports center and the student union. You are looking forthe place you’ll call home for the next four years. If, after all this, thecollege feels right, you know you have found that home.

通过这种方式缩小你搜索的范围，到你发现有吸引力的学校网站上做个虚拟旅游。虽然网站是某种形式的广告，你仍然可以通过学校如何展现它自己的价值来发现许多信息。如果你努力这样做了，并不能替代你亲自到学校去参观校园。与学校的接待部门预定时间，在学校开课期间到学校去。在游览和听了介绍之后，自己在校园里与学生和教师交谈。在宿舍住一晚上。听两到三门课。看看图书馆、体育中心和学生会。你正在看的是你今后四年把它当作家的地方。如果做过所有这些之后，你对这所学校感觉不错，你知道你找到家了。


Or, to return to my musical metaphor, you will know whichcollege is playing your tune.

或者回到我的音乐的比喻中，你将知道哪一所学校是你要去的。



Diver is the president of Reed College in Portland, Oregon.
本文作者 Diver 是俄勒冈州波特兰市Reed College 的校长。
原文标题：Can You Trust College Rankings? - Newsweek - Education
原文作者：
原文来源：education.newsweek.com