Many student ask me which U.S. ranking of colleges is best for getting the best job opportunities after graduation。It is an excellent question.It is something that so many students and their families think about and seldom ask.It is also a complex question, as most good questions are because it brings up two questions:
1.美国大学各个排名之间的区别在哪里?
What is the difference in U.S. college ranking?
2.哪个排名在你找工作的时候对雇主的参考价值最高
Which ranking is best for job opportunities?
让我们先讨论一下排名对于求职的影响。如果让你相信，在面试时你的个人才智比你所毕业的那所学校排名更重要也许很难。因为在中国悠久的历史当中，排名一直是个被高度崇尚的因素。而对于成长在这样一种环境中的你来说，去接受另外一种思维模式的确非常难。
It’s begin with your question about job opportunities according to rankings. It will be hard for you to accept that the particular college graduate has much more influence in the job that they get than the ranking of their college.It is hard for you to understand simply because you come from a culture who worships rankings.That kind of superficial understanding makes it hard for you to believe in any other system of influence.
但中国也有句俗话，实践出真知。我们一起来看看下面几个例子：和毛主席共同开辟了中美关系历史性篇章的尼克松总统毕业于惠特学院(Whittier College)。现任美国总统奥巴马曾就读于加州的西方学院(Occidental College)。还有一些对你来说很容易找到的例子，就是去网上搜一下世界500强的CEO都分别毕业于哪所大学。
No matter your belief, the best way for you to judge is to look at the evidence.For example,the U.S. President Richard Nixon, the American president who first came to China to meet Chairman Mao and opened up the political relations between the China and the USA graduated from Whitman College.President Obama went to Occidental College in the state of California.Another good example that you can easily Google and check out for yourself are the list of colleges where the presidents of the Fortune Five Hundred companies (top international business corporations) went to college.
从哈尔滨到深圳，从上海到成都，可以说，我本人接触过的中国学生遍布中国各地，但我还从未遇见一个没有“只有从哈佛毕业才能出人头地”这种想法的学生。如果你查了福布斯排行榜上那些公司CEO的出处，你就会发现，很多人去的是德克萨斯大学，而不是哈佛。
I have never met a Chinese high school student, and I have talked to students from Harbin to Shenzhen, from Shanghai to Chendu, who didn’t think that if only they could go to Harvard they would be rich and famous.You will see in the list of the Fortune Five Hundred companies that as many of these corporate presidents went to the University of Texas as to Harvard and became presidents of a top international corporation.
作为数本学生就业指南的撰写人，我可以明确地告诉大家，很多研究都表明了，在求职过程中，最重要的是你自己的个人能力。这些能力包括明确自己的优劣势，对自己的能力与心仪的公司是否匹配做出正确地判断以及面试过程中握手和眼神交流等等。而所有这些观察、研究和沟通的能力也恰恰是你在申请美国的大学过程中所需要的。比起那些大学排名，以上这些东西完全可以被你自己所控制。而对于希望成为业内顶尖的学术机构和公司来说，无论你的能力有多强，无论你的母校排名有多高，都丝毫左右不了他们的选人标准。在这个层面上，即使你门门考满分也没用。所以，与其担心那些你改变不了的东西，为什么不好好地在你能够左右的东西上多下点功夫呢。
As a writer of many career guide books for high school students, I can tell you that the research shows that the most important influences in job opportunities are your own personal skills. These skills are to access yourself and what you have to offer, research the company where you want to work so that you know what you can offer the company, your handshake and eye contact at your interview. All of these personal qualities to observe, research, and communicate are the very same skills needed to get into an American college. You have complete control over them all, unlike college rankings. No matter your skills or the rankings of colleges, you do not have control over who the college or company is looking for to build their strongest class or company. No number of test scores or rankings will give you that control. So work on what you can control and the influence you can make for college and career choices.
