这些文书让哈佛大学招生官赞不绝口其过人之处耐人寻味

原标题：这些文书让哈佛大学招生官赞不绝口，其过人之处耐人寻味

哈佛大校园报 The Crimson, 精选出了 2019 年度哈佛大学 10 佳文书，并附带了招生处教师对每一篇文书的精彩点评。

今日我就搬过来和咱们一同赏识、观摩、参阅这些优异文书中的过人之处。

第一篇文书

01

作者：Sandra

地点州：马萨诸塞州

高中：公立高中

种族：亚裔

性别：女

GPA：3.95 out of 4.0

SAT/ACT ：N/A

SAT Ⅱ：N/A

课外活动：模仿联合国主席、无家可归者救助社主席、Belmontian（社区服务沙龙）秘书、演和解争辩社开创人兼主席

荣誉奖项：AP 学者奖、贝尔蒙特高中图书奖及贝尔蒙特拉丁图书奖最高荣誉奖

专业：心理学

Essay

“UT Italiam laeti Latiumque petamus"

"Sandra, would you mind reading the next few lines and translating them for us?"

The professor glanced at me, a kind glimmer in his bespectacled eyes. I gulped. I was in a classroom of eighteen, five of whom were high school Latin teachers. And I was supposed to recite and translate Livy's Ab Urbe condita — with elisions! After fumbling through a few words and mistaking a verb for a noun, I finished the first sentence. I skimmed the second line, looking for the main verb. Singular. I searched for a singular noun and pieced the two together. Then, I noticed an accusative and added it as a direct object. As I continued, a burst of exhilaration shot through my body. My eyes darted across the page, finding a verb, a noun, and objects. I reached the end of the passage and grinned, relief pulsing in my veins.

"Very good!" The professor beamed at me before selecting his next victim.

A few months ago, I never would have imagined myself sitting in Harvard's Boylston Hall this summer for six hours a week, cherishing the ancient literature of Rome. Even though the professor decided I was eligible for the course despite not taking the prerequisite, I was still nervous. I worked hard in the class, and it reminded me just how much I love the language.

Translating has always given me great pleasure and great pain. It is much like completing a jigsaw puzzle. Next, I look for phrases that connect the entire clause — does this adjective match this noun? Does this puzzle piece have the right shape? The middle of the sentence is the trickiest, full of convoluted dependent clauses, pieces colored ambiguously and with curves and edges on all four sides.

I am sometimes tangled in the syntax, one of the worst feelings in the world. After analyzing every word, I try to rearrange the pieces so they fit together. When they finally do, I am filled with a satisfaction like no other. Translating forces me to rattle my brain, looking for grammatical rules hidden in my mind's nooks and crannies. It pushes my intellectual boundaries.

No other language is as precise, using inflection to express gender, number, and case in just one word. When I pull apart a sentence, I am simultaneously divulging the secrets of an ancient civilization. Renowned scholars are telling the stories of their time through these words! No other language is as meticulous. Every line follows the same meter and the arrangement of every word is with a purpose.

The story of Pyramus and Thisbe includes a sentence where the word "wall" is places between the words "Pyramus" and "Thisbe" to visually show the lovers' separation. Translating is like life itself; the words are not in logical order. One cannot expect the subject of a sentence to appear at the beginning of a clause, just like one cannot plan the chronology of life. Like the delayed verb, we do not always know what is happening in our lives; we just know it is happening.

When translating we notice the nouns, the adjectives, and the conjunctions just like we see the people, senses, and connections of our lives. However, we often do not know what we are doing and ask ourselves the age-old question: Why are we here? Perhaps we are here to learn, to teach, to help, to serve, to lead, or just to live. We travel through life to decide what our purpose is, and it is that suspense and our unknown destinies that make the journey so irresistibly beautiful. I feel that same suspense and unknown when I translate, because I am beautifully struggling to unlock a past I know very little of. It is unbelievably exhilarating.

Thus, I question why others consider Latin a dead language. It is alive in all of the Western world. The Romance languages of French, Spanish, and Italian all have Latin origins. Without Latin, I would not be able to write this essay! It is alive in the stories it tells. You may see an apple and associate it with orchards, juice, pie, and fall. When I see an apple, I think of the apple of discord thrown by Eris that ultimately caused the Trojan War. This event, albeit destructive and terrifying, leads to the flight of Aeneas and eventually, his founding of Rome.

I study Latin for its rewarding return, incredible precision, intellectual challenge, rich history and culture, and deep influence on our world. I study Latin to show others how beautiful it is, to encourage the world that it should be valued. I study Latin to lead our society, like Aeneas did, toward a new city, a new dawn where everyone appreciates a mental trial of wits, everyone marvels at a vibrant past, and no one wonders whether Latin is dead or not.

招生官点评

Sandra 的文章最有目共睹的不是她和高中拉丁语教师一同上课，或许她在哈佛上夏校，而是桑德拉在翻译拉丁语时怎么深化考虑的进程。从她描绘自己翻译进程中生动的细节中能够清楚地看出，她十分认真地对待这件事，读到这种将自己的热心展示的很明晰的文书是一件令人愉快的作业。

可是有时桑德拉的写作好像也成心让一些东西招引人，其实这是没有必要的。例如，“不能希望语句的主语出现在句首，就像不能方案人生的次序相同”，这很明显是一个有意进行诗意化表达的语句。总的来说，这是一篇明亮的著作，可是咱们在写作文书时不该该被迫在文章中寻求戏剧性，假如你写的真的是你酷爱的东西，你的写作办法应该是很天然很明晰的。

第二篇文书

02

作者：Marina

地点州：北卡罗莱纳州

高中：公立高中

种族：西班牙裔

性别：女

GPA：4.98 out of 5.0

SAT/ACT ：35 分

SAT Ⅱ：Mathematics Level 2, Physics

课外活动：Research、科学展教导主管、校报主编、沙滩排球运动员、募捐艺术家

荣誉奖项：英特尔国际科学与工程大赛决赛、国家西班牙裔学者奖、Jack Kent Cooke 半决赛、Wayne Hanson 科学或工程学出色奖

专业：数学

Essay

My father said I didn’t cry when I was born. Instead, I popped out of the womb with a furrowed brow, looking up at him almost accusatorially, as if to say “Who are you? What am I doing here?” While I can’t speak to the biological accuracy of his story — How did I survive, then? How did I bring air into my lungs? — it’s certainly true that I feel like I came preprogrammed with the compulsion to ask questions.

I received my first journal in preschool, probably because my parents were sick of cleaning my crayon drawings off my bedroom wall. Growing up, my notebooks became the places where I explored ideas through actions in addition to words. If the face I was sketching looked broody, I began to wonder what in her life made her that way. Was she a spy? Did she just come in from the cold? Graduating from crayons to markers to colored pencils, I layered color upon color, testing out the effects of different combinations, wondering why the layering of notes in music filled me with the very same happiness as the sight of the explosion of paired colors beneath my hands.

I began to take notes, on anything and everything. Reading Steve Martin’s Born Standing Up, I took away lessons on presentations, of maintaining a rhythm and allowing crescendos of energy to release every so often. While watching a documentary on people preparing for a sommelier exam, I made note of the importance of an enriching environment where most everything points you to your goals. Flipping through my old journal, I see that even an article about trouble in the South China Sea inspired notes on precedent and maintaining tradition lest you provoke the unknown. I was looking for the rules of the world.

More than just a place to catalogue my observations about the world, my notebooks are places to synthesize, to course-correct, to pinpoint areas for iterative improvement.When the words are down on paper, I see my patterns of thought and the holes in my logic stark against the white page. If I have a day of insecurity that leads to a sudden rush of journaling characteristic of that in a teen movie, looking down at the angsty scribbles, I'll recognize my repeated thoughts and actions and look for pressure points in that system of behavior where I can improve.

I'll recognize my repeated thoughts and actions and look for pressure points in that system of behavior where I can improve.

Now my 2016 notebook returns to exploring the world through actions and experiments. Dozens of doughnut-shaped sketches dot pages that ask “how would you play tic-tac-toe on a torus?” Another page containing bubble letters answers the simpler question of the result of sorting these figures into groups of topological equivalences. Not two pages later are the results of a research binge on Mersenne primes that took me through perfect numbers and somehow deposited me at a Wikipedia page detailing the mathematical properties of the number 127. once again, I look for the rules of the world.

Whenever I feel discouraged, I look to my stack of notebooks, shelved neatly by my desk. In those pages I’ve learned that I have room to fail and grow, to literally turn over a new leaf if a problem is particularly tricky. Through years of scribbling away, I’ve learned that the most fundamental part of my development has been giving myself the space to try: to sketch mangled faces, to draw the wrong conclusions, to answer a question incorrectly, and to learn from my mistakes without shame. I look to that mass of notebooks filled with my ideas, my mistakes, and my questions, and I'm reminded that I’ve grown before, and that I’ll grow again, all the while asking questions.

招生官点评

Marina 的开场白招引了读者的注意力，尽管在玛丽娜对她开端的轶事(而不是叙述)进行反思之前，读者还不清楚这句话与主题有何相关。玛丽娜把她的爱好寄托在记事本上，乃至是关于学龄前的轶事。尽管她的意象接近于富丽的散文，但文章的气势使写作不至于磨蹭。

玛丽娜一边翻阅笔记本，一边记录着自己思想结构的改变——从开端搜集信息，到终究归纳，这些都树立在她的调查基础上。在第三段中，在添加细节和重复之间穿行，它们加深了读者对笔记本的了解。咱们正真看到她表现出一种生长的心态，由于她注意到她用笔记本作为一个空间来处理思想并找到需求改善的当地。

倒数第二段也在加深玛丽娜的爱好和添加冗余的细节之间徜徉。可是，它扩展了玛丽娜的爱好，不只包含盛行文明和国际事情，还包含数学。这也说明晰这段的目的，笔记本是经过试验探究国际的一种办法。

玛丽娜以一种活跃的、有依据的办法完毕了她的文章，这使文章的内容进一步显现了她迭代增加的心态。终究一句回到“发问”，她展示了全文的意象，着重了文章的主题。

第三篇文书

03

作者：Reginald

地点州：纽约州

高中：公立高中

种族：白人/亚裔

性别：男

GPA：4.3 out of 4.0

SAT/ACT ：36

SAT Ⅱ: Mathematics Level 2, Chemistry, Physics, US History, Biology

课外活动：大学足球队、帆船竞赛、中音萨克斯演奏、教导社的财务管理

荣誉奖项：国家奖学金、高中学业成果奖

专业：使用数学

Essay

As the first texts came in — “Where are you? The game’s over.” — I grinned, my feet propped up against the trunk and my back relaxed along the incline of the thickest arm of the tree. I swung off the branch and clambered down. The satisfaction on my face a little too apparent, I walked back to my friends, who sat out of sight on a swing set. The competition of the night was manhunt, a combination of hide-and-seek and tag renamed to suit the “dignity” of kids our age.

As I approached the swings, Marc called out, “You won. Where’d you hide?” “That tree over there,” I replied. “You climbed a tree?” Jack laughed, the surprise clear on his face. As manhunt novices, we had previously confined our gameplay to the ground. They were intrigued, recognizing I had taken our sport to new heights, literally.

As absurd as perching on a tree may be, there’s an undeniable thrill to discovering a new hiding spot and changing the game. In that way, manhunt simultaneously fuels my desire to innovate and my love of competition — passions I transfer from my musical, academic, and athletic pursuits to the boundaries of Jack’s backyard.

I search for new perspectives, new trees to climb, in all my endeavors. When I improvise in jazz band, I enjoy sharing original musical riffs and runs. My bandmates and I persist in the hunt for a “perfect solo.” While we know there's no such thing, we look for the next moment of musical insight that will change the complexion of our improvisation. And though we improve as a group, each of us takes pride in our own unique, musical style. The challenge of blending these varying shades of jazz into a cohesive performance is the reason I love being a part of the band.

The classroom brings new perspectives as well. Each day’s lesson engages my curiosity as I consider the world from a different physical, historical, or political point of view. It’s the excitement in my Physics teacher’s voice as he tells us that lightning strikes from the ground up and that Zeus is a lie, or the tightly bound silence in the room as a classmate reads aloud a letter home from an American soldier in Vietnam, that captures my interest.

My competitive drive, meanwhile, kicks in whenever I hear a countdown, whether it’s the measure before a jazz solo or the seconds before a sailing race. When I’m out on the water, the urgent beep of my watch preceding the start refocuses my attention to the wind and waves before me. I envision the race ahead, visualizing the changes in wind patterns and the movement of the fleet of boats. When the pounding of my heart drowns out my thoughts and I fall into the rhythm of maneuvering the boat, that’s when I know I’m at my competitive peak.

Similarly, my drive comes to life during soccer games, when a desire to win embodied in a slide tackle is all that defends our net. Though the steely looks in my opponents’ eyes and the chants from the stands threaten to distract me, my ambition and pride in representing my high school harden my nerves on the game field and fuel my resolve in practice.

As much as I love to compete and innovate, the thrill of achievement is matched by the camaraderie among the friends, bandmates, and teammates with whom I share the journey. The determination to push my limits and reach for the next branch is at the root of my athletic ambitions and musical interests, but the personal relationships and shared experiences along the way make the process all the more rewarding. Even in a casual game of hide-and-seek and tag, I compete, innovate, and develop lasting bonds and memories that make a good-natured competition more than a zero-sum game. That’s what delivers the real joy of manhunt.

招生官点评

Reginald在小说的开始插入了一些文字和意象，“我的脚靠着树干，我的背沿着树干最粗的手臂的斜面放松下来”，这让读者马上置身于他地点的环境中。这篇文章有一个明晰的声响，轻松而自傲，经过它简略的节奏表现出来。

雷金纳德对舞台安置细节的挑选——咧着嘴笑，爬下树，半开玩笑地解说追捕——是他性情的两层描写。雷金纳德经过叙述他是怎么赢得一场追捕游戏的，而不是叙述他的立异赋性。跟着雷金纳德故事的开端，他现已完成了将雷金纳德人性化的目的，他将游戏固有的价值百科观与他对“音乐、学术和体育寻求”的更广泛爱好联系起来。

即兴创造爵士乐的故事不只反映了雷金纳德对艺术的赏识，也反映了他与别人协作和赏识别人尽力作业的才能。

他关于自己学术好奇心的阶段的细节增加了一层实在性，使他的文章比简略地陈说自己的好奇心更有说服力。相同，由于雷金纳德在议论帆船和足球时的形象招引了读者的注意力，咱们咱们能够必定，这是雷金纳德的爱好地点，他寻求的远不止是给自己的简历增加一个荣誉。

为了平衡他对竞赛的着重，雷金纳德终究感谢了他一切的朋友和队友。咱们正真看到，他对竞赛的寻求源于对不断自我完善的巴望。回到捉迷藏的意象，雷金纳德找到了他的全文的主题。

第四篇文书

04

作者：Kevin

地点州：新泽西州

高中：私立走读校园

种族：亚裔

性别：男

GPA：4.0 out of 4.0

SAT/ACT ：AT / ACT: R: 770, W: 750, Math 800

SAT Ⅱ: Math 2, Chem, US History

课外活动：大学足球队、管弦乐队、金融安排

荣誉奖项：优等毕业生

专业：使用数学

Essay

I stood frozenin the produce aisle at ShopRite, wondering which of the five varieties of oranges to buy. Valencia, blood orange, organic, Florida navel – what were the differences? When I asked my mom which variety she was looking for, she responded curtly, “It’s your choice. Pick what you want.” The thing was, I didn’t know what I wanted.

For my parents, this level of freedom – even in the orange section of the grocery store — is somewhat unique to the United States. The lingering policies of the Cultural Revolution in 1970s China dictated life choices for my parents; growing up in poverty, their families’ sole concern was putting food on the table. As a result of economic disadvantage, higher education became my parents’ life goal.

“If I didn’t make it to college,” my dad told me, “I would have been trapped in that godforsaken village for the rest of my life” (only one-tenth of his high school ever made it). My parents didn’t have a choice: my mom’s entire life revolved around studying, and my dad was spanked into shape at home. Sports, music, or entertainment were out of the question – my parents’ only option was to work hard and dream of a choice in America.

The miraculous thing is that my parents, having no freedom of choice for the better part of twenty years, still had the vision to grant me choice in the United States. Unfortunately, this is not common, even in our beloved land of opportunity.

All I have to do is talk to my closest childhood friends - children of other Asian-American immigrants – to see the glass walls that cultural and familial expectation have erected around their lives. For some of them, playing the piano is an obligation, not a hobby, and medical school is the only career option.

Oddly enough, I had always felt a bit left out when I was younger – why weren’t my parents signing me up for American Math Competitions and middle school summer research programs, when all my friends were doing them? I’ve come to realize, though, that having the choice to do the things I’m interested in brings out an enthusiasm I can explore passionately and fully.

My many hobbies – playing soccer with our neighbor in my backyard, fiddling around with Mendelssohn on my violin, or even talking to my friend about our latest stock picks – all have come from me, and I’m forever grateful to my parents for that.

The contrast between my parents’ lives and mine is shocking. In the United States, I have so many paths available to me that I sometimes can’t even choose. I don’t even know what kind of oranges to buy, yet oranges – or any other fruit - were precious delicacies to my dad as a child.

I can dream of attending a school like Harvard and studying whatever I want, whether it be math, economics, or even philosophy or biochemistry – a non-existent choice for my parents, who were assigned majors by their universities. I can even dream of becoming an entrepreneur, which I see as exploration and self-destiny in its purest form. I can be sure that wherever my true passions take me, my parents will support the choices that I make, as they have for seventeen years.

Most importantly, though, I value that Harvard, with its centuries-long devotion to educating the full person, fosters the same sense of choice for its students that I have come to so deeply appreciate in my parents. I am exhilarated to have the freedom to define my own academic journey and, looking forward, for this upcoming four-year odyssey to lay the groundwork for a lifetime of exploration. For me, thankfully, it’s all possible - but only because of the sacrifice and vision of my parents.

招生官点评

Kevin 以一则轶事开端他的文章，这是一种招引读者注意力的牢靠而实在的办法。凯文经过在商店里挑选橙子的形象，开端构建一个自我导向的主题。

提及他爸爸妈妈的曩昔，显现出凯文对他们的挣扎的感谢，以及他对全球问题的更广泛的知道。这不只是他的行为形式，也是他的思想办法。咱们正真看到凯文回想起他的幼年，他开端由于不像其他孩子而感到不安，但终究与他对自己共同际遇的了解和解了。凯文进一步展示了他对寻求自己爱好的自在的知道——这是一个强有力的挑选，由于许多大学都巴望求知欲强的学生。

凯文以他在商店里挑选图片的轶事完毕了他的文章，这是一种完好的意象办法，有助于着重他的文章主题。他清晰标明，他将充沛的使用他的大学教育，相同重要的是，他赏识他请求的校园的价值百科。凯文以一种令人振奋的、老练的语调完毕了他的文章，这反映出他将在校园里成为什么样的学生。

第五篇文书

05

作者：Christopher

地点州：宾夕法尼亚州

高中：贵格会教徒私立校园

种族：混血

性别：男

GPA：N/A

SAT/ACT ：N/A

SAT Ⅱ: U.S. History, World History

课外活动：室内/室外田径队长、校报主编、杂志修改、Monday Series 系列讲演及出版物的开创人和修改、学生宗教日子委员会主席、奥巴马2012年竞选活动安排者

荣誉奖项：全国社区安排奖、接连四年州越野赛冠军

专业：前史与文学

Essay

When I Broke the news to my volunteer team, we were in a church basement, cleaning up after the final event of the summer. I tried to downplay it. I nudged Ms. Diana, the neighborhood leader, in the shoulder, and said, "Guess what I'll be doing next Wednesday — having lunch with the president." Her face blazed with a kilowatt smile. Before I could slow her down, she shouted, "Christopher's meeting President Obama next week."

Eldred dropped his broom, Ms. Sheila left the cups scattered on the floor, and all the others came running over and fusilladed me with questions. Yes, the campaign had chosen me from all the other summer organizers. Yes, I would bring photos for everyone. And yes, we had the strongest team by the numbers — total calls, knocks, voters registered, and events — in the country.

I felt guilty that only I could go and told them so. "I wish that I could bring you all with me. You made nearly all of the calls, brought your friends and family along, and made this what it is. I've just been here to facilitate." The others good-naturedly shouted me down. Then Ms. Melva spoke up. Her words were pressed out against the heaving of her respirator. "Christopher, don't feel bad. You'll bring us wherever you go in your pocket. Just pull us out when you meet Barack."

For a long time, I was perplexed by her advice. Then I thought back to the exercise that we employed before any volunteer activity. We sat in a circle and gave our reasons for being in the room, willing to work with the campaign. That way, when it came time to make our "hard ask" on the phones, we would be supported by personal conviction and shared purpose. The "hard ask" is the Obama campaign's tactic for garnering support or a commitment to volunteer, moving from values to idealism to specific action.

In my work on the campaign, I am reminded of my cross-country coach, Rob. Before every single race, from petty league meets to national championships, Rob taps the spot on his thigh where a pocket would be. We look at our teammates who are lining up with us and tap the same spot. Coach Rob is reminding us, and we're reminding each other, that we carry "the bastard" in our pockets with us throughout the race.

"The bastard in your pocket" is a metaphor for the sum of our efforts to succeed as runners. "The bastard" exists as a sort of Platonic ideal form of the high school cross-country runner, melded from accrued mileage and mental conditioning. My goal in a race is to take this ideal form and to transform it into a reality that lives on the course.

I want an education that fills my pockets. And, perhaps more importantly, an education that prompts hard asks, that demands us to use "the bastard" and that uses the compounded experiences of a group for a single purpose.

招生官点评

经过他的自愿作业和跨国阅历的两个比如，克里斯托弗能够细致入微地描绘出对老练的领导力了解和对团队协作的深入贡献。

在开始几段中，他描绘了他向他的自愿者团队叙述约请他与总统见面的音讯。这一时间被视为克里斯托弗作为奥巴马竞选夏日安排者所做尽力的高峰。对约请的提及是对可展示和令人形象深入的领导才能的必定，此外，说到他的团队成员的姓名标明他的作业是有意义的。

在整篇文章中，克里斯托弗展示了他对成为社区的一员的热心，这既是一个方针自身，也是一个为团队取得成功的办法。这是他在《口袋里的私生子》(the bastard in your pocket)一书中论述的一个观念，他将其描绘为一种抱负，能够转化为举动，以完成他的自愿作业和跨国成功的比如。他引证越野教练的话，用这个比如来扩展他对社区和日子经验的观点。他谈到举动和目的，着重自己在将信仰和主意转化为实在效果方面的成功。

克里斯托弗文章的终究一段是一个简练而有力的定论，将他所寻求的教育阅历与他坚决的、方针完成的心态联系起来。

由于文章篇幅原因，我就挑里边的五篇邀咱们共赏，假如想看完好版本可登陆 The Crimson 官网：

https://essful-harvard-essays-2019/

有很多人以为文书是整个请求季中仅有被招生官知道的时机。

这是个思想误区。文书的确十分重要，乃至被誉为招生官和学生之间的“未见面的面试”。

可是，文书并不是招生官知道你的仅有途径。除了文书，招生官会检查你的学习成果、标化成果、你的活动清单、两封推荐信等资料，这时招生官会对你有必定的评价。

所以，千万要注意，不要在文书中重复上述资猜中的内容，请跳出思想定式，展示自己的新的相貌。

有些小伙伴在文书主题的挑选上考虑不周全。

common app 的七个文书主题中，有大部分同学都会去挑选 overcoming obstacles（战胜窘境）, discuss an accomplishment（评论一次成果）, topic of your choice（自在挑选主题），由于这三个主题看似规模最广，约束最小。

但实际上应该优先挑选那些指向日子中详细某一件轶事的主题，而不是挑选一个规模和广乃至稍显空泛的主题。

首 发 公 众 号： 跟博文儿聊干货

请求规划，SAT/ACT，托福雅思，文书，活动，要啥有啥~

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