2021各顶尖大学陆续揭榜，但专家预计今年大学候补名单可能会更长

With students applying to more schools, admissions officers struggle to predict who will actually accept their offers

随着学生申请更多的学校，招生官很难预测谁会真正接受他们的录取

At Stanford University, 68% of students admitted to the freshman class enrolled in the fall 2020.

在斯坦福大学，68%的新生在2020年秋季入学。

Many college admissions officers are stumped this spring over how many applicants to admit.

今年春天，许多大学招生官员都为录取多少申请者而感到困惑。

Their mathematical models to predict which admitted students might accept their offers and enroll as freshmen are proving useless because the coronavirus pandemic threw most traditional elements of the admissions process—campus visits, standardized tests, essays about busy extracurricular schedules—into disarray.

那些预测被录取的学生可能接受录取并作为新生入学的数学模型是无用的，因为新冠疫情使入学过程中的大多数传统元素陷入混乱之中，如校园访问、标准化考试、文书中关于繁忙的课外活动信息。

Accepting the right number of students is critical. If too many say yes, dorms may be overcrowded. If too many spurn the offers, the school could face a revenue shortfall.

接受适当数量的学生是至关重要的。如果太多人接受录取，宿舍可能会拥挤不堪。如果太多人拒绝录取，学校可能面临收入短缺。

Applications submitted via the Common App, which is used by more than 900 schools, rose by 11% nationwide through March 1. But the number of applicants increased by just 2.4%, meaning nearly the same number of students are casting a wider net.

截至3月1日，通过Common App提交的申请在全国范围内增长了11%。Common App被900多所学校使用，但申请人数仅增加了2.4%，这意味着几乎相同数量的学生正在撒下更大的网。

“I think it will be a nail-biter,” said MJ Knoll-Finn, senior vice president for enrollment management and student success at New York University. That school received more than 100,000 applications this year and aims to enroll a first-year class of about 6,000 students.

纽约大学负责招生管理和学生成功的高级副校长MJ Knoll Finn说：“我认为这将是一个棘手的问题。”。该校今年收到10万多份申请，计划招收一年级约6000名学生。

At schools including Georgia Tech, factors like whether international students will make it to campus and if classes will be in-person could affect whether students accept admission offers.

在包括佐治亚理工学院在内的学校里，国际学生是否能进入校园，是否线下授课等因素可能会影响学生是否接受录取通知书。

Yield, or the share of admitted students who enroll, is closely tracked by enrollment management offices, university leaders and even bond-rating agencies who use the number to determine how much demand there is for a school.

招生管理办公室、大学领导甚至债券评级机构都会密切跟踪收益率，即录取学生所占的比例，他们用这个数字来确定一所学校的需求量。

Nationwide, the average yield for freshmen was about 33% in the years just before the pandemic, down from 48% in 2007, according to the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

全国大学入学咨询协会的数据显示，就在疫情开始前几年，新生的平均入学率约为33%，低于2007年的48%。

Rates at sought-after schools are higher, but not always by much. Yale University’s yield for the fall 2019 entering class was 69%—and fell to 55% this past fall, meaning nearly as many students declined or deferred their invitations as accepted them. Stanford University’s figures were 82% in fall 2019 and 68% in fall 2020. And Georgetown’s slipped below 45% this past fall.

受追捧的学校的学费更高，但并不会高很多。耶鲁大学2019年秋季入学率为69%，今年秋季降至55%，这意味着拒绝或推迟入学邀请的学生几乎和接受邀请的学生一样多。斯坦福大学的数据在2019年秋季为82%，2020年秋季为68%。乔治敦大学今年秋季的入学率跌到了45%以下。

Wait lists have been bloated for years, used by colleges as a cushion along with binding early-decision programs, to ensure a complete class without sacrificing selectivity. But this year schools are expecting to turn to them as early as next month and pluck students well into late summer.

多年来，候补名单一直在增加，大学将其作为一个缓冲，同时提供有约束力的ED计划，以确保在不牺牲选择性的情况下完成招生。但今年，学校希望最早在下个月完成选拔让学生们顺利进入夏末。

College counselors say they also anticipate that even more will engage in a dance that has hints of a seventh-grader telling a classmate, “I like you, but only if you say you like me too,” confirming applicants would come if they got off the wait list before making the offer.

大学顾问说，他们预计会有更多的学生会像舞蹈节目中一个七年级的学生对一个同学说，“我喜欢你，但前提是你也喜欢我”，证实如果学校确认学生可能接受录取通知，在发出录取前，就先将候选学生从候补名单中剔除，那么意味着这些被选中的学生将会接受录取。

“The wait lists are going to be obnoxious this year,” said Rick Clark, director of undergraduate admissions at the Georgia Institute of Technology, meaning they will be both long and active for a long time. Last year, some highly selective colleges dipped into their reserves beginning in early April, and continued to do so through July, and he expected that prolonged process may be even more drawn-out now.

佐治亚理工学院本科招生主任里克·克拉克说：“今年的候补名单将会令人无语，意味着候补名单将更长且更活跃。”去年，一些顶尖大学从4月初开始动用储备资金，一直到7月，他预计，这一漫长的过程现在可能会更加漫长。

Mr. Clark ticked off the variables with which schools are contending, including whether international students will make it to campus, if classes will be in-person, how family finances were affected by the pandemic and which way virus and vaccination rates are trending.

克拉克先生列举了一些学校正在争夺的变数，包括国际学生是否能进入校园，是否亲自上课，家庭经济如何受到新冠疫情的影响，以及病毒和疫苗接种率的发展趋势。

Every time students are taken from a wait list and accept the new offer, they give up a spot elsewhere. That school turns to its wait list, and down the dominoes go.

每当学生从候补名单中被录取并接受新的录取通知书时，他们就会放弃别的学校一个名额。那所学校就会转向自己的候补名单，多米诺骨牌就消失了。

Aaron Fulk, director of college counseling at Marin Academy, a high school in California, said he is frustrated by the current system in which schools want high application numbers and a low acceptance rate, but also want to predict and protect their yields.

加州高中马林学院（Marin Academy）的大学顾问主任阿伦•富尔克（aron Fulk）表示，他对目前的体系感到失望，在这种体系中，学校既希望申请人数多，录取率低，又希望预测和保护自己的录取率。

“They’re trying to have all the things, and that’s how you create a very complicated, deluded and highly inefficient system,” he said.

“他们试图拥有所有的东西，这就是一个非常复杂，迷惑和极其低效的系统，”他说。

Before the 2008 recession, the yield rate at Furman University in South Carolina was in the low-to-mid 30% range. Since the downturn, the private school, with a strong regional reputation and growing national pull, has hovered in the low 20s. And last year, it fell to 16%, with far-flung students opting to stay closer to home.

在2008年经济衰退之前，南卡罗来纳州弗曼大学的录取率处于30%的中低档。自经济低迷以来，这所私立学校录取率一直徘徊在20左右的低点，拥有强大的地区声誉和日益增长的全国影响力。去年，这所私立学校录取率下降到16%，因为偏远地区的学生选择离家近一点的学校。

The current first-year class was about 75 people, or 15%, short of the target. Applications rose 36% this year, but Brad Pochard, associate vice president for enrollment and dean of admissions and financial aid, said he knows it won’t necessarily translate into a jump in enrollment.

目前的大一新生约有75人，比招生目标少了15%。今年申请人数增长了36%，但负责招生的副总裁兼招生和财政援助部主任布拉德·波查德（Brad Pochard）表示，他知道这不一定会导致招生人数的激增。

He said Furman doesn’t have the luxury of leaning on wait lists, estimating that there is only a 50% chance it can lure someone away from another midmarket private college or a lower-price public flagship university.

他说，弗曼没有奢望依靠候补名单，估计只有50%的可能性可以吸引学生离开另一个中等市场的私立大学或价格较低的公立旗舰大学。

Mr. Pochard is erring on the side of admitting more candidates outright this year.

波查德先生在今年直接录取更多候选人方面犯了错误。

Schools likely won’t know their enrollment numbers until classes begin, as students increasingly make deposits to hold their spots at multiple schools to keep their options open, said Mr. Clark of Georgia Tech.

佐治亚理工学院的克拉克先生说，学校可能在开课之前都不知道自己的入学人数，因为学生们越来越多地通过定金在多所学校保留自己的名额，以保持自己的选择余地。

“They may double deposit, but they can’t actually show up in two different places,” he said. “It’s not a Hermione Granger situation.”

“他们可能会加倍给付定金，但实际上他们并不能出现在两个不同的学校，”他说。“这不是赫敏·格兰杰的那种情况。”

出于《华尔街日报》（WSJ）

来源：

https://www.wsj.com/articles/expect-college-wait-lists-to-be-obnoxiously-long-this-year-11615377600