外界环境会产生怎样的影响

所有外界对申请过程的影响，最根本的都归结到美国大学的录取要求。一个好的产品在推出之前，一定要分析市场需求。要把自己成功地销售给美国大学，就一定要吃透他们的录取要求（Qualities schools look for），也就是说申请材料中招生委员会的教授/招生官（AO）到底看中什么。

我们先来看看AO的看法：

A letter from a Professor of UPenn

Dear Michael，

I read your statement again during the weekend. It is clearly that there is a cultural difference here.In the US, the criteria to admit a student primarily rests on merits（connection may count in some private elitist schools where that the parents being an alumni will or a big contributor add points）.Especially in public university, the admission process is very transparent and conducted in a committee.When I was at Berkeley, I ran for one of the two student representatives to the doctoral admission committee.

I read admission fles with my other 5 faculty members. During the three rounds of discussion, I had one vote just like each of my professors.We admitted the students purely based on merits.There was a separately fnancial support committee composing with faculty and students who do not need fnancial aids（for fear of confict of interests）.

We developed a table by GRE, TOFEL and GPA. It is easy to screen off about 70%of the applicants who were obviously unqualifed—low scores, lack of supporting documents, incomplete forms, major errors, missing deadlines, etc.Then we divided the remaining 30%into three groups—must accept（students we love to get when they may go to other better schools），should accept（those who are good enough），and the marginal case（usually we put them on waiting list）.Doctoral admission also relieson another important factor—whether there is a professor in the department who has common research interest to take care of the applicant for the next 5 years.This is not very important for a master applicant because most master programs are fairly standardized.

So, with a reasonably good TOFEL and GRE score, how can you market yourself better?Your academic training, your academic interest, your future career or scholastic plan, and your dedication are the stuff the admission committee will examine. Letters of reference are very important but you don't have that advantage because unless you are applying to a school where your professor at***graduated（or your professor is known in the field worldwide）；otherwise, these letters from China（sometimes with translation）will not help too much.Of course, you must make sure none of these letters hurt you.Then what makes you different from other applicants and deserving a fellowship?Some work sample, prior studies, project reports will give the committee a chance to gauge your level of competence.So only send stuff that is good—it is tough because of the translation requirement.Life is full of constraints and opportunities.So you try your best and hope of the best.When opportunities present to you, seize them.

由此可以看出，仅研究比较宏观的要求是不够的，还要进行非常细致的研究，尤其是教授、实验室等方面的具体学术信息和动向等。