????所有拼命請(qǐng)家教,、包裝自己孩子單薄簡(jiǎn)歷的家長(zhǎng)們請(qǐng)注意了：淡定。進(jìn)名牌大學(xué)并不能保證你的子女將獲得領(lǐng)導(dǎo)力,、成功人生或滾滾財(cái)源,。您對(duì)把孩子送進(jìn)常青藤之類名校的執(zhí)迷純屬誤入歧途,，而且對(duì)孩子前景的希望有可能要落空，這是《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》（New York Times）專欄作家弗蘭克?布魯尼的研究結(jié)論,。

????在其新著《好學(xué)校并非成才捷徑：給名校熱降溫》一書中,，布魯尼向大家展示了美國(guó)頂尖領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人的學(xué)歷，開篇就是財(cái)富美國(guó)500強(qiáng)企業(yè)首席執(zhí)行官的情況,。前十大首席執(zhí)行官并非哈佛或耶魯?shù)漠厴I(yè)生，而是分別來(lái)自阿肯色大學(xué),、德克薩斯大學(xué),、加州大學(xué)戴維斯分校、內(nèi)布拉斯加大學(xué),、奧本大學(xué),、德克薩斯A&M大學(xué)、通用汽車學(xué)院（現(xiàn)在的凱特琳大學(xué)）,、堪薩斯大學(xué)及密蘇里大學(xué)圣路易斯分校,。只有通用電氣的杰弗里?伊梅爾特?fù)碛谐Ｇ嗵倜５膶W(xué)歷——達(dá)特茅斯大學(xué)。

????布魯尼隨后又談到了白宮的歷任主人,，他們的名字通常都跟常青藤盟校聯(lián)系在一起,，尤其是耶魯大學(xué)。不過(guò),，他提醒大家,，奧巴馬在就讀哥倫比亞大學(xué)之前，上的是洛杉磯的西方學(xué)院,，而吉米?卡特在入讀美國(guó)海軍學(xué)院前,，分別就讀于喬治亞西南學(xué)院和喬治亞理工學(xué)院。羅納德?里根上的是伊利諾伊州尤里卡學(xué)院,；理查德?尼克松是在加州惠特學(xué)院拿的學(xué)士學(xué)位,；林登?貝恩斯?約翰遜上的是德州西南師范學(xué)院。當(dāng)然,，所有這些聽起來(lái)都很久遠(yuǎn),。

????但今天，美國(guó)也只有不到三分之一的參議員擁有常青藤本科學(xué)位,，只有四分之一的州長(zhǎng)本科就讀于名校,。而類似的比例也同樣適用于那些左右輿論的大腕們，無(wú)論是政治家還是布魯尼在《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》的同事（布魯尼本人也畢業(yè)于北卡羅來(lái)納大學(xué),，他此前還出過(guò)兩本暢銷書）,。

????的確，不少本科就讀于普通學(xué)院的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者后來(lái)都考入著名的法學(xué)院,、商學(xué)院,、醫(yī)學(xué)院等深造,。但關(guān)鍵在于，他們是在20歲出頭時(shí)自覺(jué)發(fā)奮走上這一條路的——而不是在十幾歲時(shí),，迫于父母和同學(xué)的壓力才這么做,。

????布魯尼提醒大家，過(guò)于關(guān)注孩子14歲到17歲這個(gè)年齡段實(shí)在荒唐,。他說(shuō)：“高中最后那幾年只是人生的一小段,，之后的人生道路還長(zhǎng)著呢?！?/p>

????而且從很多方面看,，大型公立學(xué)校可能更有助于培養(yǎng)遠(yuǎn)大抱負(fù),，因?yàn)檫@種品質(zhì)更偏愛自立自強(qiáng)的人,。我在哈佛任教時(shí)曾驚奇地發(fā)現(xiàn)，對(duì)那里的學(xué)生而言,，各種難以置信的機(jī)會(huì)唾手可得,，比如為尼加拉瓜的窮人建造房屋、到白宮去實(shí)習(xí),。這些學(xué)生確實(shí)天資聰穎,、有上進(jìn)心，應(yīng)該得到這些機(jī)會(huì),。但盡管我正在上大型公立大學(xué)的兒子在尋找類似機(jī)會(huì)方面必須竭盡全力,，但他做的毫不遜色，他高中時(shí)曾當(dāng)過(guò)志愿消防隊(duì)員,、SAT成績(jī)接近滿分,。

????布魯尼認(rèn)為，對(duì)多數(shù)申請(qǐng)名校的人來(lái)說(shuō),，“名?？駸岚Y”很可能只是浪費(fèi)時(shí)間，最后只會(huì)讓人心碎,。如果你的孩子不是天才或頂尖運(yùn)動(dòng)員（最好是某個(gè)冷門項(xiàng)目）,；如果作為父母，你現(xiàn)在或?qū)?lái)都沒(méi)有財(cái)力給學(xué)校捐一大筆錢,，你既不是名人也不是本校教職人員——這些因素在“招生特別加分項(xiàng)”中共占約55%,，那么，你的子女被錄取的幾率微乎其微,。

????長(zhǎng)期以來(lái),，《美國(guó)新聞與世界報(bào)道》的大學(xué)排行榜被人奉若神明，布魯尼責(zé)備它對(duì)名校熱起到了推波助瀾的作用。在他看來(lái),，這些排名主要是基于一些極容易受操控的評(píng)價(jià)標(biāo)準(zhǔn),，比如錄取率（斯坦福大學(xué)最新的錄取率僅有5.1%），更偏愛那些聲譽(yù)日衰的有錢院校,。他在書中寫道：這個(gè)排行榜“披著莊重的灰色權(quán)威外衣,，其實(shí)不過(guò)是騙子精心編織的外套，”它利用的是人們的不安全感,。

????布魯尼還深入挖掘了一些非名校的公立大學(xué)的亮點(diǎn),。比如亞利桑那州立大學(xué)通常被人貶為是一所“吃喝玩樂(lè)大學(xué)”，但實(shí)際上在招聘方口碑頗高,，不少私營(yíng)公司在招聘初級(jí)職員時(shí)都會(huì)優(yōu)先考慮該校學(xué)生,。

????去年，“蓋洛普-普渡指數(shù)”調(diào)研了三萬(wàn)名畢業(yè)生的職業(yè)生涯后得出結(jié)論：成功更多地與你上大學(xué)的動(dòng)力有關(guān),，而不光是你上了什么大學(xué)。

????在布魯尼的結(jié)論與此異曲同工——在他的書中,，這一點(diǎn)在星巴克首席執(zhí)行官霍華德?舒爾茨身上獲得了充分印證,。舒爾茨本人1975年畢業(yè)于北密歇根大學(xué)，那時(shí)他是寢室里唯一的猶太人,。作為土生土長(zhǎng)的紐約客,，舒爾茨眼中的成功秘訣是：“努力保持好奇心。使自己不要止步于熟悉的環(huán)境,。我大學(xué)畢業(yè)時(shí),，既有自信，也有自知之明,，這些都是一所東海岸院校無(wú)法帶給我的收獲,，如果那樣的話，我只能長(zhǎng)成自己從小就熟識(shí)的那個(gè)圈子里的人,?！保ㄘ?cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

????譯者：清遠(yuǎn)

????審校：任文科

????Message to all you crazed parents desperately hiring tutors and padding your kid’s thin resume: Chillax. Attending an elite college is no guarantee of leadership, life success or earnings potential. Your obsession with getting your kid into an Ivy or Ivy-lookalike is “warped” and—given a largely fixed system—likely hopeless, concludes New York Times columnist Frank Bruni.

????In his new book “Where You Go is Not Who You’ll be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania,” Bruni takes us on a tour of the alumni status of top American leaders, starting with Fortune 500 CEO’s. The CEO’s of the top 10 (as of mid-2014) hail as undergrads not from Harvard and Yale but from the University of Arkansas; the University of Texas; the University of California, Davis; the University of Nebraska; Auburn; Texas A&M, the General Motors Institute (now Kettering University); the University of Kansas; and the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Only GE’s Jeffrey Immelt collected a four-year Ivy degree—from Dartmouth.

????Bruni’s tour then moves to occupants of the White House, names usually associated with the Ivies, especially Yale. He reminds us that Obama first went to L.A.’s Occidental College before graduating from Columbia, and that Jimmy Carter attended Georgia Southwestern College and Georgia Tech on his way to the Naval Academy. Ronald Reagan attended tiny Eureka College in Illinois; Richard Nixon got his bachelor’s from California’s Whittier College; LBJ attended Southwest Texas State Teachers College. Those were different times, certainly.

????But today fewer than a third of Senators have an Ivy-caliber undergrad degrees, and only a quarter of governors first attended elite colleges. Similar numbers apply to influence-makers ranging from political strategists to Bruni’sNew York Times colleagues. (Bruni, who has written two best-selling books before this, graduated from the University of North Carolina.)

????It’s true that many of the leaders who started at non-elite colleges as undergrads later attended prominent graduate schools in law, business, medicine and so on. But the point is that they found their own way there—as young men and women in their early 20s, not teenagers pressed into action by parents and peers.

????Bruni reminds us of the absurdity of obsessing over a kid’s 14- to 17-year-old stage in life. “Those last years of high school are just one short stretch of a life with many passages before it and many to come,” he notes.

????And in many ways big public schools can even be incubators for ambition because they favor self-starters. I’ve been awed by the incredible opportunities that automatically float to the Harvard undergrads I once taught–-from building homes for the poor in Nicaragua to landing prime White House internships. Yes, these kids are smart and motivated and deserving. But so is my high-school volunteer firefighter son with near perfect SAT scores—and he has to hunt and peck for similar opportunities at his big public university. (I had the same experience attending UC Berkeley.)

????Bruni concludes that the “admissions hysteria” is likely a waste of time, and certain heartbreak, for most applicants to elite schools. If your child is not a legacy or top athlete (preferably in an obscure sport); if you as a parent are not a current or prospective donor, or a celebrity, or faculty—all adding up to about 55% of “special consideration admissions”—the odds of admission are slim indeed.

????He blames the biblical power of the US News & World Report rankings for feeding the admissions mania. Those ratings, he asserts, rely on easily –manipulated criteria like acceptance rates (Stanford has set a new extreme in exclusiveness at 5.1%) and favor wealthy institutions with vestigial reputations. The US News ratings “don a somber gray suit of authority, but it’s a hustler’s threads,” he writes…”exploiting people’s insecurities.”

????Bruni also dives deep to offer some surprises on non-elite public schools. Arizona State University, typically dismissed as a party-school, actually ranks high with private sector recruiters looking for entry-level talent.

????Last year’s Gallup-Purdue Index surveyed 30,000 graduates on their careers and concluded that success relies less on where you go to college than how you go to college.

????That’s largely Bruni’s conclusion—and it’s one echoed in his book by accomplished leaders like Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, a 1975 graduate of Northern Michigan University (where he was the only Jewish kid in his dorm). Here’s what the Brooklyn-born Schultz offered as a recipe for success: “Be as curious as you can. Put yourself in situations where you’re not just yielding to what’s familiar. I came out of college with a level of confidence and self-understanding that I don’t think I could have possibly gotten from an East Coast school, where I would have been among the kind of people I grew up with and lived near.”