This afternoon, my office sent out over 34,000 e-mail notifications to high school seniors who were waiting to learn whether they would be invited to spend the next four years at Stanford. Even though I have been in the admission field for over 30 years, I still feel the pain of the many exceptional youths who were not offered places.
Given that today’s teens already have enough pressure in their lives, I wish to impart (告知) three messages to any particularly disappointed parents.
First, it’s all relative. While the number admitted into the undergraduate (本科的) class has remained unchanged for years, Stanford, like many of its peer (同类的) schools, has had a record number of total applicants – more than 42,000. Regardless of arguments over whether too much preference is given to one category over another, thousands of students are going to be turned away, and there is no doubt that the vast majority of them could have met the demands of a Stanford education.
I wish there were a formula (公式) to explain who is accepted and who isn’t, but the decision-making is as much art as it is science. Each class is a symphony with its own distinct composition (乐曲)and sound. The final roster (花名册) is an effort to create harmony (和谐), and that means that some extraordinary bass players don’t get a chair. What’s more, even among my staff (员工) there are legitimate (合理的) differences about applicants.
Second, celebrate the bigger picture. Most of the applications I reviewed are truly remarkable. The transition from high school to college is a turning point, and it’s more important to focus on how a young adult is moving on to a new stage than where that stage happens to be. You should mark the success of your children and rejoice (喜悦) in the excitement that the next four years will bring.
And that leads to my final point: education is what a student makes of it. Of course, certain schools have resources (资源) that others don’t, but they all offer opportunities to learn and to grow. Thousands of applicants who aren’t accepted to Stanford go on to have fulfilling lives. What parents and college applicants across the country need to remember is that the news they receive, whether good or bad, is but a single step on a much longer journey.
Which of the following statements might the author agree with?

A．Bass players, even some extraordinary ones, have little chance of being accepted by Stanford.

B．Those who fail to get admitted into Stanford don’t necessarily do worse than those who make it.

C．Those who fail to get admitted by Stanford probably wouldn’t meet the demands of a Stanford education.

D．There are more students applying to study at Stanford than its peer schools in the US.

In the last two paragraphs, the author intends to convey the message that ______.

A．most colleges offer students the same resources as Stanford does

B．Stanford offers the best opportunities for young adults to learn and grow

C．parents should tell their children that this rejection will only make them stronger

D．it’s not which college that students enter but what they do there that counts

What is the main purpose of the article?

A．To congratulate those who have been admitted into Stanford.

B．To tell parents that there is no need to feel down if their children weren’t admitted to Stanford.

C．To inform us what kinds of applicants are more likely to be accepted by Stanford.

D．To inform us of the characteristics of a Stanford education.

科目 英语   题型 阅读理解   难度 中等

知识点： 故事类阅读