734: The Campus Tour Has Been Cancelled - This American Life
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00:00 00:00 Transcript Share This American Life Life Partners How to Listen Episodes Recommended About Overview Staff Announcements Fellowships Jobs Music Make Radio On The Road FAQ Submissions Merch Contact Us Our Other Shows Merch Follow Us Life Partners Subscribe to our newsletter Full episode Toggle Audio and Transcript Sync Transcript | Episode #734 | March 19, 2021 734: The Campus Tour Has Been Cancelled Note: This American Life is produced for the ear and designed to be heard.
00:00 00:00 文字记录 分享此 美国生活 生活伙伴 如何收听 剧集 推荐 关于 概述 员工公告 奖学金 工作 音乐 在路上制作电台 常见问题解答 提交 商品 联系我们 我们的其他节目 商品 关注我们 生活伙伴 订阅我们的时事通讯 整集 切换音频和文字记录同步 文字记录 | 内容第 734 集 | 2021 年 3 月 19 日 734：校园之旅已取消 注：《美国生活》是为耳朵而制作，旨在让人们听到。
If you are able, we strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes emotion and emphasis that's not on the page.
如果可以的话，我们强烈建议您收听音频，其中包括页面上没有的情感和重点。
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors.
文字记录是使用语音识别软件和人工转录员结合生成的，可能包含错误。
Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
请在印刷版引用前检查相应的音频。
Prologue: Prologue Ira Glass OK, Lorraine, 17 years old.
序言：序言 Ira Glass OK，洛林，17 岁。
Wants to be a dentist, which I didn't even know that was a thing anybody wants in high school, but shows what I know.
想成为一名牙医，我什至不知道这是高中时有人想要的事情，但展示了我所知道的。
Apparently, there are armies of teenagers who want to put on a white coat and enlist in the international war between human beings and placque.
显然，有一群青少年想要穿上白大褂，加入到人类与斑块之间的国际战争中。
I was in Saturday Academy, which is NYU's dentistry program for high schoolers.
我在星期六学院，这是纽约大学为高中生开设的牙科项目。
It was virtual.
这是虚拟的。
What was the best thing about that?
最好的事情是什么？
What did they do?
他们做了什么？
What was your favorite part of it?
你最喜欢其中的哪一部分？
My favorite part was filling cavities.
我最喜欢的部分是填充蛀牙。
They sent a fake tooth model thing.
他们送了一个假牙模型的东西。
Like, decay on the teeth, you had to scrape it off.
就像牙齿腐烂一样，你必须把它刮掉。
It was like I was an actual dentist.
就像我是一名真正的牙医一样。
They sent the tools.
他们送来了工具。
It was fun.
很有趣。
It was so much fun.
太有趣了。
So last spring, junior year, Lorraine started to get serious with her college applications.
所以去年春天，大三，洛林开始认真对待她的大学申请。
She's a good student, great GPA.
她是一个好学生，GPA 很高。
But she had a problem.
但她有一个问题。
Her dream colleges-- Cornell, Columbia, NYU-- they all wanted SAT scores 200 or 300 points higher than Lorraine's SAT scores.
她梦想的大学——康奈尔大学、哥伦比亚大学、纽约大学——他们都希望 SAT 成绩比洛林的 SAT 成绩高 200 或 300 分。
But then, Lorraine got this crazy break.
但后来，洛林得到了疯狂的突破。
All over the country, SATs were being canceled because of coronavirus.
由于冠状病毒，全国各地的 SAT 考试都被取消。
There was no safe way to fill a room with high school kids to take the test.
没有安全的方法可以让高中生挤满一个房间来参加考试。
And colleges started to change their admissions requirements.
大学开始改变招生要求。
So I heard that a lot of schools were going test optional.
所以我听说很多学校都在进行选择性考试。
Especially on TikTok, that's where I would see everything-- college updates, test optional updates.
尤其是在 TikTok 上，我可以看到一切——大学更新、测试可选更新。
Test optional means the SAT test is optional.
可选测试意味着 SAT 测试是可选的。
You can apply without submitting SAT scores-- or ACT scores for that matter.
您无需提交 SAT 成绩或 ACT 成绩即可申请。
If Lorraine's dream schools were to go test optional, it would magically vaporize the only obstacle standing between her and them and a life drilling into the molars of her fellow citizens.
如果洛林的梦想学校成为选择性考试，那么她和他们之间唯一的障碍就会神奇地消失，生活也会深入她同胞的臼齿。
But most of the early schools to go test optional seemed to be out west, she said.
但她说，大多数早期选择参加考试的学校似乎都在西部。
All three of her top picks were in New York.
她的三个首选都在纽约。
Every day she would go online to check the lists of test optional schools.
她每天都会上网查看可考的学校名单。
And I would keep refreshing, keep looking to see every single day, see if any new schools were added.
我会不断更新，每天都查看，看看是否增加了任何新学校。
Yeah, I feel like two, three schools were added every single day.
是的，我感觉每天都会增加两三所学校。
And then I remember it was spring break because I dedicated my whole spring break to studying for SATs.
然后我记得那是春假，因为我把整个春假都用来学习 SAT 考试。
And then I remember I got the notification, a little bell from Gmail from Columbia University because I signed up for their mailing list.
然后我记得我收到了通知，来自哥伦比亚大学 Gmail 的小铃声，因为我注册了他们的邮件列表。
And it was like, oh, yeah, we're going test optional.
就像，哦，是的，我们要进行可选测试。
And I was studying.
我正在学习。
I had the SAT book open.
我打开了 SAT 书。
So I threw it across my bed.
所以我把它扔到了床上。
My mom was the first person I told.
我妈妈是我第一个告诉的人。
So I ran to her.
于是我跑向她。
I was like, [SPANISH]-- like, I don't have to take the SATs, and stuff.
我当时想，[西班牙语]——就像，我不必参加 SAT 考试之类的。
I gave her a hug.
我给了她一个拥抱。
We jumped.
我们跳了起来。
And then I called my friend, and I started screaming on the phone.
然后我打电话给我的朋友，我开始在电话里尖叫。
We started dancing.
我们开始跳舞。
Oh my god.
我的天啊。
It's like you got hit by lightning or something, but in a good way.
就像你被闪电什么的击中一样，但是以一种好的方式击中。
Yeah.
是的。
I thought that maybe now without the SAT, I kind of have a chance.
我想也许现在没有 SAT 考试，我还有机会。
I have a shot.
我有机会。
Like, shoot for the stars.
比如，拍摄星星。
This is my year.
这是我的一年。
She had been planning to apply to 10 or 11 colleges.
她本来计划申请10到11所大学。
Now she upped the number to 17.
现在她把这个数字增加到了17个。
And all across the country, there were lots of kids doing that.
全国各地都有很多孩子这样做。
But the pandemic has upended college admissions in so many ways that a huge swath of the country's high school seniors are having the opposite experience from Lorraine's.
但这场流行病在很多方面都影响了大学招生，以至于该国大量高中生的经历与洛林相反。
They're not applying to schools, falling through the cracks, ghosting their counselors who can't just grab them in the hallway or pull them from class this year.
他们没有申请学校，从裂缝中掉下来，让他们的辅导员今年无法在走廊上抓住他们或将他们从课堂上拉走。
Having tried everything else in response, a few weeks ago in Fort Worth, Texas, high school counselor Valerie Gonzalez and a couple of the counselors she supervises hit the streets with a list of students' addresses to try to catch them at their homes.
在尝试了所有其他应对措施后，几周前，在德克萨斯州沃思堡，高中辅导员瓦莱丽·冈萨雷斯和她所指导的几名辅导员带着一份学生地址清单走上街头，试图在他们家中抓住他们。
We're pretty nervous, too, because we've never done anything like this before.
我们也很紧张，因为我们以前从未做过这样的事情。
So we'll see.
所以我们拭目以待。
Valerie's 25, the first in her family to go to a four-year college, placed as a counselor in this high school by a nonprofit called College Advising Corps to encourage kids to be the first in their families.
瓦莱丽今年 25 岁，是家里第一个进入四年制大学的人，她被一个名为“大学咨询团”的非营利组织安排在这所高中担任辅导员，以鼓励孩子成为家庭中的第一个孩子。
And she's pretty hardcore about it.
她对此非常顽固。
Yeah, I've actually definitely cried with students before when I've kind of told them, why are you doing this to yourself?
是的，事实上，当我告诉学生们，你为什么要这样对自己时，我确实和他们一起哭过。
You have an opportunity, especially even just to go to community college.
你有机会，尤其是去社区大学。
Please do something to better your life.
请做一些事情来改善你的生活。
She throws herself into a job with such energetic thoroughness that before going door to door this morning, she made little goodie bags to give out with face masks and stickers that she made by hand.
她全身心地投入到工作中，今天早上挨家挨户之前，她制作了一些小礼品袋，里面装着她亲手制作的口罩和贴纸。
She and another counselor check an address and walk up to a door.
她和另一位辅导员检查了地址，然后走到门口。
Well, there's doggies.
嗯，还有小狗。
Hi.
你好。
Student Hello.
同学你好。
So we're from the Go Center.
我们来自 Go Center。
I'm Ms. Gonzalez.
我是冈萨雷斯女士。
And basically, we are just coming around.
基本上，我们只是刚刚过来。
We wanted to give you this and invite you to our event.
我们想给您这个并邀请您参加我们的活动。
And basically, do you need any help applying to college or anything?
基本上，您申请大学需要任何帮助吗？
Or do you know what you want to do after you graduate?
或者说你知道毕业后想做什么吗？
I might take a year off.
我可能会休息一年。
Valerie Gonzalez You might take a year off?
瓦莱丽·冈萨雷斯（Valerie Gonzalez） 你可能会休息一年吗？
Yes.
是的。
Ira Glass Might take a year off is not the answer Valerie's looking for, but she's gotten a lot of it since the pandemic.
艾拉·格拉斯 可能要休息一年并不是瓦莱丽想要的答案，但自疫情大流行以来，她已经休息了很多年。
At the high school she's at, Western Hills, the senior class last year, at this point in the year, 70% of them had applied to colleges in Texas.
在她就读的西山高中，去年的高年级学生中，70% 的人申请了德克萨斯州的大学。
This year's senior class?
今年的高年级？
Just 45%.
只有45%。
Yeah.
是的。
Many of my kids either don't want to go to college because they're already working.
我的许多孩子要么不想上大学，因为他们已经工作了。
Working to help their families during the pandemic.
在大流行期间努力帮助他们的家人。
Or they just want to go to community college.
或者他们只是想上社区大学。
And you're like, well, why?
你会想，好吧，为什么？
You have a 3.8 GPA.
你的 GPA 为 3.8。
You could go to a lot of four-year universities on scholarship.
你可以靠奖学金去很多四年制大学。
Why are you setting your sights low?
为什么你把目光放低？
And most of them are like, well, I want to stay close to home, or my mom is really concerned about COVID, and she doesn't want me to go anywhere.
他们中的大多数人都说，我想呆在离家近的地方，或者我妈妈真的很担心新冠病毒，她不想让我去任何地方。
And the other thing, too, is the cost.
另一件事也是成本。
Some of my students are like, why am I going to go to college?
我的一些学生会问，我为什么要上大学？
Why am I going to pay $50,000 if my classes are going to be virtual, and I'm not even going to get to go to class with my professors?
如果我的课程是虚拟的，而且我什至不能和我的教授一起上课，为什么我要支付 50,000 美元？
It's going to all going to be online.
一切都将在线。
Let me take you on one last stop on this mini college tour.
让我带您参观这个迷你大学之旅的最后一站。
In the scrambled year, colleges are seeing things they've never seen before.
在混乱的一年里，大学看到了他们以前从未见过的事情。
Lots of schools are not getting anywhere near the number of applications that they're used to, especially less selective schools because of students like Valerie's.
许多学校的申请数量远未达到他们习惯的水平，尤其是那些因为像瓦莱丽这样的学生而选择较少的学校。
Some schools are down 15%, 20%, and looking to take massive financial hits because of it.
一些学校的学费下降了 15%、20%，并希望因此遭受巨大的财务打击。
Meanwhile, schools you might think of as having brand recognition and big flagship state schools, they're seeing a surge in applications.
与此同时，您可能认为拥有品牌知名度的学校和大型旗舰公立学校，他们的申请量正在激增。
Lorraine's first choice schools, for example, NYU applications were up 20%, Cornell's up 31%, Columbia is up 51%, driven probably by students like Lorraine, who were hoping that this is their year, with no SATs blocking the way.
例如，洛林的首选学校，纽约大学的申请上涨了 20%，康奈尔大学上涨了 31%，哥伦比亚大学上涨了 51%，这可能是由像洛林这样的学生推动的，他们希望今年是他们的一年，没有 SAT 的阻碍。
But even schools with great numbers aren't feeling great.
但即使是人数众多的学校也感觉不太好。
Jon Boeckenstedt runs undergrad admissions for Oregon State, which has 34% more applications this year than last.
Jon Boeckenstedt 负责俄勒冈州立大学的本科招生工作，今年该州的申请量比去年增加了 34%。
He also writes about higher education and talks to admissions officers around the country.
他还撰写有关高等教育的文章，并与全国各地的招生官员交谈。
Yeah, we're all sort of confused and befuddled.
是的，我们都感到困惑和困惑。
And a few of us are frankly terrified by what these numbers mean.
坦率地说，我们中的一些人对这些数字的含义感到害怕。
Terrified because usually when they say yes to a bunch of applicants, they can predict how many of them are going to actually choose to enroll at their school.
害怕是因为通常当他们对一群申请者说“是”时，他们可以预测其中有多少人会真正选择就读他们的学校。
But this year, the normal indicators they would use for that are gone.
但今年，他们使用的正常指标消失了。
For instance, did the student make a campus visit, which means they would be more likely to enroll in the fall.
例如，学生是否参观过校园，这意味着他们更有可能在秋季入学。
Well, those didn't happen this year.
好吧，今年这些都没有发生。
Or they had a high SAT score.
或者他们的 SAT 成绩很高。
Normally that would mean more schools want those students, and they would be less likely to enroll at Oregon State.
通常，这意味着更多的学校想要这些学生，而他们进入俄勒冈州立大学的可能性就会降低。
But of course, they don't have the SAT scores.
当然，他们没有 SAT 成绩。
And so, as a result, when Boeckenstedt offers a place in his first year class to thousands of kids--
因此，当博肯施泰特向数千名孩子提供一年级班级的名额时——
We might have way too many students enroll in the fall.
我们秋季入学的学生可能太多了。
And then the residence halls are crowded, and we don't have sufficient classroom space.
然后宿舍很拥挤，我们没有足够的教室空间。
And we just don't know how to handle the crush.
我们只是不知道如何应对这种迷恋。
On the other hand, too few students enroll, which is, again, scary.
另一方面，入学的学生太少，这又令人恐惧。
We're used to thinking of application increases as good things.
我们习惯于将应用程序的增加视为好事。
And this year, we just don't know what they mean.
而今年，我们只是不知道它们意味着什么。
For today on our program, college admissions in this pandemic year.
今天我们的节目是今年大流行的大学招生。
So much is different this year.
今年有很多不同。
So much is unknown.
这么多都是未知的。
And today on our program, we've chosen to focus on one very specific part of the picture, one of the most interesting things that got thrown into the air this year.
今天，在我们的节目中，我们选择关注图片中一个非常具体的部分，这是今年最有趣的事情之一。
And that is the SATs.
这就是 SAT 考试。
For years, there have been people saying that they're unfair.
多年来，一直有人说他们不公平。
Schools should not require them.
学校不应该要求他们。
And now, finally, like this vast national science experiment, most colleges have stopped requiring them.
现在，就像这个庞大的国家科学实验一样，大多数大学终于不再需要它们了。
What's that look like?
那是什么样子的？
Will it actually change who gets into more selective schools?
它真的会改变谁进入更多精英学校吗？
Have we crossed some line and we're not going back?
我们是否已经越过界限并且不再回头？
From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life.
来自芝加哥 WBEZ 的《This American Life》。
I'm Ira Glass.
我是艾拉·格拉斯。
Stay with us.
留在我们身边。
So for months now, I've been looking into what's happening with college admissions since the pandemic with reporter Paul Tough, who's been on our show many times, who writes about education.
因此，几个月来，我一直在与记者保罗·托夫（Paul Tough）一起研究自大流行以来大学招生的情况，他多次出现在我们的节目中，撰写有关教育的文章。
And in fact, his most recent book is on the admissions process and the students that that system is not working for.
事实上，他最近的一本书是关于招生过程和该系统不适合的学生的。
Hey there, Paul.
嘿，保罗。
Hey, Ira.
嘿，艾拉。
Ira Glass So, Paul, one of the things you point out in your book is that this period when kids apply to college is this unusual moment, probably the biggest moment in kids' lives in this country, when they get a real chance at social mobility.
Ira Glass 所以，保罗，你在书中指出的一件事是，孩子们申请大学的这个时期是一个不寻常的时刻，可能是这个国家孩子们一生中最重要的时刻，他们获得了真正的社会流动机会。
Yeah, going to college pays off in all kinds of ways.
是的，上大学在各个方面都有回报。
You're more likely to make more money, more likely to get married, more likely to live longer, to say you're happy.
你更有可能赚更多的钱，更有可能结婚，更有可能活得更久，说你很幸福。
But it also makes a big difference where you go to college.
但你在哪里上大学也有很大的不同。
This Harvard economist, Raj Chetty, did a study, and he found that for students who go to the most selective schools, the Ivy League schools and schools like it, have a one in five chance of making it into the top 1% of earners as an adult.
哈佛大学经济学家拉吉·切蒂(Raj Chetty)做了一项研究，他发现，对于就读最顶尖学校、常春藤盟校和类似学校的学生来说，成年后有五分之一的机会进入收入最高的1%。
If you go to a slightly less selective school, you have a one in 11 chance of making it into the top 1%.
如果你去一所选择性稍差的学校，你有十分之一的机会进入前 1%。
Go to community college, it's a one in 300 chance.
去社区大学，这是三百分之一的机会。
Don't go to college at all, a one in 1,000 chance.
根本不上大学，这是千分之一的机会。
So this moment in high school when kids are sorted into more and less selective institutions, it matters a lot.
因此，在高中的这个时刻，当孩子们被分入或多或少有选择性的机构时，这一点非常重要。
And that brings us to the subject of our show today, the SATs.
这就引出了我们今天节目的主题：SAT。
They have been a big part of this sorting for a long time.
长期以来，它们一直是这种分类的重要组成部分。
And for the last few decades, there's been this debate about whether colleges should require the SATs.
在过去的几十年里，关于大学是否应该要求 SAT 考试的争论一直存在。
And one school after another has decided not to, has gone test optional.
一所又一所学校决定不参加考试，取消考试。
Notably, in 2018, the University of Chicago, one of the most rigorous and selective schools in the country, did it.
值得注意的是，2018 年，美国最严格、最挑剔的学校之一芝加哥大学做到了这一点。
And last spring, the biggest public system in the country, the University of California with over 225,000 undergrads on nine campuses, did away with the SAT.
去年春天，全美最大的公立大学——加州大学，其九个校区拥有超过 225,000 名本科生——取消了 SAT 考试。
At the time that the pandemic hit, about half of the country's four-year colleges were test optional.
在大流行爆发时，全国大约一半的四年制大学是可选的。
But still, the overwhelming majority of the country's most selective schools, including the Ivy League, were not test optional.
但尽管如此，美国绝大多数最挑剔的学校，包括常春藤盟校，都没有参加考试。
They still required the SAT.
他们仍然需要 SAT。
And there was a real question-- should they do it?
还有一个真正的问题——他们应该这样做吗？
And then, with the pandemic, they did.
然后，随着大流行，他们做到了。
Another 600 schools suddenly did not require the SAT, including pretty much all the most selective schools.
另外 600 所学校突然不再要求 SAT 成绩，其中几乎包括所有最挑剔的学校。
And we're going to look in today's show at what that has meant, especially for the kind of students who have been kept from those schools by the SAT in the past.
我们将在今天的节目中看看这意味着什么，特别是对于那些过去被 SAT 考试拒之门外的学生。
And we're going to look at what's likely to happen with the SAT after the pandemic.
我们将看看疫情过后 SAT 考试可能会发生什么。
But just to start here at the beginning, we should explain for anybody who hasn't followed this why schools were questioning the SAT in the first place.
但从头开始，我们应该向那些没有遵循这一点的人解释为什么学校首先质疑 SAT。
And Paul, you're going to take this part of the story.
保罗，你将接受故事的这一部分。
I'll see you again in a couple of minutes.
几分钟后我会再次见到你。
If you want to understand why people are questioning the SAT these days, you should meet Daniela.
如果你想了解为什么人们现在质疑 SAT，你应该认识一下丹妮拉。
She's one of those kids who seems destined for college.
她是那些似乎注定要上大学的孩子之一。
Her family immigrated to Riverside, California from Mexico when she was eight.
当她八岁时，她的家人从墨西哥移民到加利福尼亚州河滨市。
She started third grade there, not speaking a word of English.
她在那里开始三年级，一句英语也不会说。
And by the time she got to high school, she was taking honors classes, getting amazing grades, even though she was also working 20 hours a week cleaning houses and standing on street corners, flipping signs.
当她进入高中时，她开始上荣誉课程，取得了惊人的成绩，尽管她每周还要工作 20 小时打扫房屋，站在街角翻转标牌。
There was a group of five students at the top of the class, and Daniela was always up there in that group.
有一个由五名学生组成的小组在班上名列前茅，而丹妮拉总是在该小组中名列前茅。
For most of high school, in fact, she was number one.
事实上，在高中的大部分时间里，她都是第一。
The only B I ever got in class was my senior year in my Spanish class.
我在班上唯一获得的 B 是我高年级的西班牙语课。
I didn't really care too much about it, just because I already knew Spanish.
我并不太关心它，只是因为我已经懂西班牙语了。
So it wasn't my focus.
所以这不是我的重点。
I can't believe it's Spanish where you got your B.
我不敢相信你在西班牙语中得到了 B。
I know.
我知道。
Paul Tough I'm guessing you're pretty good at Spanish.
保罗·泰赫 我猜你的西班牙语相当不错。
I was really good at it, but I never showed up.
我确实很擅长，但我从未出现过。
But at the end of the day, the participation was what killed me.
但归根结底，参与才是让我丧命的原因。
I was destroyed.
我被摧毁了。
I cried.
我哭了。
I was like, no, my only B.
我当时想，不，我唯一的B。
She wanted to go to an Ivy League college or one of the elite University of California schools, like Berkeley or UCLA, and be a doctor.
她想去常春藤盟校或加州大学伯克利分校或加州大学洛杉矶分校等精英学校，然后成为一名医生。
And then she took the SAT.
然后她参加了 SAT 考试。
No, yeah, definitely the SAT was kind of humbling.
不，是的，SAT 确实让人感到羞愧。
I was like, all these years, I grew up thinking I was kind of a genius because everybody was telling me.
我想，这些年来，我从小就认为自己是个天才，因为每个人都告诉我。
And then the SAT was like, no, you're not.
然后 SAT 就说，不，你不是。
This was during the years when the SAT wasn't using the 1,600-point scale that most people would know.
当时 SAT 还没有使用大多数人都知道的 1,600 分制。
But if you translated her score to today's scores, it would be about 1,180.
但如果把她的分数换算成今天的分数，那就是1180左右。
That's a fine score, better than about 70% of the students who take the test.
这是一个不错的分数，比参加考试的大约 70% 的学生要好。
But it's not the kind of score that straight-A students usually get.
但这并不是全优学生通常得到的分数。
And it isn't the kind of score that will get you into Ivy League schools or Berkeley or UCLA.
而且这种分数并不能让你进入常春藤盟校、伯克利分校或加州大学洛杉矶分校。
The five students at the top of Daniela's class were all super smart and ambitious.
丹妮拉班上的五个名列前茅的学生都非常聪明且雄心勃勃。
They competed with each other usually in a friendly way.
他们通常以友好的方式相互竞争。
She was number one until that one B, and then she slipped to number three.
在 B 之前她一直是第一，然后她滑落到第三。
But when it came time for the SAT, Daniela noticed that three of those five, the ones who had more money, the ones whose parents were doctors, their families invested in the SAT.
但到了 SAT 考试的时候，丹妮拉注意到，这五个人中的三个人，即那些有更多钱的人，那些父母是医生的人，他们的家人都投资于 SAT。
One kid's family paid for an expensive online course.
一个孩子的家庭支付了昂贵的在线课程费用。
One family hired a private tutor.
有一个家庭聘请了一位私人教师。
Those students got top SAT scores.
这些学生在 SAT 考试中取得了最高分。
Only one of the five, a boy, got a score like hers.
五个人中只有一个男孩获得了和她一样的分数。
He did around the same score as me.
他的成绩和我差不多。
And I saw him to be smarter than a lot of these people, but he came from a lower class family, a family that came from poverty as well.
我看到他比很多人都聪明，但他来自一个下层家庭，也是一个贫困家庭。
All the students that I saw do well came from money.
我看到的所有表现好的学生都是靠钱来的。
Daniela wasn't the first person to notice this relationship between family income and test scores.
丹妮拉并不是第一个注意到家庭收入与考试成绩之间关系的人。
It's been documented for years.
它已被记录多年。
Better off kids do better on the SAT for all kinds of reasons.
出于各种原因，富裕的孩子在 SAT 考试中表现更好。
Not just the private tutors and the 600-page study guides, they're also more likely to live in better neighborhoods, so they go to better schools.
不仅仅是私人导师和 600 页的学习指南，他们也更有可能生活在更好的社区，因此他们会去更好的学校。
All of the advantages that go along with growing up with money feed into that test score.
伴随着金钱成长而来的所有优势都会融入到测试分数中。
Still, for Daniela, it was frustrating.
尽管如此，对于丹妮拉来说，这仍然令人沮丧。
I'm also wondering, was there a way that that experience of getting the score that you did, did it sort of change your feeling about yourself as a student?
我还想知道，获得分数的经历是否会改变你对自己作为学生的感觉？
Definitely.
确实。
I think it was disheartening just because it was kind of like where I first questioned whether I was at their same level type of thing.
我认为这令人沮丧，因为这有点像我第一次质疑我是否处于同一水平类型的事情。
Yeah, it definitely made me question a lot of my qualities or skills or-- yeah.
是的，这确实让我对自己的品质或技能产生了很多质疑，或者——是的。
Did you feel like you were as smart as them?
你觉得自己和他们一样聪明吗？
I did.
我做到了。
I felt like in class, I performed just as well as them.
我觉得在课堂上，我的表现和他们一样好。
But that test was saying otherwise, you know?
但那个测试的结果却并非如此，你知道吗？
So when I got that test result, I was kind of questioning whether I was.
所以当我得到测试结果时，我有点怀疑自己是否是。
That's so interesting.
那太有趣了。
It sounds like there's a side of you that was like, oh, no, I'm definitely as smart as them.
听起来你的另一面是，哦，不，我绝对和他们一样聪明。
But there was maybe another side of you that was like, well, wait, maybe this is the real measure of who's smart and who's not.
但也许你的另一面是，好吧，等等，也许这才是衡量谁聪明谁不聪明的真正标准。
Was your brain sort of going back and forth between those two ideas?
你的大脑是否在这两个想法之间来回徘徊？
Yes, definitely.
是的，绝对是。
That's exactly what was happening.
这正是发生的事情。
One side was like, no, I've seen these people, how they've analyzed an essay.
一方面是，不，我见过这些人，他们是如何分析一篇文章的。
I've seen how they've solved that problem.
我已经看到他们是如何解决这个问题的。
I know that I wrote out this research paper better than them, you know?
我知道我这篇研究论文写得比他们好，你知道吗？
I have seen them perform, and I have seen how my skills compare to them.
我看过他们的表演，也看到了我的技能与他们相比如何。
And then but at the same time, I would think maybe this test is actually testing who's smarter.
但与此同时，我想也许这个测试实际上是在测试谁更聪明。
And this whole time I've been like passing by on a fluke or on luck.
一直以来我都像是侥幸或幸运地经过。
Do you think there was something about like the way that the test was presented that made it seem like, well, maybe this is the real measure of who's smart and who's not?
你是否认为测试的呈现方式让人觉得，嗯，也许这才是衡量谁聪明谁不聪明的真正标准？
Yeah, just the fact that this is what all these institutions are basing off entrance.
是的，事实上，这就是所有这些机构的入口基础。
If you do good, you deserve to go to college.
如果你表现好，你值得上大学。
If you don't, then it's not.
如果你不这样做，那就不是。
So then I'm here questioning, should I even go to college?
那么我就想问，我到底该不该上大学？
Am I even built for college?
我适合上大学吗？
I don't even know if I'll do good in college because I clearly can't do good in this test.
我什至不知道我在大学是否会取得好成绩，因为我显然不能在这次考试中取得好成绩。
So yeah, it's presented like, if you don't do well, you're not going to do well in college.
所以，是的，它的表现就像，如果你做得不好，你在大学就不会取得好成绩。
It's not surprising that Daniela had that thought.
丹妮拉有这样的想法并不奇怪。
For years, that's how the SAT was sold-- as an objective measure of intelligence, a scientific indicator of who would succeed in college, more accurate than the grades that kids get in high school.
多年来，SAT 的销售方式就是这样——作为智力的客观衡量标准，作为衡量谁能在大学取得成功的科学指标，比孩子在高中获得的成绩更准确。
There's a lot of research, though, including studies from the College Board, the nonprofit organization that administers the SAT, that shows that this isn't quite true.
不过，大量研究，包括管理 SAT 考试的非盈利组织大学理事会的研究表明，事实并非如此。
Let me tell you the stuff that researchers mostly agree on.
让我告诉你研究人员大多同意的事情。
First, that high school grades are slightly better than SAT scores at predicting how well students will do in their first year in college, whether they'll graduate on time.
首先，在预测学生大学第一年的表现以及是否能按时毕业方面，高中成绩比 SAT 成绩稍好一些。
If you can only have one number to judge a student, high school grades are your best bet.
如果你只能用一个数字来评判一个学生，那么高中成绩是你最好的选择。
Second, that if you look at the combination of a student's high school GPA and their SAT score, then you can predict their college performance slightly better than you can with just their high school grades alone.
其次，如果你结合学生的高中 GPA 和 SAT 成绩，那么你可以比仅凭高中成绩更好地预测他们的大学表现。
What they don't agree on is whether that extra bit of predictive power you get with the SAT is worth the cost.
他们不同意的是，通过 SAT 获得的额外预测能力是否值得付出代价。
Because there's a third thing that everyone agrees on, and that is that SAT and ACT scores heavily favor rich kids, much more so than high school grades.
因为还有第三件事是大家都同意的，那就是 SAT 和 ACT 成绩非常有利于富裕家庭的孩子，比高中成绩更重要。
So if you use standardized tests in admissions, you're probably going to reject a lot of perfectly good students, who could succeed at your institution.
因此，如果你在招生时使用标准化考试，你可能会拒绝很多非常优秀的学生，而他们本来可以在你的机构取得成功。
And the students you're rejecting are more likely to be low income and first generation and non-white.
而你拒绝的学生更有可能是低收入、第一代和非白人。
The SAT is like a doctor's test that gives you a lot of false negatives.
SAT 就像医生的测试，会给你很多假阴性结果。
And students who are already underrepresented on campuses are more likely to be kept out of college by one of those false negatives.
而那些在校园里人数已经不足的学生更有可能因为这些漏报之一而被排除在大学之外。
In Daniela's case, when she saw her score, she decided it would be hopeless to apply to all her first choice schools-- Harvard, the other Ivy's, Berkeley.
以丹妮拉为例，当她看到自己的分数时，她认为申请所有她的首选学校——哈佛、其他常春藤盟校、伯克利——都是无望的。
She applied to computer science at UCLA, whose average SAT was 300 points higher than hers, and didn't get in.
她申请了加州大学洛杉矶分校的计算机科学专业，该校的 SAT 平均分比她高 300 分，但没有被录取。
As for the three affluent students in the top five, the ones with the SAT tutors and courses, they were accepted to Berkeley, Penn, and Harvard.
至于前五名中的三名富裕学生，即拥有SAT导师和课程的学生，则分别被伯克利、宾夕法尼亚和哈佛大学录取。
The boy who came from the same background as Daniela went to Riverside Community College.
与丹妮拉出身相同的男孩就读于河滨社区学院。
And Daniela wound up at the University of California at Merced, the newest and least selective UC school.
丹妮拉最终就读于加州大学默塞德分校，这是加州大学最新且选择性最低的学校。
And Daniela says that seems like what the SAT is intended to do.
丹妮拉表示，这似乎正是 SAT 考试的目的。
It's meant to weed out-- it's mean to gatekeep, in my opinion.
在我看来，这是为了淘汰——这是为了把关。
And do you think of it as like, it's just sort of accidentally keeping people out, or you feel like it's designed to keep people like you out of those colleges?
你是否认为这只是一种意外地将人们拒之门外，或者你觉得它是为了将像你这样的人拒之门外而设计的？
I don't think it's accidental because I think that by now, the test has been around long enough to whether they could see patterns.
我不认为这是偶然的，因为我认为到目前为止，测试已经进行了足够长的时间，他们是否可以看到模式。
So I feel like maybe at first, it was accidental.
所以我觉得一开始这可能是偶然的。
But now if they are seeing consistent patterns of students with certain socioeconomic backgrounds or ethnic backgrounds are doing not as good as others, then it has to be intentional.
但现在，如果他们看到具有特定社会经济背景或种族背景的学生表现不如其他学生的一贯模式，那么这一定是故意的。
The people who run the SAT and the ACT, they would definitely say that it's not intentional, that certain groups do poorly on standardized tests because they face other disadvantages that hold back their academic progress.
负责 SAT 和 ACT 考试的人肯定会说，这不是故意的，某些群体在标准化考试中表现不佳，因为他们面临着其他阻碍其学业进步的劣势。
But it's certainly true that for decades now, these tests have kept excellent students like Daniela out of the best schools.
但毫无疑问的是，几十年来，这些测试让像丹妮拉这样的优秀学生无法进入最好的学校。
Until just maybe this year-- when the majority of colleges, for the very first time, went test optional.
直到今年，大多数大学第一次开始选择考试。
The question is, did that help?
问题是，这有帮助吗？
Are students like Daniela now going to actually get into these more selective schools?
像丹妮拉这样的学生现在真的会进入这些更具选择性的学校吗？
The answer is complicated.
答案很复杂。
And Ira's going to pick up this part of the story.
艾拉将讲述故事的这一部分。
Thanks, Paul.
谢谢，保罗。
OK, so what's going to happen to students like Daniela without the SAT blocking them from top schools?
好吧，如果没有 SAT 考试阻止像丹妮拉这样的学生进入顶尖学校，他们会怎样呢？
Well, to give you a sense of that, let's look at one of those selective name brand schools that saw an increase in applications this year, thanks to test optional.
好吧，为了让您了解这一点，让我们看看一所精选的名牌学校，由于可选考试，今年申请量有所增加。
Georgia Tech until this year used the SATs as one of the things that it looked at in screening applicants.
佐治亚理工学院直到今年才将 SAT 考试作为筛选申请者的考量因素之一。
Then they went test optional because of the pandemic and got 11% more applications, and they got a more diverse application pool.
然后，由于大流行，他们进行了选择性测试，收到的申请数量增加了 11%，并且申请池更加多样化。
Black students up 20%, students whose parents who didn't go to college, first generation students, up 20%.
黑人学生增长了 20%，父母没有上过大学的学生、第一代学生增长了 20%。
This, by the way, is typical even in non-pandemic times.
顺便说一句，即使在非大流行时期，这也是典型的。
When a school goes test optional, more kids think, hmm, maybe I can get in, and they apply.
当学校实行选择性考试时，更多的孩子会想，嗯，也许我可以进去，然后他们申请。
And the diversity of the applicants also increases.
而且申请人的多样性也增加了。
The big questions next, of course, are, number one, would Georgia Tech offer those new applicant spots for the fall?
当然，接下来的大问题是，第一，佐治亚理工学院会在秋季为这些新申请者提供名额吗？
And number two, will they accept?
第二，他们会接受吗？
Now question number one, we actually now know the answer.
现在第一个问题，我们现在实际上知道答案了。
They have sent out their offers to students.
他们已经向学生发出了录取通知书。
They did it about a week ago.
他们大约一周前做的。
Rick Clark, the head of undergrad admissions, says they have admitted 28% more Black students than last year, 20% more first generation students.
本科生招生负责人里克·克拉克 (Rick Clark) 表示，他们录取的黑人学生比去年多了 28%，其中第一代学生多了 20%。
And I'm pleased with that.
我对此很满意。
I mean, we have a relatively new president, expanding access is a key part of his strategic plan.
我的意思是，我们有一位相对较新的总统，扩大准入是他战略计划的关键部分。
Wait, so that was set as a goal in the fall?
等等，所以这是秋季的目标？
Yes.
是的。
Ira Glass And now so here you are with these numbers.
Ira Glass 现在你可以看到这些数字了。
So, things are going great, right?
所以，事情进展顺利，对吧？
That's great.
那太棒了。
That's great, yes.
那太好了，是的。
I know.
我知道。
We're very, very pleased.
我们非常非常高兴。
And now of course we're turning our attention to, all right, we have to convince these students to choose us.
现在我们当然要把注意力转向，好吧，我们必须说服这些学生选择我们。
And that's where things get hard because of money.
这就是事情因为金钱而变得困难的地方。
Georgia Tech has a limited amount of financial aid to give out.
佐治亚理工学院提供的财政援助数量有限。
On average, students only get half of what they need.
平均而言，学生只能获得所需的一半。
Georgia Tech does not meet or commit to meeting that high percentage of need.
佐治亚理工学院无法满足或承诺满足如此高比例的需求。
Georgia Tech doesn't do that.
佐治亚理工学院不这样做。
We basically say, here is what it's going to cost to come to Georgia Tech.
我们基本上会说，这是来到佐治亚理工学院的费用。
If you are able to finance that education, then you can obviously accept our offer.
如果您有能力资助该教育，那么您显然可以接受我们的报价。
Whether or not they can make that kind of financial commitment, and often, in the end, have to take loans to do it, is going to be up to the family.
他们是否能够做出这种财务承诺，并且最终往往必须贷款才能做到这一点，将取决于家庭。
So we make those offers, understanding that we probably aren't going to be able to yield them all.
因此，我们在提出这些报价时，深知我们可能无法全部满足。
Aren't going to be able to yield is admissions speak for they know the students aren't all going to enroll.
招生部门不会屈服，因为他们知道学生不会全部入学。
Even somebody getting state scholarships and Federal Pell grants could end up still needing $10,000 a year for tuition, Clark says.
克拉克说，即使有人获得州奖学金和联邦佩尔助学金，最终也可能每年需要 10,000 美元的学费。
And facing that, some students choose a school that offers more financial aid.
面对这一点，一些学生选择了一所提供更多经济援助的学校。
But what's probably way more common everywhere this happens, they end up somewhere less selective, less prestigious, close to home, and cheaper, which is to say, it's not just the SATs that keep otherwise qualified, low income, and first generation students out of elite schools.
但在这种情况发生的地方，可能更常见的是，他们最终会去一些选择性较差、声望较低、离家较近且价格便宜的地方，也就是说，不仅仅是 SAT 考试让其他合格的、低收入的第一代学生被精英学校拒之门外。
It's also money-- specifically how much money colleges have to help those students.
这也是金钱——特别是大学有多少钱来帮助这些学生。
Until last year, Angel Perez was in charge of enrollment at Trinity College, where he saw this with every class he admitted.
直到去年，安吉尔·佩雷斯（Angel Perez）负责三一学院的招生工作，他在录取的每个班级中都看到了这一点。
You know, there were so many low income first gen kids in my pool that I could admit-- extremely qualified-- but there were only certain amount of dollars that I had in order to fully fund them.
你知道，我的池子里有很多低收入的第一代孩子，我可以承认——非常合格——但我只有一定数量的美元来全额资助他们。
I'm going to be back Paul Tough now, who reported today's program with me.
我现在要回来了，Paul Tough 和我一起报道了今天的节目。
Because Paul, when you wrote your latest book, you actually followed Angel Perez during this process as he tried to enroll more low income and first generation kids at Trinity College.
因为保罗，当你写你的最新书时，你实际上在这个过程中跟随了安吉尔·佩雷斯，因为他试图在三一学院招收更多的低收入和第一代孩子。
Yeah, it was really hard.
是的，真的很难。
I mean, there was no question that this was what he wanted to do.
我的意思是，毫无疑问这就是他想做的事。
This is what the president of the college wanted him to do.
这就是学院院长希望他做的事。
But at the same time, Trinity College was losing millions of dollars a year.
但与此同时，三一学院每年损失数百万美元。
And they are, like many institutions, a place that gets most of their revenue from tuition.
与许多机构一样，它们的大部分收入来自学费。
He had a goal that he had to make to get a certain amount of tuition from all the students that he admitted.
他有一个目标，就是要从所有他录取的学生身上拿到一定的学费。
I think it was $19 million he needed to bring in.
我认为他需要引进 1900 万美元。
And so, it didn't mean that he only admitted rich kids who could pay a lot, but it did mean that every student that he was evaluating, that was the first question he had to ask.
所以，这并不意味着他只录取出得起钱的富家子弟，但这确实意味着他评估的每一个学生，这是他必须问的第一个问题。
Is this someone who's going to help me with the bottom line or not?
这是一个会帮我解决底线问题的人吗？
Again, Angel Perez.
再说一遍，安吉尔·佩雷斯。
Angel Perez And every time you are thinking about adding a student or subtracting a student, you have to go back and run the econometric model to see financially where are you, and whether or not you have blown the financial aid budget or whether or not you now do not have enough predicted tuition revenue to uphold the college's budget the following year.
Angel Perez 每次你考虑增加或减少学生时，你都必须回去运行计量经济学模型，看看你的财务状况如何，以及你是否已经超出了经济援助预算，或者你现在是否没有足够的预测学费收入来维持学院下一年的预算。
Paul, can you just talk about this thing that you saw him do that he had students that he really wanted to bring to Trinity that he just couldn't?
保罗，你能谈谈你看到他做的这件事吗？他有一些学生，他真的很想把他们带到三一学院，但他却不能？
Yeah, I mean, it was especially at the last part of the process was when I saw it the most, right?
是的，我的意思是，尤其是在过程的最后部分，是我看到最多的时候，对吧？
Because he started off just creating the class that he really wanted, all these highly qualified students, including a lot more low income students, first generation students.
因为他一开始只是创建了他真正想要的班级，所有这些高素质的学生，包括更多的低收入学生，第一代学生。
But then it was right around this time of year.
但那时正是每年的这个时候。
It was the middle of March.
那是三月中旬。
And everyone that he was admitting was making it harder for him to meet his tuition goals.
他承认的每个人都让他更难实现学费目标。
Tensions were kind of running high.
紧张气氛有点高。
It was very emotional in his office with him and all of his admissions people.
在他的办公室里，他和他所有的招生人员都非常激动。
So the last weekend, he and the director of admissions just sent everybody else home, and they just sat together at their computer and went through one by one.
所以上周末，他和招生主任就把其他人都打发回家了，他们坐在电脑前一一过一遍。
And the last few dozen students that he cut were all low income ones who needed significant financial aid.
他裁掉的最后几十名学生都是需要大量经济援助的低收入学生。
So that's a normal year.
所以说这是正常的一年。
Think about how many of those low income students these same schools can afford today, Perez says, with the financial problems that schools have had since the pandemic.
佩雷斯说，想想这些学校今天能负担得起多少低收入学生，因为自大流行以来学校一直面临财务问题。
Perez actually monitors the big picture with admissions around the country today in the job that he took when he left Trinity College a year ago.
佩雷斯实际上在一年前离开三一学院时担任的职务，负责监督全国招生的大局。
He's now head of the National Association of College Admissions Counseling.
他现在是全国大学招生咨询协会的负责人。
Even the wealthiest institutions with high endowments, they have taken big hits this year.
即使是拥有高额捐赠的最富有的机构，今年也遭受了重大打击。
And they collected less tuition.
而且他们收取的学费也更少。
They are doing budget cuts.
他们正在削减预算。
They are laying people off.
他们正在裁员。
And so, I'm hesitant to say we will see dramatic shifts in one year and underrepresented students at these institutions because of that difficult financial component.
因此，我不太愿意说我们将在一年内看到巨大的变化，并且由于财务方面的困难，这些机构的学生代表性不足。
He says he expects a small bump in the number of these students at certain kinds of schools like flagship state schools.
他说，他预计某些类型的学校（例如旗舰公立学校）的学生人数会略有增加。
But overall-- and this is important-- the number of low income students and first generation students going to college this coming fall is probably going to drop for the first time in years.
但总体而言——这一点很重要——今年秋天进入大学的低收入学生和第一代学生的数量可能会多年来首次下降。
How do we know this?
我们怎么知道这一点？
Well, a bunch of ways, but most significant, federal student aid applications, FAFSA, are down 10% this year overall.
嗯，有很多方法，但最重要的是，联邦学生援助申请（FAFSA）今年总体下降了 10%。
Lots of kids around the country are downgrading, delaying, or giving up on college plans because money has been so tight during the pandemic.
由于疫情期间资金非常紧张，全国各地的许多孩子都在降低、推迟或放弃大学计划。
I talked to one girl, Abigail, who took a job at Walmart's pharmacy to help her family, rather than go to community college.
我和一个名叫阿比盖尔的女孩交谈过，她在沃尔玛药房找到了一份工作来帮助家人，而不是去社区大学。
And now she was like, all right, she's making money.
现在她就像，好吧，她正在赚钱。
Why change?
为什么要改变？
I do think about college a lot still.
我仍然经常想起大学。
Maybe my life would be different, but I kind of like it how it is now.
也许我的生活会有所不同，但我有点喜欢现在的样子。
You kind of just realize that I like this lifestyle, and I don't really feel comfortable going with something I don't know like college.
你只是意识到我喜欢这种生活方式，而我对像大学这样我不知道的事情感到不舒服。
But if I like how I am right now and the money I'm making right now, then I shouldn't really go.
但如果我喜欢我现在的样子和我现在赚的钱，那么我就不应该真的去。
So this fall, expect some schools to see a small increase in students like Daniela, but the overall number of students like her going to college next year probably will drop.
因此，今年秋天，预计一些学校像丹妮拉这样的学生人数会小幅增加，但明年像她这样上大学的学生总数可能会下降。
Calling around to admissions directors, one of the other things I was interested in was most of the best schools in the country were used to using the SAT as this tool to figure out who they were going to admit.
打电话给招生主任后，我感兴趣的另一件事是，国内大多数最好的学校都习惯使用 SAT 作为确定他们要录取的学生的工具。
For years, these schools have resisted calls to change that.
多年来，这些学校一直抵制改变这一现状的呼吁。
So what was it like for them this year to do the jobs without it?
那么今年他们在没有它的情况下完成工作感觉如何？
The answer, of course, varied from school to school.
当然，不同学校的答案各不相同。
Jon Boeckenstedt, who runs admissions at Oregon State University, has watched and written about the politics of test optional for years.
俄勒冈州立大学招生负责人乔恩·博肯施泰特 (Jon Boeckenstedt) 多年来一直关注并撰写有关考试可选政治的文章。
He likes test optional.
他喜欢选择性测试。
In his career, he's taken two schools test optional.
在他的职业生涯中，他参加过两所学校的可选考试。
He says, this year, for many of his peers, he thinks it's a relief to have it gone.
他说，今年，对于他的许多同行来说，他认为它的消失是一种解脱。
One of the ways that their schools were always judged was by their SAT scores, when the SAT scores are published each year in places like the US News and World Report Ranking of Best Colleges.
评判学校的方式之一就是 SAT 成绩，每年 SAT 成绩都会发布在《美国新闻与世界报道》最佳大学排名等地方。
Yeah, I think if you talk to admissions people, they will say they're happy to be rid of the test.
是的，我想如果你和招生人员交谈，他们会说他们很高兴取消考试。
Because it allows them to make decisions free of that albatross hanging around their neck.
因为它可以让他们在做出决定时摆脱挂在脖子上的沉重负担。
They don't have to worry about the average test score going down.
他们不必担心平均考试成绩下降。
They can find students who are interesting and who would bring something really valuable to the campus, but may not have that stellar score.
他们可以找到有趣的、能为校园带来真正有价值的东西的学生，但可能没有那么出色的分数。
In that sense, he says the pandemic let some admissions people get away with something they'd wanted to do for a while-- to ditch the SATs.
从这个意义上说，他说，疫情让一些招生人员放弃了他们长期以来想做的事情——放弃 SAT 考试。
Of course, lots of admissions directors did not see the SAT as an albatross.
当然，很多招生主管并不认为 SAT 是一个沉重的负担。
They saw it as valuable and helpful as they made their decisions.
他们认为它在他们做出决定时有价值且有帮助。
One person like that is the head of Undergraduate Admissions at Yale, Jeremiah Quinlan.
耶鲁大学本科生招生负责人耶利米·昆兰(Jeremiah Quinlan)就是这样的人。
He was lucid and unapologetic in listing the merits of the SAT in admissions at Yale.
他清晰且毫无歉意地列出了 SAT 在耶鲁大学招生中的优点。
He says because they've got people applying from all kinds of schools all over the world--
他说，因为他们有来自世界各地各类学校的申请者——
It's useful to have something that's consistent among applicants, even when we're aware of how limited and imperfect that metric can be, AKA the SAT or the ACT.
即使我们意识到该指标（又名 SAT 或 ACT）有多么有限和不完美，在申请者之间拥有一致的东西还是很有用的。
It could be especially valuable since our internal research-- we look at these things regularly-- show that the tests are predictive of Yale performance above and beyond high school GPA.
它可能特别有价值，因为我们的内部研究（我们定期查看这些事情）表明，这些测试可以预测耶鲁大学的表现高于高中 GPA。
He means, in other words, even though studies show that in general, at most colleges, your high school GPA is a better predictor of how you do, with the particular population of students they have at Yale, he says, SAT predicts better how they do in their first year and over four years.
换句话说，他的意思是，尽管研究表明，一般来说，在大多数大学，你的高中 GPA 可以更好地预测你的表现，但对于耶鲁大学特定的学生群体来说，SAT 可以更好地预测他们在第一年和四年后的表现。
And it is often common that strong test scores helped boost the case of a student from an underrepresented background, who doesn't have other strong and compelling elements in their file, and elevate them in the committee's eyes because the testing is the data point that sort of affirms their ability to do well on a college campus.
通常情况下，优秀的考试成绩有助于提升来自代表性不足的背景的学生的情况，这些学生的档案中没有其他强大而引人注目的元素，并提升了他们在委员会眼中的地位，因为测试是肯定他们在大学校园表现良好的能力的数据点。
He argues that at Yale, they have figured out a way to keep using the SAT, but still increase the diversity of their first year class.
他认为，在耶鲁大学，他们已经找到了一种继续使用 SAT 考试的方法，但仍然增加了一年级班级的多样性。
In the last eight years, they've gone from 12% low income students to 21% and 12% first generation students to 19%.
在过去的八年里，低收入学生的比例从 12% 增加到 21%，第一代学生的比例从 12% 增加到 19%。
Right now, at the point of the year that we are in right now, we are coming to the end of the selection process at most top schools around the country.
现在，在我们现在所处的一年中，我们全国大多数顶尖学校的选拔过程即将结束。
They usually send out decisions to students by the end of March.
他们通常会在三月底之前向学生发出决定。
Yale saw over 11,000 more applicants than last year.
耶鲁大学的申请人数比去年增加了 11,000 多人。
Quinlan says they've been working six and seven days a week to get to them all.
昆兰说，他们每周工作六七天才能把所有这些都处理完。
It's also a more diverse pool of applicants than in the past.
与过去相比，申请人群体也更加多样化。
But whether or not that will translate to what the overall admissions outcomes are still remains to be seen.
但这是否会转化为整体招生结果仍有待观察。
Do you feel like not having the SAT is actually giving you access to students that you wouldn't have had access to?
你是否觉得没有 SAT 考试实际上让你接触到了你本来无法接触到的学生？
And you feel like, oh, there's a plus sign to it also.
你会觉得，哦，它还有一个加号。
Yes, but I'll have more to say about that when we get through the process and we can actually see whether or not those students are rising in our pool and getting admitted, and they're ultimately coming to Yale.
是的，但当我们完成这个过程时，我会对此有更多的话要说，我们实际上可以看到这些学生是否在我们的人才库中崛起并被录取，以及他们最终是否会来到耶鲁大学。
But I think it is clear that there are students who are in our pool this year who would not have been in our pool previously because of our test optional policies.
但我认为很明显，今年在我们的人才库中的一些学生由于我们的考试可选政策而以前不会在我们的人才库中。
I think the big question on a lot of the schools that suddenly went test optional this year was, how hard would this be to do their jobs without the SATs, where they come out of the process confident that they had chosen the best students for their schools?
我认为今年许多突然选择考试的学校面临的一个大问题是，如果没有 SAT 考试，他们的工作会有多困难，他们在整个过程中自信地为自己的学校选择了最好的学生？
The nonprofit that does the other big standardized test, the ACT test, did a survey of admissions and enrollment directors asking about this.
进行另一项大型标准化考试 ACT 考试的非营利组织对招生和招生主管进行了一项调查，询问了这一问题。
A third of them said going test optional this year made admissions decisions highly or extremely difficult.
其中三分之一的人表示，今年的选择性考试使录取决定变得非常困难或极其困难。
Of course, that means 2/3 did not see it that way.
当然，这意味着 2/3 的人不这么认为。
The admissions directors that I talked to all said, wasn't so bad.
我采访过的招生主任都说，情况还不错。
If anything, it proved to them that doing admissions without the SATs was manageable, like they could do it and find students they were happy with.
如果说有什么不同的话，那就是它向他们证明了，在没有 SAT 考试的情况下进行招生是可以管理的，就像他们可以做到并找到他们满意的学生一样。
Again, Jeremiah Quinlan from Yale.
再次是来自耶鲁大学的耶利米·昆兰 (Jeremiah Quinlan)。
And I can say that it has not been as disruptive as we had thought it was going to be.
我可以说它并没有像我们想象的那样具有破坏性。
We have found that if you just spend a little bit more time looking at the transcript, the essays, letters of recommendation, or even an interview, you can find evidence of academic preparation or curiosity or excitement or fit for Yale that can make us confident in our ability to admit the right type of students.
我们发现，如果您多花一点时间查看成绩单、论文、推荐信，甚至面试，您就可以找到学术准备、好奇心、兴奋或适合耶鲁的证据，这可以让我们对招收合适类型学生的能力充满信心。
One thing on applications that became a lot more important to the admissions people I talked to, now that they didn't have the SATs, seeing the rigor of a student's curriculum, like how many advanced placement classes did they take, that kind of thing.
关于申请的一件事对于我采访过的招生人员来说变得更加重要，因为他们没有 SAT 考试，了解学生课程的严格性，比如他们参加了多少个先修课程，诸如此类的事情。
And what did they get in those classes?
他们在这些课程中得到了什么？
Understandable, of course, but it obviously gave a boost to students from high schools with more resources that offer lots of advanced classes.
当然，这是可以理解的，但这显然为高中生提供了更多资源，提供了大量高级课程。
As for what's going to happen after the pandemic, will schools go back to requiring the SAT, several admissions directors that I talked to said that it was going to be hard to go back to the way things were.
至于疫情过后，学校会不会重新要求SAT考试，我采访过的几位招生主任都表示，很难再回到原来的状态了。
They thought their schools might have to stay test optional just to compete with all the other schools that will stay test optional.
他们认为他们的学校可能必须保留考试选择性，只是为了与所有其他保留考试选择性的学校竞争。
The 900-pound gorilla at the table on that one is the University of California, whose Board of Regents seems very committed to not going back to the SAT.
桌子上那只重 900 磅的大猩猩是加州大学，该大学的董事会似乎非常致力于不再参加 SAT 考试。
To attract California students who might decide not to take the test or to compete with the University of California for the best students, one admissions director said he might have to stay test optional.
为了吸引那些可能决定不参加考试或与加州大学竞争最优秀学生的加州学生，一位招生主任表示，他可能必须保留考试的选择性。
Though, on the flip side, Jon Boeckenstedt thinks maybe some elite schools will see advantages in going back to the SAT.
不过，另一方面，Jon Boeckenstedt 认为也许一些精英学校会看到重新参加 SAT 考试的优势。
So there's reputational benefits to it.
所以它有声誉上的好处。
You must be really good because you're hard to get into because your test scores suggest that.
你一定非常优秀，因为你很难被录取，因为你的考试成绩表明了这一点。
Also he told Paul some schools like the SATs because they need students who can pay full tuition, and high SAT scores give them the reason to pick those kids over others.
他还告诉保罗，有些学校喜欢 SAT，因为他们需要能够支付全额学费的学生，而 SAT 高分让他们有理由选择这些孩子而不是其他孩子。
And it gives them a justification for it.
这给了他们这样做的理由。
But you're saying it's a justification because it's hard to say that out loud, but it's easy to say we need test scores.
但你说这是一个理由，因为很难大声说出来，但很容易说我们需要考试成绩。
It's easy to say we want test scores.
说我们想要考试成绩很容易。
It's hard to say we would prefer to have 60% of our students not receive financial aid.
很难说我们希望 60% 的学生不接受经济援助。
We invited the nonprofit that runs the SATs, the College Board, for an interview about their future in a post-pandemic world.
我们邀请了负责 SAT 考试的非营利组织美国大学理事会 (College Board) 接受采访，探讨他们在疫情后世界的未来。
They declined, but sent a written statement saying the College Board supports schools that decided to go test optional and stating also, quote, "When used in context, test scores can help admissions officers diversify campus and set students up for success when they arrive." It's clear, however this shakes out, the SATs and ACTs are going to emerge from the pandemic substantially weaker than they were before, like football teams that lost tons of yardage that they may or may not regain.
他们拒绝了，但发表了一份书面声明，称大学理事会支持决定进行可选考试的学校，并引用“在上下文中使用时，考试成绩可以帮助招生人员实现校园多元化，并为学生在入学时取得成功做好准备。”很明显，无论结果如何，SAT 和 ACT 考试在疫情过后将比以前大幅削弱，就像足球队失去了大量码数，但可能无法恢复。
In that survey of colleges that the SAT's competitor, the ACT test, published this month, half the schools that went test optional because of COVID said that they would be unlikely to go back to requiring SAT or ACT scores.
在本月发布的针对 SAT 竞争对手 ACT 考试的大学调查中，因新冠疫情而选择参加选择性考试的学校中有一半表示，他们不太可能重新要求 SAT 或 ACT 成绩。
In the end, the main thing that will probably determine whether schools go back to requiring the SAT will be how the students perform, who they chose without SATs.
最后，决定学校是否重新要求 SAT 考试的主要因素可能是学生的表现，以及他们在没有 SAT 的情况下选择的学生。
Will more of them drop out?
会不会有更多人退出？
Will their grades be lower?
他们的成绩会更低吗？
One of the things I learned when I was calling around to admissions directors is that whatever the studies say about how good grades are at predicting who's going to do well in college, lots of them still trust the SATs and find them useful.
当我打电话给招生主管时，我了解到的一件事是，无论研究如何证明成绩如何预测谁会在大学取得好成绩，很多人仍然相信 SAT 并发现它们很有用。
One told me he definitely was worried that the students he was choosing without the SATs would not succeed at his school.
有人告诉我，他肯定担心他选择的没有参加 SAT 考试的学生不会在他的学校取得成功。
And in their jobs, admissions directors are evaluated on whether the students they select stay in school and graduate.
在工作中，招生主任会根据他们选择的学生是否留在学校并毕业进行评估。
Coming up, a glimpse at a very different way to run a college.
接下来，我们将看到一种截然不同的大学管理方式。
And as part of it, letting in tons of students without looking at their SATs, that's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio, when our program continues.
作为其中的一部分，当我们的节目继续进行时，芝加哥公共广播电台将在不看 SAT 成绩的情况下让大量学生入场。
It's This American Life.
这就是美国生活。
I'm Ira Glass.
我是艾拉·格拉斯。
Today's show, The Campus Tour Has Been Cancelled.
今天的演出“校园之旅”已取消。
With college admissions all jumbled up this year, thanks to the pandemic, we're doing an episode today about one of the biggest changes that's come as part of it.
由于大流行，今年的大学招生一团糟，我们今天要做一集，讲述其中最大的变化之一。
Most schools around the country, including most of the top schools-- for now anyway-- have stopped requiring the SAT and ACT tests in admissions.
全国大多数学校，包括大多数顶尖学校——至少目前来说——已经不再要求招生时提供 SAT 和 ACT 考试。
I co-reported today's program with reporter Paul Tough.
我与记者保罗·托夫共同报道了今天的节目。
So far in our program, we've been talking about why this is such a big deal, what its impact might be.
到目前为止，在我们的计划中，我们一直在讨论为什么这是一件大事，它可能会产生什么影响。
And in this last part of the show, we're going to turn to the future, or anyway, a picture of one possible future.
在节目的最后一部分，我们将转向未来，或者无论如何，一幅可能的未来的图景。
We've arrived at Act Two of our program.
我们已经到了节目的第二幕了。
Act Two, A World Without the Need for Number Two Pencils.
第二幕，一个不需要二号铅笔的世界。
So if you want to imagine what college admissions might look like without the SAT being required, one place you could go is the University of Texas at Austin.
因此，如果你想想象在不需要 SAT 考试的情况下大学录取会是什么样子，你可以去的地方之一是德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校。
UT Austin is the flagship school of the Texas system, one of the top ranked public universities in the country.
德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校是德克萨斯州系统的旗舰学校，是全美排名最高的公立大学之一。
And since 1998, because of a state law, they've been doing something at UT that no other big university in the country does.
自 1998 年以来，根据州法律，他们在 UT 做了国内其他大型大学没有做的事情。
Every year, they admit most of their freshman class based strictly on student's class rank-- who has the highest grades in their high school-- without paying attention to their SAT scores at all.
每年，他们都会严格根据学生的班级排名（高中成绩最高的学生）录取大部分新生，根本不关注他们的 SAT 成绩。
This law is known as the Top 10% Rule because the way it worked when they started was that if you were in the top 10% of your high school class, you were automatically admitted to UT Austin.
这条法律被称为前 10% 规则，因为它开始时的运作方式是，如果你在高中班级中名列前 10%，你就会自动被 UT 奥斯汀分校录取。
Since then, the percentage of students has gone down.
从那时起，学生的比例就下降了。
Now it is the top 6% of your class, but it works the same.
现在是你们班前 6%，但效果还是一样。
It doesn't matter what you get in your SAT.
SAT 成绩并不重要。
If you're in the top of your class, you're in.
如果你在班上名列前茅，那么你就进入了。
So what you end up with is the top students from rich suburban high schools around Dallas and rural towns in West Texas and Latino majority schools in the Rio Grande Valley.
因此，您最终会得到来自达拉斯周围富裕郊区高中和德克萨斯州西部乡村城镇以及格兰德河谷拉丁裔多数学校的顶尖学生。
And it makes for a very different freshman class at UT than you would see at most state flagship colleges.
这使得 UT 的新生班级与大多数州立旗舰学院的新生班级截然不同。
And it also makes it an especially interesting place to ask a question that's relevant now as we contemplate whether to bring back the SAT after the pandemic.
当我们考虑是否在疫情结束后恢复 SAT 考试时，这也使得它成为一个特别有趣的地方，可以提出一个与现在相关的问题。
What happens if you just ignore students' test scores?
如果你忽略学生的考试成绩会发生什么？
What happens if you admit students with great grades from a variety of high schools who do well in the classroom, but not on the SAT?
如果您录取了来自不同高中的成绩优异、课堂表现出色但 SAT 成绩不佳的学生，会发生什么情况？
Students like Daniela.
像丹妮拉这样的学生。
Well, it turns out admitting students based only on their grades, their class rank from high schools all over the state, makes UT a very different university from others in some significant and interesting ways.
事实证明，仅根据全州高中的成绩和班级排名录取学生，使得 UT 在一些重要且有趣的方面成为一所与其他大学截然不同的大学。
Paul explains.
保罗解释道。
When I was reporting my book, I spent a lot of time at UT, and I met a lot of students there who'd been admitted with excellent high school grades and lower test scores.
当我报道我的书时，我在UT花了很多时间，在那里我遇到了很多以优异的高中成绩和较低的考试成绩被录取的学生。
Ivonne I met on the first day of her freshman calculus class.
我是在伊冯娜新生微积分课的第一天认识的。
She was from the west side of San Antonio, a neighborhood where no one had much money, a high school where teachers kept leaving in the middle of the year.
她来自圣安东尼奥西区，那是一个没有多少钱的社区，一所高中的老师经常在年中离开。
In many ways, her story was just like Daniela's.
在很多方面，她的故事就像丹妮拉的一样。
She was number two in her class, but her SAT score was only so-so.
她在班上排名第二，但 SAT 成绩却很一般。
In her case, though, her test score didn't make her question her identity and her self-worth, like it did for Daniela.
然而，就她而言，她的考试成绩并没有让她质疑自己的身份和自我价值，就像丹妮拉那样。
She just figured it was her high school.
她以为那是她的高中。
I realized that it's a reflection of my educational system, the one that I come from, so for my high school.
我意识到这反映了我的教育体系，我的教育体系，以及我的高中。
And I think a lot of us, we knew.
我想我们很多人都知道。
We talked about our school and how it was really bad.
我们谈论了我们的学校以及它是如何非常糟糕的。
And this is our reality.
这就是我们的现实。
This is kind of what we have to deal with, how we knew our education was terrible.
这就是我们必须处理的问题，我们如何知道我们的教育很糟糕。
After she saw her SAT score, Ivonne didn't apply to a lot of her first choice schools, just like Daniela.
在看到自己的 SAT 成绩后，Ivonne 没有像 Daniela 一样申请很多她的首选学校。
But unlike Daniela, Ivonne knew she had this safety net.
但与丹妮拉不同的是，伊冯知道她有这张安全网。
The SAT was not going to derail her college plans.
SAT 考试不会破坏她的大学计划。
It was like, no matter the consequences of this exam, I know UT is going to take me because my ranking is good.
就像，无论这次考试的结果如何，我都知道UT会录取我，因为我的排名很好。
So it's fine.
所以没关系。
I still have UT.
我还有UT。
I'll go to UT.
我要去UT。
And she didn't see UT as a consolation prize.
她并不认为 UT 是一个安慰奖。
She knew it was a great school.
她知道这是一所很棒的学校。
Her older sister was going there.
她姐姐要去那里。
It seemed exciting.
看起来很令人兴奋。
But arriving at UT was a shock to our system, especially Calculus.
但到达 UT 对我们的系统来说是一个冲击，尤其是微积分。
Her professor was a man named Uri Treisman, a well-known math educator.
她的教授是一位名叫乌里·特雷斯曼（Uri Treisman）的人，他是一位著名的数学教育家。
And his strategy is to start the first class of freshman calculus with these really high level mathematical proofs.
他的策略是用这些真正高水平的数学证明来开始第一堂新生微积分课。
So everyone can feel confused together, like a bonding exercise.
所以每个人都会感到困惑，就像一个联结练习。
It freaked Ivonne out.
这把伊冯吓坏了。
She was a math major, and she'd taken AP Calculus, but she says her math teachers in high school didn't really seemed to know what they were doing.
她主修数学，学过 AP 微积分，但她说她高中的数学老师似乎并不真正知道他们在做什么。
And when I met her that first day of freshman calculus, she was totally lost.
当我在新生微积分的第一天见到她时，她完全迷失了。
Because I'd never seen proofs, I'd never seen calculus taught in that way.
因为我从未见过证明，所以我从未见过以这种方式教授微积分。
So I would fail almost every exam and just struggle every time it was-- calculus made me doubt my ability to complete college so many times.
因此，我几乎每次考试都会失败，而且每次考试都会陷入困境——微积分让我多次怀疑自己是否有能力完成大学学业。
When the Top 10% Rule was introduced in Texas in the late '90s, this was what people were worried about.
上世纪 90 年代末，当德克萨斯州推出“前 10% 规则”时，人们担心的就是这个。
Good students from subpar high schools would be out of their depth at a rigorous place like UT Austin-- basically, the same worry that a lot of admissions officers today are having, now that they're admitting students without SAT scores.
来自低于标准高中的优秀学生在像德州大学奥斯汀分校这样严格的地方可能会超出自己的能力——基本上，这与今天许多招生人员的担忧相同，因为他们录取没有 SAT 成绩的学生。
They fear students will be like Ivonne was when she first got to UT.
他们担心学生们会像伊冯娜刚到德州大学时那样。
And there's some data to justify those fears.
有一些数据可以证明这些担忧是合理的。
Students like Ivonne, students where there's a real mismatch between their good high school grades and their lower SATs, they usually do quite well when they get to good colleges.
像 Ivonne 这样的学生，他们的高中成绩与较低的 SAT 成绩之间存在着真正的不匹配，但当他们进入好大学时，他们通常表现得很好。
But their graduation rates are, on average, slightly lower than students with higher SATs.
但平均而言，他们的毕业率略低于 SAT 成绩较高的学生。
And for some of them, the transition to college can be rough.
对于他们中的一些人来说，向大学的过渡可能会很艰难。
Ivonne says for her, the problem was that she never learned in high school how to study.
伊冯说，对她来说，问题是她在高中时从未学会如何学习。
Because I never had to study for high school, and high school was never challenging academically.
因为我从来没有必要为高中学习，而高中在学业上从来没有挑战性。
So when you first got there, did you feel like there was sort of-- I don't know-- two tiers of students, like the ones who were coming from backgrounds like yours, where their high schools weren't the greatest, and others who had had sort of perfect academic preparation?
所以，当你第一次到达那里时，你是否觉得那里有——我不知道——两类学生，比如来自像你这样背景的学生，他们的高中不是最好的，而其他学生则有完美的学术准备？
I think you could kind of just tell by what some people were wearing.
我想你可以通过一些人的穿着来判断。
By the way, this interview was over the internet.
顺便说一句，这次采访是通过互联网进行的。
And the sound quality wasn't the best.
而且音质也不是最好的。
So some girls, they would wear Uggs.
所以有些女孩，她们会穿Uggs。
I obviously knew I couldn't afford Uggs.
我显然知道我买不起 Uggs。
And then that's when I would start asking them questions like, oh, what high school did you go?
然后我就会开始问他们这样的问题，哦，你去了哪所高中？
So I would bring up the past to see-- I guess, in a sense, make myself understand it's OK.
所以我会提起过去来看看——我想，从某种意义上来说，让自己明白这是可以的。
It's like, I'm struggling now because I come from a bad high school, and they are doing better because they were from a better high school.
就像，我现在很挣扎，因为我来自一所糟糕的高中，而他们做得更好，因为他们来自一所更好的高中。
This was exactly the situation that her calculus professor, Uri Treisman, was focused on-- students who feel like they're starting from way behind.
这正是她的微积分教授 Uri Treisman 所关注的情况——那些感觉自己远远落后的学生。
Here's one of the things he would do.
这是他要做的事情之一。
Every weekend, he would have these long office hours where these students would come in and talk.
每个周末，他都会有很长的办公时间，让这些学生进来交谈。
I sat in on a lot of these sessions back in 2017.
2017 年，我参加了很多此类会议。
And they weren't anything like other professor's office hours.
而且他们的办公时间与其他教授的办公时间完全不同。
He and his students didn't really talk much about math.
他和他的学生并没有过多谈论数学。
Yeah.
是的。
Uri Treisman You are working so hard in this class.
Uri Treisman 你在这堂课上学习得很努力。
Yeah.
是的。
Uri Treisman I mean, are you getting any sleep?
尤里·特雷斯曼 我的意思是，你睡了吗？
I feel like sometimes it's more than most, but not the best.
我觉得有时它比大多数都好，但不是最好的。
This was October.
这是十月。
Ivonne was about halfway through freshman calculus.
伊冯娜大一微积分已经学习了一半。
She was still feeling totally out of her depth.
她仍然感觉完全超出了自己的能力范围。
And at a lot of colleges, what they do with students like that is put them in a remedial class, something they can handle.
在很多大学，他们对这样的学生所做的就是让他们参加补习班，这是他们可以处理的。
Treisman does the opposite.
特雷斯曼则恰恰相反。
It's a method he came up with decades ago when he was teaching at Berkeley.
这是他几十年前在伯克利任教时提出的方法。
He noticed that when struggling students were put into remedial math, they usually never caught up.
他注意到，当学习困难的学生接受数学补习时，他们通常永远跟不上。
But if you took the same students and put them in a challenging program, pushed them to see how well they could perform, they would rise to the occasion.
但如果你让同样的学生参加一个具有挑战性的项目，督促他们看看自己能表现得有多好，他们就会适应这种情况。
First, though, there was usually a lot of anguish.
不过，首先通常会有很多痛苦。
And at UT, freshman calculus was in large part about managing students' anxiety and self-doubt.
在德州大学，新生微积分在很大程度上是为了管理学生的焦虑和自我怀疑。
So Treisman's office hours were a combination of bonding session, therapy, and pep talk.
因此，特雷斯曼的办公时间结合了联系、治疗和鼓舞士气的谈话。
You're going to be successful in here.
你一定会在这里取得成功。
You ended up in a really honors calculus, super duper difficult.
你最终得到了一个非常荣誉的微积分，超级困难。
Yeah.
是的。
Uri Treisman And most people would run away.
尤里·特雷斯曼（Uri Treisman） 大多数人都会逃跑。
You are feeling tremendously stressed, but you're not running away.
你感到巨大的压力，但你并没有逃避。
I still love math, even though I feel like I'm struggling with it.
我仍然热爱数学，尽管我觉得我在数学上很挣扎。
I remember my teacher once said, I'm very stubborn.
我记得我的老师曾经说过，我很固执。
So I feel like I still want to stay in something that I--
所以我觉得我仍然想留在某件事上——
Now this is a key characteristic of mathematicians-- stubbornness.
这就是数学家的一个关键特征——固执。
We don't give up.
我们不会放弃。
But I'm worried that I'm pushing you in a way where you are losing self-confidence.
但我担心我会迫使你失去自信。
Treisman tells her he knows she's in a class with students who already mastered this material back in high school.
特雷斯曼告诉她，他知道她所在的班级的学生在高中时就已经掌握了这些材料。
You are going to catch up with them in a few weeks, in a month.
几周后、一个月后你就会赶上他们。
But because you always did well and now you're struggling, you're saying to yourself, maybe I'm not good enough to be here.
但因为你一直表现得很好，现在却陷入了困境，你对自己说，也许我不够好，不能来到这里。
Is that what's in your head?
你脑子里就是这么想的吗？
It pops up once in a while that I feel like-- I don't know-- it is stressful.
偶尔会突然出现，我感觉——我不知道——压力很大。
Because I feel like I'm falling behind because I'm not getting the full concept.
因为我觉得我落后了，因为我没有得到完整的概念。
But I know if I put my effort, I eventually will.
但我知道，如果我付出努力，我最终会做到的。
But I feel like by that time, it would be too late if that makes sense.
但我觉得到那时，如果这有意义的话就太晚了。
It won't be too late.
还不会太晚。
You have to trust me.
你必须相信我。
Ivonne wanted to trust Professor Treisman, but she didn't feel like she was catching up, not at all.
伊冯想要相信特雷斯曼教授，但她不觉得自己正在赶上，一点也不。
On the first big test, Ivonne got a 67.
在第一次大考中，伊冯娜得到了 67 分。
On the first midterm, she did worse, a 59.
第一个期中考试，她的成绩更差，只得了 59 分。
With the second midterm coming up in the middle of November, Ivonne was studying like crazy.
十一月中旬第二次期中考试即将来临，伊冯娜正在疯狂学习。
And the night before the exam there was a moment when the puzzle pieces briefly seemed to be fitting into place.
考试前一天晚上，有那么一刻，拼图似乎暂时拼凑到位。
I talked to her later that week.
那周晚些时候我和她谈过。
I sat down, and I was like, OK, I can see the logic, and I can do it.
我坐下来，心想，好吧，我能明白其中的逻辑，我能做到。
And then sometime later on that night, I couldn't do it anymore.
那天晚上晚些时候，我再也做不到了。
The problems that I did before became harder.
我以前做的问题变得更难了。
I could--
我可以——
Oh, you looked back at what you used to know, and suddenly you were going backwards.
哦，你回头看看你以前所知道的，突然你就倒退了。
Yeah, I felt like I was moving backwards.
是的，我感觉自己在倒退。
It's like a horror movie.
这就像一部恐怖电影。
Ivonne And then I was like, OK, don't do this to yourself, so I went to sleep.
伊冯然后我就想，好吧，别这样对自己，所以我就去睡觉了。
I slept it off.
我把它睡掉了。
But then I woke up and I woke up feeling like it was gone.
但后来我醒了，醒来时感觉它消失了。
I think it was the stress probably.
我想这可能是压力造成的。
That's why I started crying on the bus.
这就是为什么我在公共汽车上开始哭泣。
Crying on the what?
哭什么？
Ivonne On the bus.
伊冯 在公交车上。
I was coming over here, and I'm like, I don't feel ready.
我正要来这里，但我觉得我还没准备好。
I really can't take it.
我实在是受不了了。
She got off the bus, and she was walking through campus on her way to the midterm and her phone rang.
她下了车，在去参加期中考试的路上穿过校园时，她的电话响了。
It was her mom back home in San Antonio.
那是她在圣安东尼奥老家的妈妈。
And she was like, have you been crying?
她说，你哭过吗？
Why does it sound like you're crying?
为什么听起来像在哭？
And then I told her, I don't feel prepared.
然后我告诉她，我觉得还没有准备好。
And she's like, oh, it's OK.
她说，哦，没关系。
You can come back to UTSA.
你可以回到UTSA。
UTSA is the University of Texas in San Antonio, less demanding than UT Austin and less prestigious.
UTSA 是位于圣安东尼奥的德克萨斯大学，比 UT 奥斯汀要求低，声誉也低。
So I guess that made it worse.
所以我想这让情况变得更糟。
I actually hung up on her.
我实际上挂断了她的电话。
Ivonne sat down on a bench outside of the lecture hall where the exam was going to happen, looking miserable.
伊冯坐在即将举行考试的报告厅外的长凳上，看上去很痛苦。
The teaching assistant, a woman named Erica Winterer, came over to check on her.
助教，一位名叫艾丽卡·温特（Erica Winterer）的女士过来查看她的情况。
The two of them talked it over, and Erica told her she should just take the exam later in the week.
两人商量了一下，艾丽卡告诉她，她应该在本周晚些时候参加考试。
I guess because I looked like I was crying, and I looked hysterical.
我想是因为我看起来像是在哭泣，而且看起来歇斯底里。
And so Professor Treisman emailed me that day.
特雷斯曼教授那天给我发了电子邮件。
He's like, I know, I heard what happened.
他就像，我知道，我听到发生了什么事。
And honestly, I didn't reply because I feel ashamed.
老实说，我没有回复，因为我感到羞耻。
Because I feel like they're putting in all this effort, and I feel like I'm just not meeting up to them, if that makes sense.
因为我觉得他们付出了所有的努力，而我觉得我只是没有达到他们的要求，如果这有意义的话。
So I guess, I don't only feel like I'm failing myself.
所以我想，我不仅觉得自己失败了。
I feel like I'm failing them.
我觉得我辜负了他们。
She got a 55 on that midterm.
期中考试她得了 55 分。
Things seemed to be heading in the wrong direction, and the final was coming up.
事情似乎正朝着错误的方向发展，而决赛即将来临。
In Professor Treisman's calculus classes, there was always a lot of pressure before the final, because if you did well, that grade would replace all of your previous grades in the course.
在特雷斯曼教授的微积分课上，期末考试之前总是有很大的压力，因为如果你做得好，那个成绩将取代你之前在课程中的所有成绩。
But if Ivonne wasn't able to turn things around in the final, she'd end up with a D or an F in the course.
但如果伊冯娜无法在决赛中扭转局面，她最终的成绩将是 D 或 F。
She'd probably have to switch majors.
她可能不得不换专业。
One of the things that makes the University of Texas interesting is that the kind of support Ivonne was getting from Erica and Professor Treisman was happening in different forms all over campus.
德克萨斯大学有趣的事情之一是，伊冯从埃里卡和特雷斯曼教授那里得到的支持在整个校园以不同的形式发生。
The person coordinating this was a science professor named David Laude.
协调此事的人是一位名叫大卫·劳德的科学教授。
He had started small, trying to help students who were failing his own introductory chemistry course, who often had significantly lower SAT scores.
他从小事做起，试图帮助那些未能通过他自己的化学入门课程的学生，这些学生的 SAT 成绩往往明显较低。
He created a special section for them with smaller classes, extra attention, kind of a school within a school on a sprawling campus of 40,000 students.
他为他们创建了一个特殊的区域，班级规模较小，受到额外关注，就像是拥有 40,000 名学生的广阔校园中的校中学校。
Just like Uri Treisman, he emphasized that this was not a remedial program.
就像乌里·特雷斯曼一样，他强调这不是一个补救计划。
These students took the same exams as everybody else, covered the same challenging material.
这些学生和其他人一样参加了同样的考试，涵盖了同样具有挑战性的材料。
And in the end, those students, even though, just looking at SAT distributions, were several hundred points lower on average, ended up getting exactly the same grades as the students in the larger course.
最终，尽管仅看 SAT 分布，这些学生的平均成绩低了几百分，但最终获得的成绩与较大课程的学生完全相同。
And I'm curious about at that moment, what you thought about those SAT scores.
我很好奇那一刻你对 SAT 成绩的看法。
I feel like there are a lot of science professors out there who look at a group that has lower SAT scores and just thinks, these kids are not as smart, right?
我觉得有很多科学教授看到 SAT 分数较低的群体，就会想，这些孩子没那么聪明，对吗？
That's measuring something real about them.
这是在衡量他们的真实情况。
Did you have that feeling?
你有这样的感觉吗？
What did you make of those low SAT scores?
你对 SAT 低分有何看法？
Well, as someone who earned one of those low SAT scores myself, it wasn't as if I was-- I think it's safe to say that my view of SAT scores and what they meant about an individual was probably different from a lot of folks.
好吧，作为一个自己获得 SAT 低分之一的人，我并不认为我是——我认为可以肯定地说，我对 SAT 分数及其对个人的意义的看法可能与很多人不同。
He grew up in a farm town, and when he got to college, he had no idea what he was doing.
他在一个农场小镇长大，当他上大学时，他不知道自己在做什么。
He almost dropped out his first year.
第一年他差点退学。
So he could relate.
所以他可以联系起来。
And in 2012, when he became a vice provost at UT, he took what he learned from helping his chemistry students, expanded it, and brought it to the entire campus-- peer mentors, study groups, counseling, summer orientations, tutoring centers.
2012年，当他成为德克萨斯大学副教务长时，他将自己从帮助化学学生中学到的知识进行扩展，并将其带到整个校园——同伴导师、学习小组、咨询、暑期培训、辅导中心。
He called it the kitchen sink approach.
他称之为厨房水槽方法。
And how much time it took was very different than what you might think.
所花费的时间与您想象的非常不同。
I don't think these students should be in a four-year program that isolates them from the rest of the campus.
我认为这些学生不应该参加一个将他们与校园其他人隔离的四年制课程。
My sense was give them a semester, maybe two, and then mainstream them so that by the time they're a sophomore in college, they really don't appear to be different from anybody else.
我的感觉是给他们一个学期，也许两个学期，然后将他们纳入主流，这样当他们成为大学二年级学生时，他们看起来真的和其他人没有什么不同。
Ivonne was placed into a couple of Laude's support programs when she enrolled at UT.
当伊冯娜 (Ivonne) 就读于 UT 时，她被安排参加了劳德 (Laude) 的几个支持项目。
And in calculus after her midterm breakdown, Erica, her TA, invited her to join an all-female study group she had set up.
在微积分方面，期中考试崩溃后，她的助教艾丽卡邀请她加入她成立的一个全女性学习小组。
They started meeting a couple of times a week in the library.
他们开始每周在图书馆见面几次。
OK, but I want to answer Ivonne's question.
好吧，但我想回答伊冯的问题。
Is U, right here in this integral, is U a constant or not?
在这个积分中，U 是常数吗？
That's Erica.
那是艾丽卡。
In these early sessions, they could spend an hour and a half on a single problem.
在这些早期会议中，他们可能会花一个半小时来解决一个问题。
There were a lot of long silences.
有很多长时间的沉默。
Why?
为什么？
Paul Tough No one wanted to be the first person to suggest a wrong answer.
Paul Tough 没有人愿意成为第一个提出错误答案的人。
You're just going to have to write things down that are wrong.
你只需要把错误的事情写下来。
You're going to be wrong in college so much more than you were in high school, and it's super annoying.
你在大学里犯的错误比在高中时要多得多，这非常烦人。
But then in one session, the light bulb went on, and Ivonne was the first one to get it.
但在一次治疗中，灯泡亮了，伊冯是第一个得到它的人。
Is that related to getting 2 over here?
这和拿2有关系吗？
What did we start with?
我们从什么开始？
Wait, yeah.
等等，是的。
Because you plug in I, and then you move the I over.
因为你插入 I，然后你把 I 移过来。
And then you divide it by 2, and then you get the 2 in front.
然后除以2，就得到前面的2。
It was one of the first times she made a suggestion in calculus all year.
这是她今年第一次在微积分方面提出建议。
As the study group continued, Ivonne started taking more chances, risking more wrong answers, growing more confident.
随着研究小组的继续进行，伊冯开始尝试更多的机会，冒着更多错误答案的风险，变得更加自信。
And things started to click just in time.
事情开始及时发生。
I saw her on the morning of the calculus final, and she looked happy.
我在微积分期末考试的那天早上见到了她，她看起来很高兴。
She told me she had gone back through the whole textbook over the weekend.
她告诉我她周末已经把整本教科书都复习完了。
And for the first time, she understood everything.
她第一次明白了一切。
I was like, wait, hold on, this makes sense.
我当时想，等等，等等，这是有道理的。
And I was like, OK, this relates to that and this to that.
我当时想，好吧，这与那相关，这与那相关。
So now I was able to relate later chapters to earlier chapters.
所以现在我能够将后面的章节与前面的章节联系起来。
Like, oh, it makes sense why we learned that in the beginning.
就像，哦，我们一开始就知道这一点是有道理的。
She was right to be excited.
她的兴奋是对的。
She aced the final, which meant she had an A in the course.
她在决赛中取得了好成绩，这意味着她在课程中获得了A。
She went on to advanced calculus the next semester and did well in that, too.
下学期她继续学习高级微积分，并且成绩也很好。
She went from failure and despair in October of her freshman year to being a successful math major by the end of May.
她从大一十月份的失败和绝望，到五月底成为一名成功的数学专业学生。
Remember David Laude's point that struggling freshmen don't need constant support over all four years of college, just a semester or two?
还记得大卫·劳德 (David Laude) 的观点，即苦苦挣扎的新生不需要在大学四年中持续获得支持，只需一两个学期即可吗？
That's what happened with Ivonne.
伊冯娜的遭遇就是如此。
Once things clicked for her in that calculus class, they never really unclicked.
一旦她在微积分课上遇到了问题，就再也不会真正放松下来。
She says once her courses got harder in junior and senior year, it didn't feel like classmates from better schools had an edge anymore.
她说，一旦她的课程在三年级和四年级变得更难，就感觉来自更好学校的同学不再有优势了。
It was equally hard for everybody.
这对每个人来说都同样困难。
She was contributing as much in study groups as anyone.
她在学习小组中的贡献和其他人一样多。
Ivonne's story is actually not that unusual.
伊冯娜的故事其实并不罕见。
There's an economist at Columbia University named Sandra Black, who has looked at the effect of the top 10% program at UT, not just on individual students, but on everybody.
哥伦比亚大学有一位名叫桑德拉·布莱克 (Sandra Black) 的经济学家，她研究了 UT 顶尖 10% 项目的影响，不仅对个别学生，而且对每个人。
She did this one study where she looked at students like Ivonne, students who got into UT only because of top 10.
她做了一项研究，观察了像 Ivonne 这样的学生，这些学生只是因为排名前十而进入 UT 的。
So this is the really interesting part, I think, or the really cool finding is that they do really well.
所以我认为这是非常有趣的部分，或者说非常酷的发现是他们做得非常好。
So, more likely to graduate with a four-year degree.
因此，更有可能获得四年制学位。
They do better in terms of earnings in the long run.
从长远来看，他们在收入方面做得更好。
And so, really, it seems like this concern, I think, that people have that these students are going to be unprepared really seems not to be an issue.
因此，我认为，人们担心这些学生会毫无准备，这似乎并不是一个问题。
They aren't out of their league.
他们并没有超出他们的范围。
The remarkable thing about this data is that it's all from the first years of top 10%, back before David Laude introduced his programs to the campus.
这些数据的显着之处在于，这些数据全部来自前 10% 的前几年，早在 David Laude 将他的项目引入校园之前。
These students are doing even better now.
这些学生现在做得更好了。
Sandra Black also did a study imagining how UT Austin and Texas A&M, the other state flagship, would change if they suddenly introduced a strict SAT cutoff to top 10%, rejecting students whose scores fell below a certain point.
桑德拉·布莱克（Sandra Black）还做了一项研究，设想如果德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校和德克萨斯农工大学（另一所州的旗舰学校）突然对 SAT 成绩前 10% 实行严格的限制，拒绝分数低于某一点的学生，他们将会如何改变。
She found that UT and A&M would have more kids graduating in four years, but only a few percent more.
她发现，四年后，UT 和 A&M 将会有更多的孩子毕业，但只增加了几个百分点。
But there'd be a big effect on diversity.
但这会对多样性产生很大影响。
Black and Hispanic students would go from 24% of the student body to 14%, and you'd lose 3/4 of the students who came from the lowest income schools.
黑人和西班牙裔学生将从占学生总数的 24% 增加到 14%，并且会失去来自收入最低学校的 3/4 学生。
So, the cost would be very high relative to the benefit.
因此，相对于收益来说，成本会非常高。
Ivonne is now a senior at UT.
Ivonne 现在是 UT 的大四学生。
She's planning to go to graduate school next year in data science.
她计划明年去读数据科学研究生。
A few weeks ago, she got into Harvard.
几周前，她进入了哈佛。
I have to admit, I don't think it's what I would have predicted for her during those dark days in freshman calculus.
我不得不承认，我不认为这是我在微积分新生的那些黑暗日子里为她所预测的。
Do you ever think about what would have happened if there was not a top 10% program where you would have gone, where you would have gotten in, how your life would be different?
你有没有想过，如果没有你会去的前 10% 项目，你会进入哪里，你的生活会有何不同？
Honestly, I think that's a really good question because I think my life would be very different because I think if top 10 was not a rule, I would have probably not applied to UT, not applied to universities.
老实说，我认为这是一个非常好的问题，因为我认为我的生活将会非常不同，因为我认为如果前十名不是一个规则，我可能不会申请 UT，不会申请大学。
I would have probably stayed home and applied to a community college.
我可能会留在家里申请社区大学。
If you look back to the moment right before Ivonne was admitted to the University of Texas, you can see the paths diverging in front of her.
如果你回顾伊冯娜被德克萨斯大学录取之前的那一刻，你会发现她面前的道路是分叉的。
One would have led her to community college in San Antonio.
其中之一可能会引导她进入圣安东尼奥的社区大学。
The other led her to graduate school at Harvard.
另一个引导她进入哈佛大学研究生院。
Right now, in admissions offices all over the country, they're finalizing their decisions.
目前，全国各地的招生办公室正在敲定他们的决定。
And for the first time, at hundreds of schools, the SAT won't be there to stop them from enrolling students like Ivonne, which means that next year, maybe, at least a few more students would get the chance to prove themselves the way she did.
这是第一次，在数百所学校中，SAT 不会阻止他们招收像 Ivonne 这样的学生，这意味着明年，也许至少会有更多的学生有机会像她一样证明自己。
Paul Tough, his book about the college admissions process, I cannot say enough about how much I liked it-- the stories of the people that he tells, but also the way that he lays out the data describing the big picture.
保罗·托夫（Paul Tough）是他关于大学招生过程的书，我无法用语言表达我有多喜欢它——他讲述的人们的故事，还有他列出描述大局的数据的方式。
It's called The Inequality Machine, How College Divides Us.
这本书的名字叫《不平等机器，大学如何分裂我们》。
[MUSIC - "POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE" BY EDWARD ELGAR, AMADEO LOPEZ]
[音乐 - 爱德华·埃尔加、阿马德奥·洛佩兹创作的《盛况与环境》]
Credits Ira Glass Our program was produced today by me and Elna Baker.
图片来源 Ira Glass 今天我们的节目是由我和 Elna Baker 制作的。
The people who put together our show today could Ben Calhoun, Dana Chivvis, Sean Cole, Aviva DeKornfeld, Hilary Elkins, Damien Graef, Seth Lind, Tobin Low, Miki Meek, Lina Misitzis, Stowe Nelson, Katherine Rae Mondo, Nadia Reiman, Ari Saperstein, Robyn Semien, Christopher Swetala, Matt Tierney, and Julie Whitaker.
今天的节目的制作人包括 Ben Calhoun、Dana Chivvis、Sean Cole、Aviva DeKornfeld、Hilary Elkins、Damien Graef、Seth Lind、Tobin Low、Miki Meek、Lina Misitzis、Stowe Nelson、Katherine Rae Mondo、Nadia Reiman、Ari Saperstein、Robyn Semien、Christopher Swetala、Matt Tierney 和 Julie Whitaker。
Our managing editor is Sarah Abdurrahman.
我们的总编辑是萨拉·阿卜杜拉赫曼 (Sarah Abdurrahman)。
Our senior editor is David Kestenbaum.
我们的高级编辑是大卫·凯斯滕鲍姆。
Our executive editor is Emanuele Berry.
我们的执行编辑是 Emanuele Berry。
Special thanks today to Nicole Hurd and the many College Advising Corps counselors and counselees who talked to us, Miranda Suarez from KERA who helped with the reporting, Steven Farmer, Ryan Hogan, Jared Cash, Kat Kouot, Tara Miller, Akil Bello, Kirk Brennan, Robert Schwartz, Christine Isborn, Amira Ringgold, Noor Gill, Kandace Lupercio, Janet Romero, Zach Bleemer, Matt Barnum, Regina Trevino, Eloy Oakley, Susan Pierson-Brown, Kelly Anderson, and Julie Snyder.
今天特别感谢妮可·赫德（Nicole Hurd）以及与我们交谈的许多大学咨询团辅导员和辅导员，来自 KERA 的米兰达·苏亚雷斯（Miranda Suarez）帮助进行了报道，史蒂文·法默（Steven Farmer），瑞安·霍根（Ryan Hogan），贾里德·卡什（Jared Cash），凯特·库奥特（Kat Kouot），塔拉·米勒（Tara Miller），阿基尔·贝洛（Akil Bello），柯克·布伦南（Kirk Brennan），罗伯特·施瓦茨（Robert Schwartz），克里斯汀·伊斯伯恩（Christine Isborn），阿米拉·林戈尔德（Amira Ringgold），努尔·吉尔（Noor Gill），坎迪斯·卢珀西奥（Kandace Lupercio），珍妮特·罗梅罗（Janet Romero），扎克·布莱默（Zach Bleemer），马特（Matt）巴纳姆、雷吉娜·特维诺、埃洛伊·奥克利、苏珊·皮尔森-布朗、凯利·安德森和朱莉·斯奈德。
Our website, thisamericanlife.org, where you can listen to our archive of 700 episodes for absolutely free.
我们的网站 thisamericanlife.org，您可以在其中完全免费收听我们存档的 700 集节目。
This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange.
《美国生活》由公共广播电台 PRX 向公共广播电台播出。
Thanks, as always, to our program's confounder, Mr. Torey Malatia.
一如既往地感谢我们计划的混杂者 Torey Malatia 先生。
He took one of those BuzzFeed quizzes, Which Character From Sex and the City Are You?
他参加了 BuzzFeed 的一项测验：你是《欲望都市》中的哪个角色？
It said he was Miranda, even though, of course, he always thought of himself as a Carrie.
上面说他是米兰达，当然，尽管他一直认为自己是嘉莉。
But that test was saying otherwise, you know?
但那个测试的结果却并非如此，你知道吗？
So when I got that test result, I was kind of questioning whether I was.
所以当我得到测试结果时，我有点怀疑自己是否是。
I'm Ira Glass.
我是艾拉·格拉斯。
Back next week with more stories of This American Life.
下周我们将带来更多《美国生活》的故事。
[MUSIC - "UNIVERSITY" BY THE WOOLEN MEN]
[音乐-羊毛人的“大学”]
This American Life This American Life is produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago and delivered to stations by PRX The Public Radio Exchange.
This American Life This American Life 与 WBEZ Chicago 合作制作，并由 PRX 公共广播电台传送到各电台。