不想，两年时间过去得很快。

最近几天在人人上看到Cornell和UPenn等校的录取结果，也在CUUS看到盖盖的Dartmouth ED答疑帖，才又意识到，2012 （Class of 2016）申请季的第一炮，已经打响了。上次不知道和谁说起，无法想象，毕业的时候Class 0f 2018的孩子们进来成为freshmen,因为那些2011学长学姐的音容笑貌依然还在脑海中，而这中间7年，在这个速度飞快的年代，或许已经是一代甚至两代人的差距。但不论如何，一起走过申请季的人们，总会记得当初的那份起伏的心情。

上一刻可以是豪情万丈，傲气冲天；下一刻也可以是—— 焦虑，茫然，紧张，气馁， you name it.

Been there, done that.

两年前这个时候，我是Yale 的 REA.  现在回头看，抛开那些不找边际的梦想和难以压抑的虚荣心，苦苦等待的EA结果对我来说最现实的意义，就是决定我是否还需要待在高二的文科班苦逼的继续与月考纠缠，需要用分数来衡量自己学习的意义。终究还是defer了，这也让我的申请经历，感情上的跌宕，走了一个圆满的弧线。

其实反思一下，申请季给一个人带来的，最重要的不是结果，而是一个reflection的过程。如果没有找中介的话（in my case it was all DIY），一个在中国社会和教育系统长大的孩子，是需要一番很深入的反思，才能抛开外在环境给自己这么多年成长贴上的标签，以一种平和的心态，来面对眼前的自己。这种角度，既不是从他人的角度来看待自己（因为一个事实就是我们无法抹掉对于自己人所不知的种种弱点的了解），也不是一个完全自发的角度，因为我们都很清楚感情色彩是很难消除的。 It's some where in between. 一种卸下伪装之后的坦然，和一种直面事实的勇气。如果真的想清楚了，依然想要挑战和尝试那些很难进去的学校，那么就不应该有后悔。以后的人生里，这样的需要决策的机会，还有很多。不像在学校里，我们可以为了期末，用尽半个月复习，拼的就是一个努力，期望的就是成功。

It's never that easy, but it's simple. 

深思熟虑一番，既然决定了尝试，就100%的投入进去，即使略显疯狂，略显失态，走过了，经历了，也就是自己的人生阅历，别人永远不会拥有的财富。总是站在岸边按兵不动的人，他们可以很努力，也可以在日后的生活里过得很好，但请相信，一个不敢take risk的人，永远不会是成功者。 他们仅仅是优秀而已。

成功了是一种运气，没有，则是一份经验，二者，都是一种成长。

而这里面暗含的意思，那就是，你要能够有足够大的一颗心，来宽容接受结果，无论成败。

路，终究还是走出来的，也像Jobs所说，"you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future". 

我们能做的，就是，

相信。

---------------------------------

附上一篇去年在College Confidential 看到的一个post, 写给ED/EA被 defer 或者 rej的孩子，与大家分享：

From CC:

For many of you, the next few days will be a time of tremendous emotional turmoil. 

For those who applied early to one Yale there will be scenes of joy and others of soul-wrenching devastation. Even with the higher acceptance rates in EA/ED rounds, over two-thirds of you will find yourselves holding the dreaded thin envelope or slumped over your computer keyboard wondering what more you could have done. You will second-guess every comma and wonder if your essay was too long or if you should have retaken the SATs one more time. You'll hide from the pained smiles and words of comfort coming from parents and friends who just don't get it, who just don't understand how you hurt. On the one hand you'll rage at the school that made you feel this way and on the other, wonder if classmates who snickered at your application to school X, Y or Z really did have it right and that you are, just as they guessed, a poseur who reached too high and got what you deserved. 

To anyone in this situation, I say this. 

Know that your value as a person cannot be determined by a group of overworked admissions officers. You have something to offer the world and whether or not it was revealed in those maddeningly constricted spaces on those pages of impersonal forms...it is real. You are more than a "fill-in-the-blank". Remind yourself of that. 

To those who were accepted early at Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, MIT, Stanford, UPenn, Princeton or any one of many other wonderful and competitive schools--congratulations! To those who were deferred or rejected, take heart. The admissions season is far from over. In the next two weeks there will still be plenty of time to fill out applications to other schools. 

---------------------------------

再附一篇，NY Times刚出来的，关于面对defer的情况应该如何面对，有什么方法可以继续努力的文章。

February 9, 2010, 1:19 PM

You Got Deferred. Now What?

http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/defer/

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/thechoice/tipsheet.75.jpg

Sally Rubenstone recently posted an open question on College Confidential that boils down to this: What might an applicant who was deferred by a college in its early decision or early action round do to improve his or her chances of admission now, as colleges are weighing final decisions?

While the commenters on College Confidential had much advice — including having an applicant’s high school principal send a letter to the college reiterating the student’s enduring interest — I decided to bounce the question off two veteran admissions officers at highly selective colleges.

They are Christoph Guttentag, dean of undergraduate admission at Duke University, and Vince Cuseo, vice president for admission and financial aid atOccidental College. While both of these institutions have binding early decision, both deans are also well-versed in the strategies of colleges with nonbinding early action programs.

Edited versions of their answers — which are chock full of advice applicable not just to high school seniors, but to juniors, too — appear below.

First, Mr. Cuseo:

Since our early decision program is binding, we assume that Oxy is clearly the student’s first choice. A deferred early decision applicant need not reiterate that sentiment to us. (It might, however, for a college that has nonbinding early admissions.)

That said, there’s some benefit to an early decision defer writing to us to reconfirm his or her fidelity if it’s accompanied by new information, i.e., something not included in the application because it occurred post-submission.

Our early decision deadline is Nov. 15, so it’s virtually two months during which a student might have achieved recognition in a co-curricular activity or earned some other recognition. A student may also be faring quite well in a course in senior year but did not tap this teacher for a recommendation given the fall deadline; submitting a compelling new academic recommendation might help, particularly for the “maturing” student whose earlier school work was marked by underachievement. What we’re most interested in, however, is the first term/semester grades.

Now, Mr. Guttentag:

The hard truth is that if you applied early decision and were deferred, for most of you, unfortunately, the process is essentially over. Take a look at the defer letter — does it say what the admit percentage is for defers? If it does, take that number seriously. Keep that list of other colleges you’ve applied to close to your heart, because the odds say you’re going to be choosing from among one of them.

Early action is a different story. And — as with many things in the college admissions world — different colleges treat it differently. Many of them admit early action only those students who they see as absolute slam dunk/we’d-admit-them-in-any-pool cases. And since not every admit is a slam dunk for any college — there are always those that need the long discussion around the conference-room table — you still have a chance. And in that case, the competition in the regular-decision pool may actually be more favorable for you.

But if you’ve applied early decision and been deferred, you haven’t been denied, so what should you do? In the crush of reading all those regular-decision applicants, your admissions officer may not remember exactly what he or she liked about you in the first place, and you may want to remind him/her.

So here are some do’s and don’ts:

• Do remind your admissions officer that you exist, and that X really is your first choice. (What? You don’t know who your regional admissions officer is? Find out.) They know this, by the way, since you applied early decision, but do you tell someone, “I love you” only once? Of course not. If your interest in university X has increased over time, it’s O.K. to say that, but be sure to say why. (But don’t say that you’ll enroll if you’re admitted. Most of us know students who said they were absolutely sure they were coming to us and who subsequently changed their minds, so we generally don’t take that definitive a statement very seriously.)

• Don’t be a pest. Write once — some time in February, probably late February is best. Final rounds are about to begin. That’s when your application will bubble up.

• Don’t be cute or clever — unless your whole application tells us you’re cute or clever, in which case it would be consistent. But this is not a time to be something you’re not.

• Don’t come across as bitter, depressed or angry — that’s about as close to the kiss of death as you can get.

• Don’t offer to fly in for an(other) interview.

• Don’t inundate the office with letters from recommenders, and don’t write with every detail of what you’ve done this winter — both of those will make you appear even more anxious.

• Do write. If you’ve accomplished something meaningful, share that. If you’re proud of something, if it’s getting your best report card ever, or doing well in particularly tough courses, or winning (or coming in second) in a tough competition, let us know. Your admissions officer liked you and advocated for you, so here’s something else to put in her hands.

• Do be yourself — be your best self, your most authentic self that comes through in the application. Make your letter personal, not formal. Talk about the things you’re really excited about.

• Do make your letter easy to read. Everyone — including the admissions officer advocating for you — is incredibly busy right now.

• Do show us what an interesting person you are. Show us that you’re the kind of smart, engaged, difference-making student we all love. At this point, we’re really, truly, thinking about people, and we’re always on the lookout for great additions to the student body. Keep in mind that there’s a fine line between being rightfully proud of something and being self-aggrandizing.

• What about your counselor? He or she will send us your midyear grades in any case, and some include a note reiterating your good qualities and love for our college. But if there really is something worth knowing about what you’ve done in the winter, it’s also O.K. for them to share their perspective with us.

You may be asking why, if we all admit so few defers, colleges defer so many in the first place. That’s a fair question. There’s more than one reason why students are deferred:

Some students were close to being admitted, with a lot of appealing qualities, but there was something — some “soft spot” in the application or some uncertainty about how the student would ultimately look in the applicant pool — that kept the admissions committee from saying “yes.”

Some students were solid applicants, but over all, in the sum of their many attributes, just not compelling enough in the applicant pool to be admitted. While the chance of being admitted is low, the strange twists and turns of the admissions process means that occasionally these student become more appealing in April than they were in December.

If things fall your way and you’re admitted, count your blessings and make that college proud it admitted you; that will make it easier for the next student like you who was deferred to be admitted.

 

《岁月神偷》里的一句话，送给大家。

 

做人，总要信。

希望每个申请者，都能够从申请中，学到些什么。 It's always more than a "Common" Application. 加油。