【留美學子】第3312期
10年國際視角精選
仰望星空·腳踏實地
【陳屹視線】教育·人文·名家文摘
2024哈佛9篇“滿分”文書出爐
原來藤校招生官鍾愛這類故事
參考：ANC教育
近日，The Crimson公佈了2024年度被哈佛大學錄取的10篇優秀文書（實際只有9篇）並進行點評，這些文書代表了大學招生官所尋求錄取的學生的重要品質或特性，有非常高的參考價值。
準備申請的同學們可以借鑑這些優秀文書，瞭解如何寫出令招生官稱讚的申請文書。
下面我們看看，被哈佛拿出來展示的文書到底是怎樣的：
Three days before I got on a plane to go across the country for six weeks I quit milk cold-turkey. I had gone to the chiropractor to get a general check up. I knew I had scoliosis and other problems; however, I learned that because of my excessive, to say the least, intake of milk my body had developed a hormone imbalance. I decided it would be best for my health to completely stop drinking milk and avoid dairy when possible. Little did I know, this was only the start of a summer of change; three days later I got on a plane to attend the Minority Introduction To Engineering and Science (MITES) program in Massachusetts.
I assumed that most of the people were going to be unhealthily competitive because of my past experiences. I thought I would keep to myself, do my work, and come back no different. Living in a building with 80 people I’ve never met in a place I’ve never been while making a significant life style change was not easy. The first few days were not kind: I got mild stomach ulcers, it was awkward, and I felt out of place. That first Thursday night however, all of that started to change. On Thursday evenings we had “Family Meetings” and on this particular Thursday part of our Machine Learning class was working together when the time came to go to the dining hall for whatever this “Family Meeting” was. Honestly we dreaded it at first, “I have work to do” was the most common phrase. We learned that “Family Meeting” was a safe space for us to talk about anything and everything. Today’s theme was, “what’s something important about your identity that makes you unique?” but the conversation quickly evolved into so much more. People spoke about losing family members, being shunned at home, not feeling comfortable in their own skin, and more. So many people opened up about incredibly personal things, I felt honored to be given that trust. The room was somber and warm with empathy as the meeting concluded. Out of my peripheral vision I saw Izzy, one of my Machine Learning classmates, rushing back to the conference room. I realized something was not right. Instinctively, I followed her back to where we were working. Izzy sat down and immediately broke down, the rest of us filed in as she started to talk about what was wrong. It felt as though an ambulance was sitting on my chest, my breaths were short and stingy. I was afraid; afraid my support wouldn’t be good enough, afraid to show that I cared, afraid they didn’t care for me. In this one moment all my insecurities, some I didn’t even know I had, came to the surface. The heavy silence of hushed sobbing was broken by an outpouring of support and a hug. We all started sharing what we’re going through and even some of our past trauma. Slowly that weight is lifted off my chest. I feel comfortable, I feel wanted, I feel safe.
This is the first time I truly felt confident, empowered, and loved. I am surrounded by people smarter than me and I don’t feel any lesser because of it. I have become the true Francisco, or Cisco as they call me. I now, at all times, am unapologetically myself. The difference is night and day. As the program progressed I only felt more comfortable and safe, enough so to even go up and speak at a family meeting. These people, this family, treated me right. I gained priceless confidence, social skills, self-worth, empathetic ability, and mental fortitude to take with me and grow on for the rest of my life. Through all of this somehow cutting out the biggest part of my diet became the least impactful part of my summer.
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招生官點評
Ivy Institute專業評審Francisco的申請文書《三天之前，我登上飛機》描述了他參加麻省理工學院的少數族裔工程與科學介紹計劃（MITES），這成為他內省之旅的背景。故事始於一個看似微不足道的決定——因健康原因放棄牛奶——但很快演變成為那些改變生命的事件鋪墊的比喻。這篇文章巧妙地利用內在的轉變來描繪一個夏天，它從根本上改變了Francisco對自己和與他人互動的看法。一開始，他對MITES專案感到緊張，因為他預料到這是一個非常競爭激烈的環境，這會讓他感到更加孤獨。在專案初期遇到的身體和心理困難——如輕微的胃潰瘍和強烈的疏離感——加劇了他的擔憂。
然而，在每週的“家庭會議”上，這些會議旨在鼓勵成員之間坦率交流和支援，故事有了戲劇性的轉折。在一個會議的主題“你身份中的重要特質是什麼，使你獨特？”的引導下，成員們開始分享越來越詳細、更私密的故事，將聚會轉變為一個充滿共情和脆弱性的環境。Francisco深受同齡人坦誠分享個人問題的感動，這促使他重新考慮了自己與社群的關係，以及他如何在其中找到歸屬感。
Francisco的申請文書精彩地展示了社群和坦率對個人發展的重大影響。他的經歷不僅證明了學習環境中安全空間的價值，還展示了共情的轉變潛力。文末，Francisco已經成長為一個更加真實的自己，“Cisco”正如他的朋友們稱呼他。他強調這段經歷賦予了他自信，使他能夠真正做自己，同時也賦予了他寶貴的社交技能、自我價值感和情感堅韌，這些將貫穿他的一生。
儘管Francisco的文書生動地敘述了一個轉折性的夏季經歷，但若能加入更多個人細節和背景資訊，將有助於更全面地理解他的生活和經歷。例如，可以介紹他對工程和科學的初步興趣或者他之前在競爭中的經歷。進一步展開MITES專案對他長遠目標的影響，也將有助於文書的完善。此外，詳細描述他在專案前後與同齡人的關係，將使他的社交成長更加清晰。這些補充細節將構建一個更完整和引人入勝的敘事，展示Francisco作為一個多面性個體的形象。
I, Too, Can Dance
I was in love with the way the dainty pink mouse glided across the stage, her tutu twirling as she pirouetted and her rose-colored bow following the motion of her outstretched arms with every grand jeté.
I had always dreamed I would dance, and Angelina Ballerina made it seem so easy. There was something so freeing about the way she wove her body into the delicate threads of the Sugar Plum Fairy’s song each time she performed an arabesque. I longed for my whole being to melt into the magical melodies of music; I longed to enchant the world with my own stories; and I longed for the smile that glimmered on every dancer’s face.
At recess, my friends and I would improvise dances. But while they seemed well on their way to achieving ballerina status, my figure eights were more like zeroes and every attempt at spinning around left me feeling dizzy. Sometimes, I even ran over my friends’ toes. How could I share my stories with others if I managed to injure them with my wheelchair before the story even began?
I then tried piano, but my fingers stumbled across the keys in an uncoordinated staccato tap dance of sorts. I tried art, but the clumsiness of my brush left the canvas a colorful mess. I tried the recorder, but had Angelina existed in real life, my rendition of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” would have frozen her in midair, with flute-like screeches tumbling through the air before ending in an awkward split and shattering the gossamer world the Sugar Plum Fairy had worked so hard to build.
For as long as I could remember, I’d also been fascinated by words, but I’d never explored writing until one day in fourth grade, the school librarian announced a poetry contest. That night, as I tried to sleep, ideas scampered through my head like Nutcracker mice awakening a sleeping Clara to a mystical new world. By morning, I had choreographed the mice to tell a winning story in verse about all the marvelous outer space factoids I knew.
Now, my pencil pirouettes perfect O’s on paper amidst sagas of doting mothers and evanescent lovers. The tip of my pen stipples the lines of my notebook with the tale of a father’s grief, like a ballerina tiptoeing en pointe; as the man finds solace in nature, the ink flows gracefully, and for a moment, it leaps off the page, as if reaching out to the heavens to embrace his daughter’s soul. Late at night, my fingers tap dance across the keys of my laptop, tap tap tapping an article about the latest breakthrough in cancer research—maybe LDCT scans or aneuploidy-targeted therapy could have saved the daughter’s life; a Spanish poem about the beauty of unspoken moments; and the story of a girl in a wheelchair who learned how to dance.
As the world sleeps, I lose myself in the cathartic cadences of fresh ink, bursting with stories to be told and melting into parched paper. I cobble together phrases until they spring off my tongue, as if the Sugar Plum Fairy herself has transformed the staccato rumblings of my brain into something legato and sweet. I weave my heart, my soul, my very being into my words as I read them out loud, until they become almost like a chant. With every rehearsal, I search for the perfect finale to complete my creation. When I finally find it, eyes dry with midnight-induced euphoria, I remember that night so many years ago when I discovered the magic of writing, and smile.
I may not dance across the stage like Angelina Ballerina, but I can dance across the page.
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招生官點評
Sarika巧妙地描述了她是如何從希望像虛構角色安吉麗娜·芭蕾娜一樣跳舞，到最終透過寫作找到深刻滿足和表達自我的過程。文章以對Sarika早期對舞蹈的著迷進行了詳細的描述開篇，這種興趣是由她在電視上看到的動畫表演引發的。然而，我們瞭解到，她最初試圖模仿這些舞蹈動作時，由於坐輪椅的身體限制而遇到了困難，這使她的年少目標變得複雜和沮喪。
儘管遇到這些困難，Sarika的故事充滿了堅韌和獨創性。她在其他藝術媒介上的經歷，如繪畫和鋼琴，也遵循著類似的模式：最初的熱情後來意識到自己的身體侷限性。然而，這些努力被呈現為逐步前進的階梯，每一個都增強了她的動力，並引導她朝著一個她可能真正成功的領域前進。
當Sarika發現寫作時，她的故事有了戲劇性的轉折。這種意識不僅是一種慰藉，也是她發現自己聲音的勝利。寫作成為她的舞臺，文字讓她能夠優雅地移動，講述故事和表達概念，就像表演者在舞臺上展示的那樣優雅和流暢。Sarika用與舞蹈相關的意象來描述她的寫作過程，比如她的鉛筆“旋轉”和她的敘述“從頁面上躍然而出”，有效地對比了舞蹈和寫作之間的聯絡。
Sarika深刻的反思和她成熟的認識到藝術表達可以有多種形式，正是使她的文章如此動人的地方。她傳達了接受自己能力並探索多種藝術表達途徑的強烈資訊。當文書接近結尾時，Sarika已經接受了她的命運，甚至開始喜歡它。她在深夜鍵盤的節奏敲擊中找到了快樂，創作出那些像經過精心編排的舞蹈一樣優雅而複雜的故事。
I’m hiding behind the swing door of the dressing room when I text my mom just one word: “Traumatizing!” I’m on a bra-shopping expedition with my grandmother, and just in case it’s not abundantly clear, this trip was Not. My. Idea. Bra shopping has always been shrouded in mystery for me, and growing up in a household with two moms and two younger sisters hasn’t helped one bit: One of my moms doesn’t wear bras; the other proudly proclaims that her bras are older than me. A two-mom family without the faintest idea what a teenage girl needs—par for the course around here.
So when my 78-year-old grandmother volunteered to take me bra shopping, my moms jumped at the chance. Here I was with my frugal grandmother, outlet-shopping among the racks of intimates that aren’t sized quite right, that have too much padding or too little…You can see my predicament, and it’s no surprise that my younger self was confused by the words “wire-free,” “concealing petals,” “balconette.”
The saleswoman called to my grandmother from across the store, “What cup size is she?”
“I don’t know,” my grandmother screamed back. “Can you measure her?”
Measure me? They have got to be kidding.
***
“I just don’t want her to feel different,” I heard my grandmother say later that day. “Kids this age can be so mean.”
I love my grandmother, but she believes the world is harsh and unforgiving, and she thinks that the only path to happiness is fitting in. My grandmother had taken me bra shopping in a last-ditch attempt to make me “normal” because I was entering 9th grade at Deerfield in a few weeks, and she worried that I would stick out worse than the underwire of a bargain basement bra.
It’s true—I’m not your typical Deerfield student. I’m a day student with lesbian moms who have several fewer zeros on their bank account balance than typical Deerfield parents. I’m the kid with a congenital foot deformity, which means I literally can’t run, who will never be able to sprint across campus from classroom to classroom. I’m the kid with life-threatening food allergies to milk and tree nuts who can’t indulge in the pizza at swim team celebrations or the festive cake and ice cream during advisory meetings.
But fitting in was my grandmother’s worry, not mine. What my grandmother didn’t consider is that there’s no single way to fit in. I might be two minutes later to class than the sprinters, but I always arrive. I might have to explain to my friends what “having two moms” means, but I’ll never stop being thankful that Deerfield students are eager to lean in and understand. I may not be able to eat the food, but you can count on me to show up and celebrate.
While I can’t run, I can swim and play water polo, and I can walk the campus giving Admissions tours. My family might not look like everyone else’s, but I can embrace those differences and write articles for the school newspaper or give a talk at “School Meeting,” sharing my family and my journey. Some of my closest friendships at Deerfield have grown from a willingness on both sides to embrace difference.
On one of the first days of 9th grade, I sat down to write a “Deerfield Bucket List”—a list of experiences that I wanted to have during my four years in high school, including taking a Deerfield international trip and making the Varsity swim team. That list included thirteen items, and I’m eleven-thirteenths of the way there, not because I have the right bra, but because I’ve embraced the very thing that my grandmother was afraid of. Bra shopping is still shrouded in mystery for me, but I know that I am where I should be, I’m doing work that matters to me, and fitting in rarely crosses my mind.
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招生官點評
Common App的申請文書允許你以自己的聲音直接與招生官溝通，分享重要的個人特質和對自己核心的深刻洞察，展示你將如何豐富學院的社群。在選擇話題時，要牢記到目前為止，招生官聽到的關於你的資訊都是來自別人而非你自己。現在，這是你展示真正個性、展示你將如何與即將到來的新生群體契合的機會。
在這篇文章中，我們遇到了Orlee，她正在和關愛備至的祖母一起購買胸罩。Orlee毫不猶豫地讓我們突然進入一個尷尬、“令人心碎”的時刻，這是她勇敢選擇分享的。僅僅在幾秒鐘內，我們還了解到她有兩位自稱“時尚不敏感”的媽媽。這還只是第一段，但我已經開始喜歡她了。考慮到每篇文書只有幾分鐘的平均閱讀時間，招生官希望知道這篇文章將會如何發展。
文章早期，我們瞭解到Orlee的祖母對世界的看法是“嚴酷且無情”的，她對Orlee保護有加，並建議幫助Orlee融入社交圈，以便被視為“正常”。起初，我們以為這篇文章是關於青少年的焦慮，但在一個意想不到的轉折中，Orlee迅速告訴我們，她祖母對她融入社交圈的擔憂既不是不合理的，也不是沒有根據的。
Orlee透露她有一種先天性的足部畸形限制了她跑步的能力，以及嚴重的、可能危及生命的食物過敏。現在她吸引了我們的注意力，她巧妙地編織進她日常生活的更多片段，展示了她在困難時刻選擇勇敢面對的能力。她直接而樂觀地描述自己的生活，不是為了感情上的操控，而是展示她的積極態度。我們瞭解到她的堅持不懈，她總是樂於接受挑戰。她展示瞭如何為自己創造空間，以便被納入，她理直氣壯地沒有請求許可或因她的身體挑戰而道歉。
Orlee意識到他人可能會因為她明顯的身體挑戰而迅速將她歸類，她立即讓我們關注她可以在校園上貢獻的許多優點，提供了幾個清晰的例子，展示了她如何積極參與並超越他人的負面看法。她設定了激勵人心的生活目標，她高中時期的願望清單幾乎已經完成。這位學生不害怕去追求並實現她的目標。她只是在過著她最好的生活，我為她加油！
這篇文章成功的原因在於它告訴了我們Orlee是誰，她如何茁壯成長，她珍視朋友和隊友，將把同樣的能量帶入她的大學社群。她聰明、好奇、自信且善良。她設定目標並制定願景以支援她的世界觀。“適應別人很少會跨越她的腦海。”這就是她的品牌故事，我完全支援！
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.
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招生官點評
Marcus在這篇發人深省的申請文書中，出色地創造了一個深刻、內省和充滿勝利的個人成長故事，重點關注“身份”和“克服障礙”。討論兩個主題可能有風險，但他巧妙地將它們編織在一起。每一段都獨立成篇，是對Marcus旅程的精彩洞察，用美麗的創意散文寫成——從童年的困惑（與水獺的相遇），到未來的自我發現和孤立（他成為水獺），再到自我接受和決心（他不會被欺負），最終到勝利（他對生活的熱情和熱愛）。在第一至第二段，Marcus關於動物園水獺的個人趣事非常有效地框定了他從性別認同為異性到變性人的複雜轉變過程。他母親關於水獺自我隔離的智慧照亮了故事的基礎，預示了後續的發展。Marcus將自己與曾在動物園看到的水獺進行對比，這激發了我繼續閱讀下去的興趣。
第三段有效地突出了他在高中時期過渡中所經歷的困難——他的出櫃經歷、服裝、高音調的聲音以及與學術教職員的挑戰。這些例子幫助讀者理解他的困境。
第四和第五段描繪了Marcus意識到自己如今已成為動物園水獺的自我認識——一個展品，“怪物”，這是他從未想要成為的。他講述了在高中遭受欺凌和公開羞辱的悲慘經歷，這些使他感到悲傷、孤立，並質疑自己的自我價值。Marcus的坦率引發了真實的情感，我對他深感同情。
“頓悟”時刻出現在第六段，Marcus深刻地反思和意識到，他不會再成為笑柄，而是變革的推動者。他透過參加俱樂部會議並與學校教職員交流，“掌控”了自己的命運。
第七段展示了勝利的讚歌，Marcus詳細描述了他的喜悅、自我接受和現在的自己。他熱愛咖啡、法律、他的工作、皮划艇、他的姐妹、黑人的命也和性別關聯。他透過理解到他無法改變他人的無知，但可以過著充滿目的和激情的生活作為他新的自我，向讀者傳達了一條真誠的資訊，也可能是給像他一樣的其他人的資訊。
總的來說，這篇成功的申請文書帶領讀者走進了一個生動、感人且結構良好的旅程，分享了作者獨特的經歷，以及這些經歷為他的成長和成熟帶來的重要性。
As I rode up and down the gentle slopes of the Peabody skatepark, I watched my younger brother race down from the highest point on the halfpipe and fly past me at the speed of light. I wish I could do that, I thought, eyeing the enormous curve that towered over me. But I didn’t dare make my way up to the top. Instead, I stuck with the routine I was comfortable with, avoiding the steep inclines at all costs.
Each week during the summer before my fourth grade year, my brother and I would visit that same skatepark, and I would take my mini-BMX bike to the bottom of that monstrous ramp, ready to attack the giant. I started off low reaching only a quarter of the way up at first, too scared to go any higher. But each week, I gained more confidence and kept reaching greater heights. Halfway there, two-thirds, three quarters. Until finally, I mustered up enough courage to complete my final challenge.
With my brother’s shouts of joy ringing in my ears, it seemed as though the concrete mass was calling my name, drawing me closer and closer, until I couldn’t resist its pleading any further. I walked my bike up the stairs and approached the steep drop off. My hands started to sweat and my legs began to shake as I inched toward the edge, staring in the face of doom. Finally at the lip of the ramp, I paused briefly, took a deep breath, and moved forward just enough to send myself speeding downwards. I couldn’t contain my excitement as my, “Woooo!” echoed around the park. I had finally ridden down the tallest ramp!
Throughout my life I have enjoyed having a plan and being in control. When working in a group, I make sure that everyone knows exactly which aspect of the project they will complete. I organize all my homework in a planner so that I never miss a due date. Each night, I outline my schedule for the following day so that I know what meetings, sports events, and other activities I have to attend. When I visited New York City over the summer, I prepared a detailed itinerary to follow. Rarely is there a day when I don’t have a general idea of what I’m going to do, but sometimes my plan doesn’t correlate with how the day truly plays out.
Over the years, I have learned to adapt when situations take an unexpected turn, and, similar to that time at the skatepark, I have been able to step out of my comfort zone more often. It isn’t the end of the world when things don’t go exactly as planned; often times, sudden changes and new experiences make for a more enjoyable and interesting time. As much as I enjoy a strict itinerary, some of my best nights have begun by hopping in the car with my friends, picking a direction, and going wherever the wind takes us. As hard as I try to plan out my day, an unforeseen event is almost inevitable. Although this can bring about some stress, scrambling around to figure things out is not only an essential skill, but can be a fun challenge, too.
I can’t imagine a completely organized life without a little uncertainty. Unexpected circumstances are bound to occur, and making the most of them is one of my favorite parts of life. Regardless of how much I love having a plan, my flexibility and willingness to step out of my comfort zone is something I have and will always take pride in.
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比利征服皮博迪滑板公園巨大坡道的故事不僅僅是透過逐步冒險擴充套件他的舒適區。要真正欣賞這個小插曲如何增強他的申請背景，必須考慮它的更大背景。比利承認自己是一個超級組織的行程制定者，一直喜歡掌控一切。四年級的比利騎著他的BMX車進入這個滑板公園的場景，與他廣泛的課外領導經歷和雄心勃勃的環境工程志向完全相反。儘管沒有明確說出來，比利的文章向我們展示了他那自由度極高的童年夏季與他高中時期嚴格安排的生活方式是多麼不同。雖然這似乎已經是很久以前的事了，但比利並沒有忘記那種逐漸接近邊緣，凝視著厄運的面孔，並自願放手的感覺。事實上，即使是八年後的現在，每當比利按下目標導向追求的暫停鍵，花些時間，拋開顧慮，與朋友們開始一次即興的公路冒險，這段記憶仍然鮮活如昨。比利的半管故事平衡了一個可能在缺乏這種經歷時顯得過於謹慎或僵化的申請背景，展示了他對過度依賴計劃可能帶來的機會成本的自我認識。
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.
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招生官點評
丹妮拉的文章可愛、有趣且有效。它真實而自然地展示了她的不同面，展示了她如何解決問題以及她所重視的價值觀。文章主題的平凡性與她的結論和見解完美契合。她運用幽默，展示了她的堅韌、創造力、智慧好奇心和對哲學思考的真實傾向。她的“聲音”自信，用詞富有創意，每段的詞彙巧妙地反映了她的不同側面（科學家“記錄每一次試驗”；音樂家嘗試創作“悅耳的甜點”）。
詳述丹妮拉制作餅乾的幾個段落也非常強大。她用感官細節停留，讓人共鳴（你可以聞到、嚐到和感受到那些巧克力塊）。她沒有過多提及自己的各種證書或經歷，而是以此結構大膽而謙遜地展示了自己的思維方式、解決問題的能力和毅力。這非常有力量。
這篇文章有618個字（標準限制為650字）。丹妮拉本可以利用額外的字數來加強第三段：她何時體驗過類似的過程導致不同結果——也許是在音樂表演中？在接下來的段落中，她可能本可以增加一句話，考慮大氣條件對烘焙的潛在影響，以及更廣泛或比喻性地。
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.
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勞倫的文章非常引人注目。從第一句話開始，她在一個以《理髮師陶德》為主題的課間遊戲中歡快地“殺害”朋友，你就被吸引住了。這不是你平常見到的個人文書；這是一個充滿了對桑德海姆的狂熱童年時光的瘋狂之旅。在這個世界裡，“戲劇就是一種宗教”，而《完成帽子》則是她的聖經。
這篇文章脫穎而出的地方在於勞倫毫不掩飾的激情。她不僅僅是喜歡音樂劇。《西區故事》實際上引發了她深刻的情感反應，並塑造了她的智力成長。勞倫描述了這些音樂劇的政治背景如何點燃了她對社會正義的熱情。她展現了一個既有分析能力又富有創造力的思維，將歷史歌曲與現代問題如槍支暴力和疫情聯絡在一起。這正是我們鼓勵學生做的事情——讓你的激情閃耀。你的大學申請文書是展示真實聲音的最佳場所。因此，請確保選擇一個你真正投入的話題。這種激情會是具有感染力的，它會給讀者留下深刻的印象。
勞倫還很好地保持了一種平易近人和可愛的語調（“我不確定自己對上帝有什麼感覺，但我確實相信桑德海姆”）。她成功地將對桑德海姆作品的熱愛與成為政治變革者的願望聯絡起來。這種激情和目標的對齊是令人信服的，也是她成為哈佛強有力候選人的原因。
My nightstand is home to a small menagerie of critters, each glass-eyed specimen lovingly stuffed with cotton. Don’t get the wrong idea, now – I’m not a taxidermist or anything. I crochet.
Crochet is a family tradition. My grandmother used to wield her menacing steel hook like a mage’s staff and tout it as such: an instrument that bestowed patience, decorum, and poise on its owner. During her youth in Vietnam, she spent her evenings designing patterns for ornate doilies and handkerchiefs. Then the Vietnam War turned our family into refugees. The Viet Cong imprisoned my grandfather, a colonel in the South Vietnam Air Force, in a grueling labor camp for thirteen years. Many wives would have lost hope, but my grandmother was no average woman. A literature professor in a time when women’s access to education was limited, she assumed the role of matriarch with wisdom and confidence, providing financial and emotional security. As luxuries like yarn grew scarce, she conjured up all sorts of useful household items – durable pillowcases, blankets, and winter coats – and taught my mother to do the same. Because of these bitter wartime memories, she wanted my handiwork to be of a decidedly less practical bent; among the first objects she taught me to crochet were chrysanthemums and roses. However, making flowers bloom from yarn was no easy task.
Even with its soft plastic grip and friendly rounded edges, my first crochet hook had a mind of its own, like the enchanted broom in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” It stubbornly disobeyed my orders as I impatiently wrenched it through the yarn. My grandmother’s stern appraisal of my efforts often interrupted this perpetual tug-of-war: My stitches were uneven. The edges curled inward. I would unravel my work and start anew.
I convinced myself that cobbling together a lopsided rectangle would be the pinnacle of my crochet prowess but refused to give up. Just as a diligent wizard casts more advanced spells over time, I learned to channel the magic of the crochet hook. The animal kingdom is my main source of inspiration; the diversity and vivid pigmentation of life on Earth lend themselves perfectly to the vibrant and versatile art of crochet. Many of the animals I make embark on migratory journeys, like their real-life counterparts. Take Agnes, for example, a cornflower-blue elephant named after mathematician Maria Gaetana Agnesi who lives in my calculus teacher’s classroom, happily grazing on old pencil shavings and worksheets. As I fasten off the final stitches on every creature, I hope to weave a little whimsy and color into someone’s life.
Each piece I finish reminds me of the network of stitches that connects mother and daughter, past and present, tradition and innovation. In this vast cultural web, I am proud to be my family’s link between East and West. As I prepare for adulthood, I am eager to weave my own mark into the great patchwork quilt that is America.
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克拉拉的文章將她的聲音、家庭歷史和現在的性格巧妙地融入一個感人而有效的敘述中。以下是她如何做到的：
文章以完美的開篇開始。透過生動、具體的詞彙選擇（“玻璃眼標本的床頭櫃”），文章展示了克拉拉的聲音和幽默（“不是一個動物標本製作者”）。與此同時，這篇文章迅速介紹了主題：編織。
接著，文章“放大鏡”式地提高了故事的懸念。編織不僅僅是一種愛好：它是克拉拉的家庭在越戰期間的傳統。雖然克拉拉提到了家庭經歷的殘酷現實，但她迅速把焦點轉回了自己。這是許多學生容易忽略的一點：無論你過去有多麼艱難，你的文章必須關注你現在。
接著，文章為我們展示了她的性格。克拉拉不會因失敗而氣餒，也不會因為某事很艱難就放棄。透過專注於努力提高她的編織技能，克拉拉展示了申請文書中常見的成熟、毅力和自我意識。
最後，克拉拉的文章做到了完美的結尾。我們教導學生在他們的文章中橋接過去、現在和未來。克拉拉做到了：寫關於編織讓她能夠以一個複雜的討論結束，說明她的家庭歷史不僅影響她現在的生活，還影響她未來的大學目標。
Fish Out of Water:
idiom. a person who is in an unnatural environment; completely out of place.
When I was ten, my dad told me we were moving to somewhere called "Eely-noise." The screen flashed blue as he scrolled through 6000 miles of water on Google Earth to find our new home. Swipe, swipe, swipe, and there it was: Illinois, as I later learned.
Moving to America was like going from freshwater into saltwater. Not only did my mom complain that American food was too salty, but I was helplessly caught in an estuary of languages, swept by daunting tides of tenses, articles, and homonyms. It’s not a surprise that I developed an intense, breathless kind of thirst for what I now realize is my voice and self-expression.
This made sense because the only background I had in English was “Konglish”–an unhealthy hybrid of Korean and English–and broken phrases I picked up from SpongeBob. As soon as I stepped into my first class in America, I realized the gravity of the situation: I had to resort to clumsy pantomimes, or what I euphemistically called body language, to convey the simplest messages. School became an unending game of pictionary.
Amid the dizzying pool of vowels and phonemes and idioms (why does spilling beans end friendships?), the only thing that made sense was pictures and diagrams. Necessarily, I soon became interested in biology as its textbook had the highest picture-to-text ratio. Although I didn’t understand all the ant-like captions, the colorful diagrams were enough to catch my illiterate attention: a green ball of chyme rolling down the digestive tract, the rotor of the ATP synthase spinning like a waterwheel. Biology drew me with its ELL-friendliness and never let go.
I later learned in biology that when a freshwater fish goes in saltwater, it osmoregulates–it drinks a lot of water and urinates less. This used to hold true for my school day, when I constantly chugged water to fill awkward silences and lubricate my tongue to form better vowels. This habit in turn became a test of English-speaking and bladder control: I constantly missed the timing to go to the bathroom by worrying about how to ask. The only times I could express myself were through my fingers, between the pages of Debussy and under my pencil tip. To fulfill my need for self-expression and communication, I took up classical music, visual art, and later, creative writing. To this day, I will never forget the ineffable excitement when I delivered a concerto, finished a sculpture, and found beautiful words that I could not pronounce. If biology helped me understand, art helped me be understood.
There’s something human, empathetic, even redemptive about both art and biology. While they helped me reconcile with English and my new home, their power to connect and heal people is much bigger than my example alone. In college and beyond, I want to pay them forward, whether by dedicating myself to scientific research, performing in benefit concerts, or simply sharing the beauty of the arts. Sometimes, language feels slippery like fish on my tongue. But knowing that there are things that transcend language grounds and inspires me. English seeped into my tongue eventually, but I still pursue biology and arts with the same, perhaps universal, exigency and sincerity: to understand and to be understood.
Over the years, I have come to acknowledge and adore my inner fish, that confused, tongue-twisted and home-sick ELL kid from the other side of the world, which will forever coexist within me. And I’ve forgiven English, although I still can’t pronounce words like “rural,” because it gifted me with new passions to look forward to every day. Now, when I see kids with the same breathless look that I used to have gasping for home water, Don’t worry, I want to tell them.
You’ll find your water.
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米歇爾的文章為讀者呈現了一個生動而風趣的旅程，描述了他們作為移民適應伊利諾伊州新生活的經歷（Eely-noise！）。儘管一些移民經歷的文章可能顯得老套，但米歇爾巧妙地運用“水中之魚”的比喻來連線他們對生物學和藝術的熱情，以及逐步掌握英語的掙扎。獨特之處在於對米歇爾日常語言掙扎的坦誠和幽默描繪，從最初使用“笨拙的比手畫腳”來表示上廁所的意圖，到發現美麗新詞彙時的“難以言喻的興奮”，展示了米歇爾最終成長為能夠流利運用英語的文筆嫻熟的寫作者。
米歇爾在這篇文章中展示了自己廣泛的熱情，涵蓋了音樂、藝術和生物學，但最令人印象深刻的是米歇爾對適應美國生活和文化的細緻和內省的記錄。顯然，米歇爾熱愛寫作，樂於找到合適的詞語來表達思想，展示了他們的堅韌精神和對學習的熱愛。米歇爾對成長為一名作家和藝術家的真誠熱情貫穿全文，溫暖和幽默感染力十足。
從這些傑出的申請文書中，我們可以洞察哈佛大學招生官所青睞的學生特質。這些文書雖風格迥異，但共通之處在於都彰顯了申請者鮮明的個性和獨特的才能。
這些案例為準備申請的學子們提供了極具價值的參考，同時激勵著他們在撰寫文書時真誠地展現自我。透過借鑑這些成功典範，學生們能更深入地理解如何透過文字精準地傳達個人成長曆程、激情追求、創新思維和批判性見解，從而在激烈的申請競爭中脫穎而出，實現邁進心儀學府的夢想。
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