2023年是深美外籍人员子女学校从一所佛系低调的美式学校蜕变成精英式教育的国际学校的关键一年。随着学校的变革与发展，就在今年，深美的教师团队迎来了一位重磅成员——前耶鲁大学招生官罗伯特 · 克莱恩博士。

2023 is a crucial year for Shenzhen American International School (SAIS) to transform from a low-key American school to an elite institution. With the transformation and development of the school, just this year, the SAIS faculty team welcomed a key member——Dr. Robert Clyne, is an admissions consultant with 20 years experience in getting clients into top 10 US schools and is a former admission reader for Yale undergraduate admissions. 

Dr. Robert罗伯特博士本科毕业于斯坦福大学，后来获得耶鲁大学的博士学位。他深知国际学生在申请美国大学时面临的困难，因为美国大学的招生流程非常独特。为了填补这部分信息空白，他开始了自己的招生咨询生涯。

Dr. Robert graduated from Stanford University with a bachelor's degree, and later received a PHD from Yale University. He is well aware of the difficulty of international students face applying to American universities with their highly unique admissions process . In order to fill this part of the information gap, he started his career in admission consulting.

毕业后的20年里，他先后在美国、日本、泰国为当地意向申请美国名校的学生做升学指导，而今年在深美David博士的倾情邀约下，这位经验丰富的招生官终于加入了深美团队，成为升学指导规划师。

During the 20 years after graduation, he has been in the United States, Japan, and Thailand to provide guidance to a wide range of American and international students who intend to apply to top American schools. This year, under the invitation of Dr. David from SAIS, this experienced admissions officer finally joined us, becoming an admission consultant.

4月26日上午，我们安排了这位经验丰富的升学规划师的一场专访，让我们一起来看看他对申请美国名校的一些建议吧~

On the morning of April 26th, we arranged an exclusive interview with this experienced consultant. Let us take a look at some of his suggestions for applying to top American schools.

Yolanda: 

你认为中美教育之间最大的不同是什么呢？

What do you think is the major difference between Chinese and American Education?

Dr. Robert: 

中式教育非常注重成绩，而美国的教育更注重运动能力、课外活动和智力特征的独特性等方面。所以如果招生官真的对你所做的事情印象深刻，很感兴趣，你就能被录取。你不会因为你参加了很多考试并且取得了好成绩而被录取。好的成绩是必要条件，但不是充分条件。仅仅取得优异成绩还远远不够。

Chinese education is very test focused, while American education cares about a lot more aspects such as sports ability, extra curricular activity , and having a unique intellectual signature. So if people are really impressed with what you've done and they are genuinely interested, you get in. You won't be pushed through because you took a lot of tests and got good grades. Good grades is called a necessary condition, but it is not a sufficient condition. You must have good grades but they are not nearly enough.

Yolanda: 

在申请名校的过程中，您认为中国学生目前最欠缺的是什么呢？

In order to apply the top schools, what is the most missing part of the current Chinese students?

Dr. Robert: 

当你申请前10或者前20的名校时，你需要有“亮点”。这个“亮点”主要指的是能给学校留下深刻印象的个人经历。我认为很多孩子还没有个人的亮点，比起做一些有趣的令人印象深刻的事情，他们目前还是过于按部就班了。他们的文章缺乏真正的求知欲和激情。

另外我个人认为由于疫情还有家长担忧等问题，很多孩子没有国外的项目经历。国外项目是必需的。你需要向学校证明，除了自己的国家之外，你也可以在其他国家完成自己的学习任务。

When you're applying a top-10 or top-20 school, you have to have the "wow" factor, which basically means some experiences that make the school impressed. I think a lot of people don't really have a "wow" factor. They're doing what they suppose to do instead of doing anything truly exciting. Their essays lack genuine curiosity or passion.

I would say another thing that many Chinese kids don't have is that due to Covid and maybe due to parents fear, they don't have a lot of international experience, which is necessary. You need to show you can succeed in abroad, not just in your own country. 

许多中国父母严重高估了考试的重要性，却低估了在申请中更加重要的部分，比如文书、领导经验、求知欲 、含金量高的课外活动以及独特的天赋。

Many Chinese parents seriously overestimate the importance of tests and underestimate far more important parts of the application such as the essays, leadership experience, strong evidence of intellectual curiousity, high value extracurricular activities, and a unique intellectual signature.

对于申请美国大学的中国学生来说，考试成绩是一道门槛，达不到学校要求的就会被拒之门外。但是跨过这道坎之后，成绩就不是决定因素了。相反，学校更注重体育、爱好、艺术等课外的成绩，并具有“亮点”。一个只有成绩优异的孩子是没有竞争力的。

For Chinese students applying to American universities, test scores are a threshold, and those who do not meet the school's requirements will be rejected. But after crossing the threshold, grades are not the determining factor. On the contrary, the school pays more attention to non classroom achievement in sports, in hobbies, in arts, and having the "wow“ factor. A child who only has good grades is not so interesting.

一个GPA仅3.8，但参与了非常多课外活动，拥有明显“亮点”的学生总是比 GPA 4.0 但没有“特殊技能”的学生更具竞争力。——这就是Dr. Robert强调的，成绩只要“够好”就可以了，你需要把珍贵的时间花在个人发展上。与各方面平平但成绩优秀的学生相比，美国名学校更倾向于招收成绩尚可但学业之外其他方面非常突出的学生。

A student with a GPA of 3.8 but rich after-school activities and a strong "wow" factor will always be more competitive than a student with a GPA of 4.0 but no "special skills". —— This is what Dr. Robert emphasized, the grades only need to be "good enough", and you need to spend more precious time on personal development. Compared with students who are mediocre in all aspects but have excellent grades, top American schools will likely to enroll students who have acceptable grades but outstanding achievements in other aspects besides studies.

Yolanda:

可以解释一下升学指导是什么含义吗？

Could you explain what is admission consulting?

Dr.Robert:

升学指导师会教你如何将自己最好的一面展现给招生官，我们还会帮你发现自己的薄弱环节，这样你就可以提前去弥补。还有一种特殊情况，客户在临近截止日期时要求我给他写得一塌糊涂的文书“擦屁股”——这也是我的分内之事。

Admissions consultants teach you the best way to present yourself to a top school, they also help you identify your weaknesses so you can try to improve them well ahead of time. The worse thing is a client bringing a very poor essay write before the deadline and asking you to "clean it up" .

Yolanda:

一般升学指导的内容是什么呢？

What is usually the process of admission consulting?

Dr. Robert:

目前我正在积极和同学们一对一沟通，一般每个学生是每周一到两次会面。现在我在做的事情是收集学生文书的素材，并帮助学生理解申请的各个环节与进程；接下来我会陆续督促他们理解哪些大学会对他们的个人经历产生兴趣。

Right now we're meeting with students. I'd like to meet everybody once or twice a week. What I'm doing now is collecting writing samples and helping the students to understand the process. And we will begin to push them to understand which university is interested to them and why.

升学指导最佳的年龄段是什么年级呢？

When is the proper time for students to think about their college admission?

Dr. Robert:

G10是一个合适的开始时间。在G10之前，我更多的是给学生提供全面提升自己的指导意见。我认为孩子应该终生都将提升自己这件事情放在首位，这样到了高年级他们自然就有可以提供给校方的一些“亮点”了。

G10 is a good time to start. Before G10 and after G10 you should be discovering your passion and pushing yourself to be the best person you can be. So I would say you should start actively trying to develop yourself as a person your whole life, so that you'll have something unique to offer by the time you're senior. 

深美的一个特色办学项目就是从G6就开始的升学指导，如今更是邀请到前耶鲁招生官Robert博士加入了我们的团队。

One of SAIS's special project is the admission consulting since G6, and now Dr. Robert, admissions consultant/ former Yale admissions reader, has been invited to join our team.

升学指导并不意味着要从六年级开始就考虑大学的事情——这还为时尚早。Robert博士设计的升学指导包含了两个部分，G9及之前是集中在个人发展上面，尽可能地丰富课余生活，而G10开始才是有针对性地根据选校来调整学生的学习以及课余项目的安排。

Admission consulting doesn't mean thinking about college from G6—it's too early. The college entrance guidance designed by Dr. Robert consists of two parts. G9 and before are focused on personal development, enriching after-school life as much as possible, while G10 is the beginning to adjust the arrangement of students' learning and extra-curricular projects according to school selection.

Dr. Robert:

如果因为害怕成绩差而仅将注意力集中在教科书上，那你只是个胆小的孩子。我们想要的是一个对生活对学习充满激情的人，而不是一个只会顺从安排的孩子。我们对顺从并不感兴趣。相信我，如果服从是录取的指标之一，我永远都不可能被录取，因为我不会出于恐惧而妥协做任何事情。我做这些事仅仅因为我的信念。

If you're reading textbooks because you're scared of a bad score, you're just a scared person. We want a passionate person, not an obedient person. Obedience is not interesting to us. Trust me, if obedience was interesting, I would never been allowed into college, cause I don't do anything out of fear or obedience. I do things because I genuinely believe in them.

有个很搞笑的事，部分学生有他们自己的留学顾问。然而绝大部分机构中的留学顾问实际上并没有去过美国的名校。就算他们中有一部分去过，也是由我这样的人为他们做的申请。所以如果连申请文书都不是自己写的，他们怎么会知道名校需要什么样的学生呢？

Some students have independent agents which I think is funny, because none of these independent agents actually went to a top US school. And if they did go to top US school, probably somebody like me did their application. So how do they have this expertise about what top US schools want if they didn't even do their own application?

很多留学顾问只是在给家长们编织一场甜蜜的美梦。如果你察觉到你的留学顾问说的很多话你都很爱听，那他八成是在撒谎。家长们正在用中国人的方式去申请美国学校。如果你想让你的孩子去美国读书，那请入乡随俗。

Agents are telling beautiful lies that parents like to hear. If your consultant is telling you things that make you happy, then your consultant is probably lying to you. Parents are applying American schools in Chinese ways. If you want your kid to go to American school, then do it in American way.