2024哈佛大学优秀文书公布!他们凭什么打动招生官?
文书是我们申请者们难得的可以“直接”与招生官对话的桥梁,而一篇好的文书也可以展现出你的与众不同,为申请锦上添花。
而想要写出一篇好的文书,最快的方法就是从真实的优秀范例中学习。
今年的哈佛大学优秀文书如约公布,主页菌从中挑选了4篇,一起来看一下哈佛大学的文书偏好,以及生动鲜活的写作技巧!
VOL.1
Lauren's Essay
Lunch and recess were opportunities to ‘play’ Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, so we murdered our friends. We’d bake the dead into meat pies and scream cacophonously, “WE ALL DESERVE TO DIE!” Nine-year-old me even teased my hair, donned my Mrs. Lovett costume for Halloween, and rambled on about Australian penal colonies and how dead fiddle players make for “stringy” meat. You cannot imagine my disappointment when everybody thought I was Frankenstein’s Bride.
Like Gypsy Rose Lee, my siblings and I spent our formative years at rehearsals and performances, where I was indoctrinated into the cult that worships Sondheim. In our household, Sondheimian theatre was a religion (I’m not sure how I feel about God, but I do believe in Sondheim.) My brother and I read Sondheim’s autobiography, Finishing the Hat, like the bible, reading the book cover to cover and returning to page one the moment we finished. At six, he introduced me to Sondheim’s West Side Story, which illustrates the harms of poverty and systematic racism. Initially, I only appreciated Jerome Robbins’ choreography (Sorry, Mr. Shakespeare). When I revisited the musical years later, I had a visceral reaction as I witnessed young adults engaging in deadly gang rivalries. Experiencing Tony’s gruesome death forced me, a middle-class suburbanite, to feel the devastating effects of inner-city violence, and my belief in the need for early intervention programs to prevent urban gun violence was born.
I began to discover political and historical undertones in all of Sondheim’s work. For example, Assassins whirlwinds from the Lincoln era up to Reagan’s Presidency. Originally, I simply thought it was hysterical to belt Lynette Fromme’s love ballad to Charles Manson. Later, I realized how much history I had unknowingly retained from this musical. The song “November 22, 1963” reflects on America’s most notorious assassination attempts, and alludes to each assassin being motivated by a desperate attempt to connect to a specific individual or culture to gain control over their life. Assassins awakened me to the flaws in some of our quintessential American ideals because the song “Everybody’s Got the Right” illustrates how the American individualism enshrined in our Constitution can be twisted to support hate, harm, and entitlement. I internalized Sondheim’s political commentary, and I see its relevance in America's most pressing issues. The misconstrued idea of limitless freedom can be detrimental to public health, worsening issues such as the climate crisis, gun violence, and the coronavirus pandemic. These existential threats largely stem from antiquated ideas that the rights of the few outweigh the rights of the majority. Ironically, a musical about individuals who tried to dismantle our American political system sparked my political interests, but this speaks to the power of Sondheim’s music and my ability to make connections and draw inspiration from unlikely sources.
Absorbing historical and political commentary set to music allows my statistical and logical brain to better empathize with the characters, giving me a deeper understanding of the conflicts portrayed on stage, almost like reading a diary. Theatremakers are influenced by both history and their life experiences. I internalize their underlying themes and values, and my mindset shifts to reflect the art that I adore. I’m an aspiring political changemaker, and Sondheim’s musicals influence my political opinions by enabling me to empathize with communities living drastically different lives from my own.
I sang Sondheim melodies before I could talk. As I grew intellectually and emotionally, Sondheim’s musicals began to carry more weight. With each viewing, I retained new historical and political information. This ritual drives me to continue studying Sondheim and enables me to confidently walk my own path because Sondheim’s work passively strengthens my ethics as I continue to extrapolate relevant life lessons from his melodies. Sondheim’s stories, with their complex, morally ambiguous characters, have solidified my ironclad set of morals which, together with my love of history, have blossomed into a passion for human rights and politics.
文章点评
我们常常希望在开头就能抓住招生官的眼球,这篇文章就是一个很好的例子。从作者“谋杀”朋友的语言描述就给人带来巨大的冲击力。
除此之外,让这篇文章脱颖而出的是作者毫不掩饰的激情。音乐剧不仅是她的爱好,更塑造了她的性格。很好地描述了这些音乐剧的政治背景是如何点燃了她对社会正义的热情,展示出一个能够将历史歌曲与枪支暴力和流行病等现代问题联系起来,善于分析和创造的形象。
这也是招生官希望看到,并鼓励学生去做的——让你的热情闪耀。所以我们在写文书的时候不妨选择一个自己真正感兴趣的话题,用此来打动招生官。
VOL.2
Daniella's Essay
Each time I bake cookies, they come out differently. Butter, sugar, eggs, flour — I measure with precision, stir with vigor, then set the oven to 375°F. The recipe is routine, yet hardly redundant.
After a blizzard left me stranded indoors with nothing but a whisk and a pantry full of the fundamentals, I made my first batch: a tray of piping hot chocolate chunkers whose melt-in-the-mouth morsels comforted my snowed-in soul. Such a flawless description, however, belies my messy process. In reality, my method was haphazard and carefree, the cookies a delicious fortuity that has since been impossible to replicate.
Each subsequent batch I make is a gamble. Will the cookies flatten and come out crispy? Stay bulbous and gooey? Am I a bad baker, or are they inherently capricious? Even with a recipe book full of suggestions, I can never place a finger on my mistake. The cookies are fickle and short-tempered. Baking them is like walking on eggshells — and I have an empty egg carton to prove it. Perhaps beginner’s luck had been the secret ingredient all along.
Yet, curiosity keeps me flipping to the same page in my recipe book. I became engrossed in perfecting the cookies not by the mechanical satisfaction of watching ingredients combine into batter, but by the chance to wonder at simplicity. The inconsistency is captivating. It is, after all, a strict recipe, identical ingredients combined in the same permutation. How can such orthodox steps yield such radical, unpredictable results? Even with the most formulaic tasks, I am questioning the universe.
Chemistry explains some of the anomaly. For instance, just a half-pinch extra of baking soda can have astounding ramifications on how the dough bubbles. The kitchen became my laboratory: I diaried each trial like a scientist; I bought a scale for more accurate measurements; I borrowed “On Food and Cooking: the Science and Lore of the Kitchen” from the library. But all to no avail — the variables refused to come together in any sort of equilibrium.
I then approached the problem like a pianist, taking the advice my teacher wrote in the margins of my sheet music and pouring it into the mixing bowl. There are 88 pitches on a keyboard, and there are a dozen ingredients in the recipe. To create a rhapsodic dessert, I needed to understand all of the melodic and harmonic lines and how they complemented one another. I imagined the recipe in Italian script, the chocolate chips as quick staccatos suspended in a thick adagio medium. But my fingers always stumbled at the coda of each performance, the details of the cookies turning to a hodgepodge of sound.
I whisk, I sift, I stir, I pre-heat the oven again, but each batch has its flaws, either too sweet, burnt edges, grainy, or underdone. Though the cookies were born of boredom, their erratic nature continues to fascinate me. Each time my efforts yield an imperfect result, I develop resilience to return the following week with a fresh apron, ready to try again. I am mesmerized by the quirks of each trial. It isn’t enough to just mix and eat — I must understand.
My creative outlook has kept the task engaging. Despite the repetition in my process, I find new angles that liven the recipe. In college and beyond, there will be things like baking cookies, endeavors that seem so unvaried they risk spoiling themselves to a housewife’s drudgery. But from my time in the kitchen, I have learned how to probe deeper into the mechanics of my tasks, to bring music into monotony, and to turn work into play. However the cookie crumbles in my future, I will approach my work with curiosity, creativity, and earnestness.
文章点评
做饼干的经历很普通,但不普通的是能把它写好。读完Daniella的文章,你能感觉到她不仅仅是在烘焙,更像是像科学家一样“记录每一次试验”,同时又能像音乐家一样富有创意。
整篇文章可爱,但有效,从不同角度展现了申请者的性格:她是如何处理问题的、她的价值观是什么,以及她的韧性、创造力、求知欲和真正的哲学思考。
当然,文中详细介绍Daniella饼干制作过程的几段也很给力,充满着引起共鸣的感性细节,让人仿佛可以闻到、摸到并尝到那些巧克力块,而不是过多地提及她的各种资历或经历。这种结构大胆而谦虚,是一个很好的「to show not to tell」的例子。
VOL.3
Michael's Essay
I’ve been alone for three years now. My freshman year, my mother had to take a job as a live-in caregiver to make enough money to pay rent and other bills after my uncle got married and moved out. I was ecstatic. I could finally have the entire house to myself. I had imagined the countless hours on the PS4, nobody telling me to go to sleep or to go do my homework. I felt free. Unexpectedly, though, this freedom came at the expense of my childhood. To compensate for never being home, my mother called me three times a day. The first call would always be at 6:00 a.m, like clockwork. That was the call to wake me up so that I wouldn’t miss the bus and be late for school. Then there was the 4:00 p.m call where we went over anything and everything that happened in school that day. Lastly, there was the 7:00 p.m call which always seemed to last over an hour. This was the call that made me miss my mother the most. We labeled this call the “multi-purpose” call. Sometimes we would just talk about how we were both doing. Other times she would teach me things I needed to know, like how to do laundry, how to go grocery shopping, or how to cook. But one thing that she always seemed to bring up was how she wished things were different and how much she ached with the desire to be home with her son.
That last call always weighed heavily on my heart. When around friends and their families, I would often put my head down and smile because their interactions would remind me so much of when my mother was with me every day. It made me miss her insurmountably, to the point where I began to despise every aspect of this “independence.” To me, it was loneliness, isolation, and nights laying in bed wishing I had a loved one in the house that I could talk to or hug. I was forced to become a man instead of living out my days as a kid. What hurt me the most, though, was knowing that my mother hated our situation even more than I did. She hated knowing her only child was growing up without her and it hurt her more than words could explain. She would always say how I was her pride and joy, but I’ve always thought of myself to be her hope, her hope for a better life.
That is why I have worked so hard in school. My mother has dedicated and sacrificed years of her life to make sure that her son could live a great one, and all she has ever asked from me in return was to do well in school. There were numerous times when I felt discouraged and unmotivated, but the thought of letting down the woman that has broken her back for me was far stronger than any fatigue I may have felt.
For three long years now, I have entered my house after school expecting nothing but silence and darkness. I lay in bed at night yearning to hear any sound at all that would signal that there was life in the house beside me. Then I wake up the next morning, get ready for school, and start the cycle all over again. I have almost gotten used to being alone. But I won’t let my story end here. The reason why I have worked myself so hard is so that things can be different for me and my mother. She always says that everything she’s doing now is for me and that when she gets old it’ll be my turn. Except when my turn comes, she will never have to be alone.
文章点评
文章以一个扣人心弦的开头,让读者想知道为什么他孤身一人。从最开始获得自由的欣喜若狂,到后来的沉重童年,文章用每天打电话这一惯例来强调他与母亲的深厚联系以及他们分离的痛苦。
文章也展示了他的韧性和成熟度。尽管与母亲分离是痛苦的,但为了拥有更好的未来,Michael将这种悲伤转化为追求学业的动力。这些品质表明他将在严格的学术环境中茁壮成长,不仅为上大学做好了准备,而且有潜力为社会带来积极的改变。这些都是哈佛在招生中所看重的。
VOL.4
Marcus' Essay
As late afternoon sunlight danced on my shoulders, I squished my eight-year-old face against the glass of the outdoor tank, eyes wide and searching for any signs of life. There! I scrambled from where I was seated, chasing the flickering sight of my prize. The otter darted away from me, his lithe body disappearing into a crack in the stones. I slumped against the wall, disappointed. Ever the HR representative, my mother saw my face and asked me what was wrong. I explained my frustration with the otters -- they’re so fun to watch, but they refuse to be seen. My mother leaned down, brushing a long lock of hair out of my face, and told me, “Sometimes, the animals get tired of being watched. They just want to be left alone.”
I didn’t think much of the otters after that. Until I became one.
In October of my sophomore year, I was four months into my transition from female to male. I wasn’t out to my extended family, my wardrobe was a haphazard mess of cargo shorts and skirts, and my voice was still, to my distress, annoyingly high. Being transgender at Middleton High School was no small feat -- I stuck out in a sea of over 2,000 cisgender peers, and most of my teachers did not know how to deal with people “in my situation,” as one put it.
One day, as I walked to my bus after school, I heard snickers from behind me. I turned around and saw a rowdy group of boys. One had his phone up, recording me. Everyone was laughing, and in an instant I knew they were laughing at me. I turned and walked away, doing my best to conceal myself from their view. The laughter continued.
I was the star of a humiliating show that I never asked to be a part of. I had become the otter. Their laughs kept ringing in my ears as I sat alone on the bus. I wanted to crawl inside myself and implode rather than think about going back to face them again the next day. My phone kept buzzing, but I refused to check it. It was only when I arrived home and checked those messages that I found that the video had been posted across social media for hundreds of my peers to see. It seemed like nothing, just a video of me walking, turning, and looking away. But their laughs were clear in the background, and I still understood the point of the video -- look at the freak. Look at the new zoo exhibit.
Seeing that video, I realized that I couldn’t allow myself to turn into what they saw me as. They wanted an otter, a punching bag that wouldn’t fight back. I was not going to be their otter. The next day, I went to my first Sexuality and Gender Equality club meeting. I spoke to the administration about what had happened. I saved the video and showed people. I took control.
Those boys wanted me to believe that I was merely an exhibit to be laughed at, but now I know I live for greater things. I live for lattes, for courtroom closing arguments, for the pesto I make at work. I live for Black Lives Matter and #enough and Pride. I live for kayaking and summer camp, for the kids in SAGE and my younger sister. My classmates tried to dehumanize me, trample me, and mold me into their image of transgender people. Maybe they’ll never see me as an equal, but that is their blindness, not mine. I do not live on display. I do not live in a zoo.
文章点评
Marcus非常出色地塑造了懂得内省的、真诚的形象。文章聚焦于“身份认同”和“克服障碍”。讨论这两个主题并不容易,但他将它们完美地交织在一起,每一段都提供了独一无二的精彩见解,用优美的创造性散文写成,带着读者进入Marcus的旅程——
从童年的困惑(遭遇水獭)到自我发现和孤立(他变成了水獭) ,到自我接受和下定决心(他不会被欺负) ,最终到胜利(他对生活的热情和爱)。
比如第3段描写了他在高中转学期间所经历的困难——他的出柜、他的衣着、他的尖锐的声音以及面临的挑战。这些例子有助于读者了解他的困境。
第4-5段则描述了Marcus的了悟真我,他现在已经变成了动物园里的水獭——一个展示品,一个“怪物”,一些他从来没有要求过的东西。遇在高中的欺凌和公众羞辱,导致他的悲伤、孤立和质疑自我价值。
直达第6段,马库斯意识到了他不再是被笑话的对象,而是一个让改变发生的人;第7段则体现了他的胜利,详细描述了他的快乐和自我接纳。他喜欢咖啡、法律、他的工作、皮划艇、他的妹妹、黑人的生活问题和性别协会。他不能改变别人的无知,但可以作为一个新的自己,过一种有目的的、充满激情的生活。
总的来说,这篇文章很好地将读者带入一个生动、感情充沛的和旅程,体会到了作者的独特经历,以及为什么这些经历对他的成长和成熟意义重大。
主页菌说:
从这些文章中,我们不难发现,哈佛大学喜欢的文书都有这些特点:
1.真实
招生官可以很容易地感受到作者文书中的虚假。无论你选择什么主题,都要确保它对你是真正重要的东西,不要为了打动人选择主题。你可以写一个具体的经验、爱好、个性或怪癖,以此说明你的优势。诚实的故事比花言巧语更能引起招生官的共鸣。而使用过于华丽的词藻,选择无关紧要的话题,通篇文章没有回答“你是谁?”这个问题只会给文书减分。
2.在开头抓住读者
你的文书将和其他申请者的一起争夺招生官的注意力。因此务必要在文章开头写一个能立即抓住读者想象力的句子或段落。
它可以是一个大胆的声明,一个深思熟虑的引用,一个你提出的问题,或一个描述性的场景。一个明确的主题论述能强有力地展开你的文章,帮助你推进写作的节奏。
3.专注于你自己
很多学生在写文书的时候会陷入用数据或故事打动招生官的误区,比如描述体育比赛的胜利或对志愿者的具体工作,但这些不是招生官感兴趣的重点。他们想了解的是“你是一个什么样的人?什么把你带到人生这个阶段?你在逆境中的感悟是什么?”切记一定要把写作重点落回自己身上。
4.结构清晰
Ref:
The Crimson
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