世界热门:这位校长的三大择校标准，带你认识最好的美国文理学院与综合性大学
看点 对于想要申请海外名校的学子而言，如何才能快速准确地找到适合自己的学校？上海宏润博源创始外方校长克里斯托弗 · 摩西（Christopher Moses）就在下文指出衡量海外名校的三个标准，希望能提供更多的视角来帮助中国孩子，做出更好的选择。
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文丨克里斯托弗 · 摩西
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译丨 Irene Ma 编丨 Lulu
在哪里可以获得世界上最好的本科教育 ?
回答这个问题，我们通常都正确地遵循 " 适合 " 的理念，即对某一个特定的学生来说，哪所学校是最好的。
的确，自我发现也是大学搜索和适配过程中非常重要的部分。然而，我们总是求助于排名和其它准客观标准来理解这个拥挤且竞争激烈的申请环境。
我经常建议同学们，不但要思考 " 自己 "，还需要开始 " 像大学 " 一样思考。这是什么意思呢？
什么是人文 ( 和理科 ) 教育？
要理解为什么哈佛、耶鲁和普林斯顿这样的大学经常在全国和全球排名中名列前茅，我们首先需要澄清一个常见的误解，即什么是人文 ( 和理科 ) 教育。
与英国或其它英联邦国家 ( 以及世界其它国家 ) 相比，大多数美国院校都有一个突出的特点，即要求学生完成相对广泛的课程学习。
通常，美国本科生前两年不需要申请特定的专业，在学业选择上保持灵活性，直到确认自己主要感兴趣的学术方向。
这样的培养目标是帮助学生从不同的角度来认识和理解世界——并在这个过程中，获得解决问题的各种技能，且能以新颖、有创意的方式进行创新。
与前沿技术和开创性研究一样，这种多视角融合式培养也一直是美国经济发展的基石 : 一家医学研究公司或科技初创企业不仅需要程序员和工程师，也需要社会学家和艺术历史学家，就像人文学者也能从理解科学家的方法论和定量研究方法中获益一样。
从本质上讲，这就是美国独特的 " 文理 " 学习模式。除了丰富的研讨会式，讨论式以及以实验室为基础的课程学习外 ( 与有各种知识兴趣的同龄人一起 ) ，生活在一个相对较小的，以社区为中心的居住环境中也为学生的正式教育提供支撑。
正是这种培养方式造就了它们的伟大：哈佛、耶鲁和普林斯顿都为本科生提供这种文理教育。
然而，大多数排名都从结构上扭曲了这一事实：将综合性大学与文理学院分开排名（如 US News），或过度关注教师的研究成果和出版物 ( 如 QS 等机构 ) 。
当然，所有学生都会从大学的成就和声望中获益，但是我们想象中的精英学者对普通本科生的涓流效益被过分夸大了。
相反，顶尖精英大学之所以如此特别，是因为它们足够小，也足够富有，足以维持由世界顶尖学者任教的 " 文理 " 培养模式。
在教学方法和资源方面，相比在大型公立学校的学生，普林斯顿大学的学生与斯沃斯莫尔学院或卡尔顿学院的学生的学习体验和经历要相似的多。
美国卡尔顿学院
如何选择合适的大学？
那么，要如何把文理学院与跟它们实力相当但更加出名的综合性大学相比较才有意义呢 ?
尤其是在中国，有什么可以补偿文理学院并不那么突出的声誉价值呢 ?
第一个也可能是最重要的衡量标准是财富。
提供优质教育是一项异常昂贵、不断烧钱的事业，只能靠大量的捐赠 ( 主要是私立学校 ) 或大量的州政府和联邦政府补贴 ( 通常用于补贴当地学生的学费或高水平的研究项目 ) 来维持。简单地说就是学校越富有，能提供的机会就越多。
如果我们用人均捐赠基金 ( 衡量持久财富的最清晰的指标 ) 来衡量美国的高等院校，我们就能非常清楚地看到，为什么最好的文理学院有底气与更知名的综合性大学竞争。
顶尖的文理学院拥有非凡的财政资源，而且，与那些必须资助研究生项目的综合性大学不同，文理学院的所有资金都用在本科生身上。
事实上，就人均捐赠基金而言，格林内尔学院是更著名的布朗大学的 2.5 倍，史密斯学院可以击败杜克大学，而戴维森学院和芝加哥大学基本持平，这或许会让你感到惊讶。
捐赠基金的多少在很多情况下与其它排名呈相关关系：普林斯顿、耶鲁、斯坦福和麻省理工高居各大排名榜首并非偶然。这一点儿不让人感到意外。
财富也使得高校能够支持前沿研究。在这方面，我们也可以找到一种将大学和文理学统合起来进行衡量的标准。
" 与规模较大的综合性大学相比，文理学院在 STEM 领域缺乏有竞争力的课程 "，这其实是一种误解。我们可以用那些继续在科学、技术、工程和数学领域攻读博士学位的人所就读的本科院校的数据进行分析。
在这份数据里，我们再次看到加州理工学院、麻省理工学院和常春藤盟校的主导地位。然而，我们也看到了精英文理学院的突出地位。
它们也同样培养了拥有先进研究技能和前沿知识，且非常具有竞争力的毕业生。在追求实习和工作机会以及研究生教育方面，精英文理学院的毕业生也彰显出同样的优势。
虽然在中国更多人知道芝加哥大学而不是哈弗福德学院，但在通往苹果或谷歌等全球知名跨国公司的机会之路上，这两所高校的毕业生所拥有的机会要公平的多。
同样，文理学院的教师在攻读博士学位时，基本都是师从他们所在领域的泰斗，因此通常与世界上最好的研究生项目有直接关联。
正如普林斯顿大学一位前招生办主任所建议的那样，判断一所学校的最好方式之一，就是查看学院课程目录中列出的教员的教育背景。
你会看到一个学术精英组成的网络，它会给表现突出的本科生提供获取更大成功的途径。
最后，我们还可以用综合性大学和文理学院在美国的社会地位来统一衡量它们。
这种地位可以用美国最顶尖高中的学生做出的大学选择进行分析。
以菲利普斯埃克塞特中学、安多佛菲利普斯中学以及圣保罗中学为例，它们的毕业生在申请大学时是把文理学院与顶尖的私立综合性大学当作同等水平的大学在申请，有时甚至更倾向于申请文理学院，不论排名。
同样的情况也适用于迪尔菲尔德中学、霍奇基斯中学、劳伦斯维尔中学等美国顶尖中学。无论是学术质量，还是通过就业机会和校友网络培养社会精英的能力，文理学院都是备受推崇的选择。
当然，最后学生仍然应该寻找最适合自己的学校和课程环境。
就像我经常分享的一样——即使是来自同一个家庭，上同一所高中——我的姐姐选择了加州大学伯克利分校，这是最适合她的，而我在那里永远不可能像在里德学院那样快速成长。
尽管如此，我们在考量与大学的适配性时，也应当充分了解什么样的大学才是 " 最好的 "，要了解除了 US News 等热门排名之外，其它各种短期和长期因素将如何影响学生获取的机会和资源，这对于他们去创造成功且充实的生活非常重要。
就像我在上海的这十年，人们对国际教育的看法越来越成熟一样，我也相信在未来的十年里，那些更细致、更有前瞻性的人会真正了解什么样的大学是最好的。
英文版原文
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Know The Best: US Colleges and Universities
As I advise students, they not only need to think about themselves, but also to start thinking "like an institution." What does that mean?
To understand why institutions like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton often top national and global rankings, we first need to clarify a common misconception about what ’ s meant by the liberal arts ( and sciences ) . Compared to the UK or other Commonwealth countries — and the rest of the world, for that matter — most US institutions stand out in expecting students to complete a relatively broad range of curricular requirements. Instead of applying to a specific major or department, students usually have flexibility through their second year before determining a primary academic focus. The goal is to learn and understand the world from a variety of perspectives — and along the way, to gain a diverse set of skills for solving problems and innovating in novel, creative ways.
As much as leading-edge technology and path-breaking research, this cross-cultivation of intellectual perspectives has been the bedrock of US economic advancement: a medical research company or tech start-up needs the sociologist and art historian as much as the programmer and engineer, just as humanists also benefit from understanding the methodological and quantitative approaches of the scientist.
At its heart, this is the uniquely American "liberal arts and sciences" model of learning. Along with ample seminar-style, discussion-oriented, and laboratory-based classes ( taken with pers who have a variety of intellectual interests ) , students ’ formal education is buttressed by living in a smaller, community-focused residential environment.
This is what makes them great: Harvard, Yale, and Princeton offer a liberal arts education to their undergraduates. Yet most rankings have been structured in a way that distorts this reality by segregating universities from liberal arts colleges ( in the case of US News ) , or by focusing disproportionately on faculty research achievements and publications ( in the case of QS and others ) . Certainly, all students will gain from the prestige value of institutional achievements, but the imagined trickle-down benefits of elite scholars to the typical undergraduate is vastly over-stated.
Instead, what makes the elite of the elite universities so special, is that they are small enough — and rich enough — to sustain a liberal arts pedagogy, taught by the world ’ s leading scholars. In terms of instructional approach, and resources, a student at Princeton has a far more similar experience to one at Swarthmore or Carleton than they do another at a large public university.
How can we make sense of comparing liberal arts colleges with their more famous university counterparts? And what might compensate, in China in particular, for a less prominent reputational value?
The first and likely most essential metric is wealth. At its best, education is an exceptionally expensive, loss-making endeavor — sustained only by massive endowments ( mostly amongst private schools ) or substantial state and federal funding ( typically to subsidize the tuition of local students or to provide for high-level research ) . Simply put, the richer the school, the more opportunities it can provide.
If we look at US institutions using endowment-per-capita, the clearest measure of enduring wealth, we can get a very clear indication of how the best liberal arts colleges compete with better-known universities. The best of them have extraordinary financial resources — and, unlike at universities that must also fund graduate programs — at liberal arts colleges, all of that money is focused on undergraduates.
Indeed, it may come as a surprise that Grinnell College has two and a half times the per-student endowment wealth as does the vastly more famous Brown University — or that Smith College beats Duke University, while Davidson and the University of Chicago are essentially tied.
Yet unsurprisingly, endowment wealth does in many cases correlate with other rankings: it ’ s no accident that Princeton, Yale, Stanford, and MIT top the list.
Wealth also allows institutions to support cutting-edge research, and here again we can seek a metric that will integrate both universities and liberal arts colleges. To challenge the misconception that, compared with larger universities, liberal arts schools don ’ t offer as competitive programs in STEM fields, we can use as a proxy the undergraduate origins of those who go on to pursue PhDs in science, technology, engineering, and math.
Here again, we see the unsurprising dominance of schools like Cal Tech, MIT, and the Ivy League. Yet we also see the prominence of elite liberal arts colleges, which have similarly cultivated the advanced research skills and cutting-edge knowledge that makes their graduates highly competitive. Those same advantages accrue to students pursuing internships and job opportunities as well as graduate education. While far more people in China will know the University of Chicago versus Haverford, amongst pathways to opportunities at globally-known, multinational US-based employers like Apple or Google, the playing field is far more level.
Similarly, the faculty at liberal arts colleges are often directly connected to the best graduate programs in the world, having been advised by luminaries in their field while earning their PhD. As suggested by a former dean of admissions at Princeton, one of the best ways to judge a school is to review faculty ’ s educational background as listed in a college ’ s course catalogue: you will see a network of the academic elite, which provides pathways for undergraduates who distinguish themselves.
As a final counterpoint to segregated rankings, we can also consider an institution ’ s social prominence as garnered from the college choices made by students who attend the most elite high schools in the United States. If we look at places like Exeter, Phillips Academy ( Andover ) , or St. Paul ’ s School — and similar would be the case at Deerfield, Hotchkiss, Lawrenceville, and the like — we will again see how liberal arts colleges are chosen in equal measure with top private universities, often more so than large public universities, regardless of ranking. Both for academic quality, and as vehicles that reproduce a social elite through employment opportunities and alumni networks, they are highly regarded choices.
In the end, students should still search out the institutional and curricular environment that best suits them. As I often share — even having coming from the same family, and having attended the same high school — my sister made the best choice for herself by attending UC Berkeley, whereas I could never have thrived there the way I did at Reed. Still, considerations of fit should include a thorough recognition of what "best" means, and how myriad shorter- and longer-term factors beyond US News or other popular rankings will shape the opportunities and resources students have for building a fruitful and fulfilling life. Just as perspectives on international education have grown much more sophisticated in the ten years that I ’ ve been in Shanghai, I believe that in the next decade those with a more nuanced and forward-looking perspective will truly know the best.
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