大學的品牌營銷有點過火

BETWEEN the last application season and the current one, Swarthmore College, a school nationally renowned for its academic rigor, changed the requirements for students vying to be admitted into its next freshman class.

從上個申請季到目前的這個申請季，以學術嚴謹聞名全美的斯沃斯莫爾學院(Swarthmore College)改變了對需要通過競爭才能就讀該校的申請者的要求。

It made filling out the proper forms easier.

它簡化了填寫相關表格的流程。

A year ago, applicants were asked to write two 500-word essays as supplements to the standard one that’s part of the Common Application, an electronic form that Swarthmore and hundreds of small colleges and big universities accept. This was slightly more material than Swarthmore had previously requested, and it was more than many other highly selective schools demanded.

一年前，除了填寫標準化的電子表格，申請者還需要提交兩篇500字的文章。該表格是“通用申請應用程序”(Common Application)的一部分，被沃斯莫爾學院及數百所小型學院和綜合性大學所接受。斯沃斯莫爾學院要求的申請材料比之前要求的還多了一點，也超出了許多錄取十分嚴苛的學校。

Not coincidentally, the number of applicants to the college dropped, and its acceptance rate in turn climbed, to 17 from 14 percent, making Swarthmore seem less selective.

不出所料，該校的申請者人數出現了下滑，反過來，錄取率則出現上升，從14%增長到了17%，這讓沃斯莫爾學院顯得不那麼難進了。

This year, it’s asking for just one supplemental essay, of only 250 words.

而今年，沃斯莫爾學院只要求申請者提交一篇額外的文章，字數要求也只有250詞。

Swarthmore is hardly alone in its desire to eliminate impediments to a bounty of applicants. Over the last decade, many elite colleges have adjusted their applications in ways that remove disincentives and maximize the odds that the number of students jockeying to get in remains robust — or, even better, grows larger.

並非只有斯沃斯莫爾學院想要爲申請者消除一些障礙。過去10年，許多精英學校對申請規則進行了調整，去除了一些抑制性因素，盡最大可能讓存有僥倖心理的申請者熱情不減，而且要是能增加一些申請者，那就更好了。

In one sense, that’s a commendably egalitarian approach and a sensible attempt to be sure that no sterling candidate is missed.

在某種意義上，這是一種值得稱讚的平等主義的舉措，也是一個確保優秀申請者不會被錯過的聰明辦法。

But there’s often a less pure motive in play. In our increasingly status-oriented society, a school’s reputation is bolstered by its glimmer of exclusivity and by a low acceptance rate, which can even influence how U.S. News & World Report ranks it. And unless a school is shrinking the size of its student body, the only way to bring its acceptance rate down is to get its number of applicants up. So, many colleges methodically generate interest only to frustrate it. They woo supplicants for the purpose of turning them down.

但人們的動機常常並那麼單純。在我們越來越重視身份地位的社會，學校如果比較難進，錄取率如果偏低，它就越發聲名鵲起，這甚至可以影響它們在《美國新聞與世界報道》(U.S. News & World Report)中的排名。但是，除非學校減少招生規模，讓錄取率下降的唯一辦法就是吸引更多的申請者。因此，許多大學有條不紊地先是激起申請者的興趣，然後再使其希望破滅。這些學校吸引申請者的目的就是拒絕他們。

It’s a cynical numbers game that further darkens the whole admissions process, a life juncture that should be exhilarating but is governed these days by dread.

這是一個處心積慮的數字遊戲，讓整個招生過程變得更加灰暗，對於學生們來說，這個人生中的關鍵時刻本來應該是令人興奮的，但如今卻被憂慮所籠罩。

It depersonalizes the process, too. Ideally, colleges should want students whose interest in them is genuine, and students should be figuring out which colleges suit them best, not applying indiscriminately to schools that have encouraged that by making it as painless (and heedless) as possible.

這種做法也讓招生過程變得機械和冰冷。在理想的狀態下，大學應該想要錄取那些真正對學校感興趣的人，而學生則應該想清楚哪些學校最適合自己，而不是不加區分地申請那些儘可能地讓申請過程變得簡單（且無需思考）從而來吸引你的學校。

“Colleges are actively saddling themselves with a whole group of applicants about whom they know little and who, in turn, know little about them,” Lauren Gersick, the associate director of college counseling at the Urban School of San Francisco, told me. “You have a whole bunch of people fumbling along and freaking out.”

“高校正在積極地吸引那些它們並不瞭解、也不瞭解它們的申請者，”舊金山城市學院(Urban School of San Francisco)招生諮詢副主任勞倫·蓋爾西克(Lauren Gersick)告訴我。“有很多人只能毫無頭緒地摸索，十分焦躁。”

In a story in The Times last weekend, Ariel Kaminer observed that it’s not uncommon these days for an anxious, ambitious student to submit applications to 15 or more schools. Kaminer rightly cast this as a consequence of the overheated competition for admission to the most elite ones. Students spread their nets wider in the hopes of a good catch, and the Common Application abets this.

在《紐約時報》上週末發表的一篇報道中，阿里耶爾·卡米納(Ariel Kaminer)指出，如今，一些焦慮不安、野心勃勃的學生會申請15所甚至更多學校，這種情況不在少數。卡米納說的沒錯：這是精英學府在招生過程中競爭過於激烈的結果。學生們更大範圍地撒網，希望能進入好的學校，而“通用申請應用程序”則助推了這一趨勢。

But so do the schools, which hawk themselves more assertively than ever. They fly in counselors like Gersick and give them elaborate sales pitches. They send their own emissaries out into the world, armed with glossy pamphlets. They buy data to identify persuadable applicants and then approach them with come-ons as breathless as any telemarketer’s pitch.

但學校也在這樣做，它們比以往任何時候都更加積極地推銷自己。學校讓吉思克這樣的諮詢顧問飛到各處，向大家發表精心準備的推銷演說。他們派出使者，散發光鮮的宣傳冊。他們還購買數據，來確定哪些申請人可以爭取，然後用一套流暢度不輸於電話推銷的說辭去打動他們。

A recent email that Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute sent unbidden to one high school senior invited him “to apply with Candidate’s Choice status!” (The boldface letters and the exclamation point are Rensselaer’s, not mine.)

倫斯勒理工學院(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)最近主動向一所高中畢業班學生髮去一份電子郵件，邀請他們“用‘優選申請’方式申請入學！”（黑體字字母和感嘆號是照搬倫斯勒的，不是我添加的。）

“Exclusively for select students, the Candidate’s Choice Application is unique to Rensselaer, and is available online now,” the email said, after telling its recipient that “a talented student like you deserves a college experience that is committed to developing the great minds of tomorrow.”

“倫斯勒獨一無二的‘優選申請’，專招優秀學生，現已開放網上申請，”這份電子郵件告訴收件人，“像你這樣才華橫溢的學生，大學生涯理應在一個致力於培養未來傑出人物的地方度過。”

“The marketing is unbelievable, just unbelievable,” said Kay Rothman, director of college counseling at the NYC Lab School, in Manhattan. “There are places like Tulane that will send everyone a ‘V.I.P.’ application.” She told me that she routinely had to disabuse impressionable students of the notion that they’d won some prized lottery or been given some inside track.

“營銷活動令人難以置信，簡直難以置信，”曼哈頓紐約市實驗學校(NYC Lab School)的升學輔導主任凱·羅斯曼(Kay Rothman)說。“像杜蘭大學(Tulane)這些高校，給每個人都發送‘VIP’申請邀請。”她告訴我，她常常不得不給那些易受影響的學生解毒，讓他們不要有抱有錯誤的念頭，以爲自己中了大獎，或獲得了一些內幕消息。

A certain amount of outreach and promotion is necessary, even commendable.

一定程度的宣傳和推廣是必要的，甚至是值得稱道的。

“I don’t think colleges are guilty for marketing their product,” Kathleen McCartney, the president of Smith College, said when I spoke with her last week. “Colleges need to explain to students what their product is about.”

“我認爲，大學推銷自己的產品沒有什麼不妥，”史密斯學院(Smith College)的院長凱瑟琳·麥卡特尼(Kathleen McCartney)上週與我交談時說。“學院需要向學生解釋，自己的產品是什麼。”

And there can be other rationales for what looks like a loosening of application demands. Smith and several other similarly prominent colleges no longer require the SAT or ACT, and McCartney said that that’s not a bid for more applicants. It’s a recognition that top scores on those tests correlate with high family income and may say more about an applicant’s economic advantages — including, say, private SAT tutoring — than about academic potential.

看上去這些學校似乎放寬了申請要求，這樣做也有另外的理由。史密斯學院和其他一些同樣著名的高校不再要求SAT或ACT成績，麥卡特尼說，此舉不是爲了吸引更多的申請者，而是基於這樣一個認識：在這些測試中獲得高分和擁有較高的家庭收入有關，它們展現的可能主要是申請者的經濟優勢——比如說，獲得SAT備考私人輔導——而不是學術潛力。

JIM BOCK, Swarthmore’s dean of admissions, said that by lightening the essay load for its current applicants, the college was less concerned about boosting its overall number of applicants than about making sure candidates of great merit didn’t miss out on Swarthmore and vice versa. He mentioned the hypothetical example of a high school student from a low-income family who works 10 or more hours a week and doesn’t have ample time to do different essays for different schools.

吉姆·博克(Jim Bock)是斯沃斯莫爾學院的招生負責人，他說，該校爲申請人減輕入學文書的負擔，目的不是增加申請人數，而是確保有突出優點的學生不會錯過斯沃斯莫爾，反之亦然。他舉了一個假設的例子：一個出生於低收入家庭的高中生，每週工作10小時以上，沒有充裕的時間針對不同的學校寫作不同的入學文書。

“Sometimes asking too much is asking too much,” he said in an interview on Friday.

“有時候真的是太疲於應付了，”他上週五接受採訪時說。

But will Swarthmore’s applicants this year give quite as much thought to its suitability for them, to whether it’s the right home? I’m betting not.

但斯沃斯莫爾學院今年的申請人，會充分考慮它是否適合自己，去那裏讀書是否去對了地方嗎？我打賭不會。

When it’s a snap for a student to apply to yet one more college and each school is simply another desirable cereal on a top shelf that he or she is determined to reach, there’s inadequate thought to a tailored match, which is what the admissions process should strive for. It’s what the measure of success should be.

當學生多申請一所大學不費吹灰之力時，當每所學校都不過是貨架最上層的一盒學生迫切想夠到的美味穀物食品時，他們就不再充分考慮學校與自身的匹配度了，而那本應該是招生工作努力爭取的目標，應該是衡量成功的標準。

That was the feeling expressed by a group of counselors and consultants in a thread of Facebook comments last July about colleges doing away with supplemental essays.

今年7月，一些顧問和諮詢師在Facebook上就院校廢除入學文書一事發表評論，就表達了這樣的看法。

One of them, Laird Durley, wrote that students insufficiently motivated to write something extra for a school “probably shouldn’t go to those schools anyway,” and he rued the extent to which simply gaining admission to a school with a fancy name — any school with a fancy name — ruled the day.

其中的一位評論者萊爾德·達利(Laird Durley)寫道，一個學生如果不願主動花費額外精力寫申請某所學校的文書，“或許本來就不應該去那所學校”。學生們只想獲得一所知名學校的錄取書——無論是哪所知名學校——的心態，如今正在大行其道，讓他很是唏噓。

“It is harder than ever to sell ‘fit’ as opposed to ‘logo affixing,’ ” he wrote, adding that “what you will learn there” has taken a back seat to a different consideration: “Look at my brand!”

“推銷讓學生找到合適自己的學校的理念，而不是宣揚品牌，比以往任何時候都更困難，”他寫道：“你在那裏能學到什麼”的考慮，已經讓位於“看看我校的牌子”。