美国大学更希望通过文书看到学生从中展现出的自我成长。文书在整个申请中占有非常大的比重。

作者：橡树君。如果喜欢蓝橡树的文章，请记得要把我们“设为星标”哦！

几乎每年的高考作文题都会被吐槽晦涩难懂或不知所云。作文要求通常是要紧扣主题，参考时事，结合正确的价值观。所以高考作文向来被诟病为新时代的八股文。

当然每一年都会有满分作文出现，在这些优秀的文章中，2001年江苏高考作文《赤兔之死》至今都让橡树君记忆深刻。

当年有关《赤兔之死》的报道

这篇文章最大的特色是全篇以白话古文为表达方式，写出了一篇寓言式的议论文，既展现了考生的想象力和语言功底，还紧扣主题。

《赤兔之死》是第一篇文言文高考作文，也是最后一届全国高考统一命题的满分作文。

而这位考生也因此被一所211院校破格录取，毕业后成了一名文笔犀利的记者。

相比较下，申请美国大学的文书题目就会开放很多，比起定好的主题写固定的故事，美国大学更希望通过文书看到学生从中展现出的自我成长。文书在整个申请中占有非常大的比重。

以哈佛大学为例，每年都会在官方校报The Harvard Crimson上公布十篇最佳录取文书以及招生官对每篇文书的点评和分析。

The Harvard Crimson

这些文书都是来自真实的哈佛新生，他们用自己的语言和故事展示了自己的个性、特长、兴趣和价值观。

他们的文书不仅有吸引力和感染力，而且有深度和思考。文书反映了他们的成长经历和背景，而且体现了他们的创造力和批判性思维。

这些文书的主题和风格各有不同，有的讲述了个人或家庭的悲剧，有的探讨了社会和政治的问题，有的分享了自己的兴趣和爱好，有的展示了自己的才华和技能。

但是他们都有一个共同点，就是他们都能够抓住招生官的注意力，让招生官对他们产生好奇和兴趣，从而突出自己在众多申请者中的独特性。

下面橡树君就节选四篇2023年的哈佛最佳录取文书。

一、
文章：Tony's Essay "Beauty in Complexity"

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Gazing up at the starry sky, I see Cygnus, Hercules, and Pisces, remnants of past cultures. I listen to waves crash on the beach, the forces of nature at work. Isn’t it odd how stars are flaming spheres and electrical impulses make beings sentient? The very existence of our world is a wonder; what are the odds that this particular planet developed all the necessary components, parts that all work in unison, to support life? How do they interact? How did they come to be? I thought back to how my previously simplistic mind-set evolved this past year.

At Balboa, juniors and seniors join one of five small learning communities, which are integrated into the curriculum. Near the end of sophomore year, I ranked my choices: Law Academy first—it seemed the most prestigious—and WALC, the Wilderness Arts and Literacy Collaborative, fourth. So when I was sorted into WALC, I felt disappointed at the inflexibility of my schedule and bitter toward my classes. However, since students are required to wait at least a semester before switching pathways, I stayed in WALC. My experiences that semester began shifting my ambition-oriented paradigm to an interest-oriented one. I didn’t switch out.

Beyond its integrated classes, WALC takes its students on trips to natural areas not only to build community among its students, but also to explore complex natural processes and humanity’s role in them. Piecing these lessons together, I create an image of our universe. I can visualize the carving of glacial valleys, the creation and gradation of mountains by uplift and weathering, and the transportation of nutrients to and from ecosystems by rivers and salmon. I see these forces on the surface of a tiny planet rotating on its axis and orbiting the sun, a gem in this vast universe. Through WALC, I have gained an intimate understanding of natural systems and an addiction to understanding the deep interconnections embedded in our cosmos.

Understanding a system’s complex mechanics not only satisfies my curiosity, but also adds beauty to my world; my understanding of tectonic and gradational forces allows me to appreciate mountains and coastlines beyond aesthetics. By physically going to the place described in WALC’s lessons, I have not only gained the tools to admire these systems, but have also learned to actually appreciate them. This creates a thirst to see more beauty in a world that’s filled with poverty and violence, and a hunger for knowledge to satisfy that thirst. There are so many different systems to examine and dissect—science alone has universal, planetary, molecular, atomic, and subatomic scales to investigate. I hope to be able to find my interests by taking a variety of courses in college, and further humanity’s understanding through research, so that all can derive a deeper appreciation for the complex systems that govern this universe.

招生官点评：

文章以在海边凝视星空开始，在那里我们体验到学生对自然世界、感知和生命本身的无限好奇。

这种令人大开眼界的惊奇被巧妙地呈现出来，但实际上这篇文章的成功之处在于它能够思考深刻的概念，而不会迷失在云端。

故事本身围绕着一个似乎与宇宙不可理解的事件相去甚远的事件：托尼更喜欢法律之路，但却被随机分配去学习荒野艺术。

他对影响他学业的决定是偶然做出的而感到痛苦。我们在他承认自己受制于“以野心为导向的范式”而不是研究他最感兴趣的事物中看到了他的弱点。

然而，我们通过本文的其余部分发现，托尼留在荒野艺术中的决定彻底改变了他，这个决定将他的观点从“简单化的心态”转变为沉迷于“理解艺术中蕴含的深层相互联系”。

托尼语言的力量帮助我们欣赏他意想不到的觉醒的广度和兴奋。 从想象“冰川山谷的雕刻”到陶醉于自然系统的复杂机制，这篇文章展示了托尼对我们的世界有多么的欣赏，这要归功于一个曾经看似不公平的事件。

观察托尼对生活相互联系的渴望，我们越来越相信他不断发展的观点将引导他的研究进入令人兴奋的意想不到的领域。

二、

文章：Connor's Essay "Waking Up Early"

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Getting out of bed in the middle of a long, New Hampshire winter was never easy, but some mornings were especially difficult. On those particularly tough mornings, when the temperature could no longer be measured in the comfortable world of positive numbers, my dad would be up before the sun. He would turn on the gas fireplace in his bedroom, carry milk, cereal, bowls and spoons upstairs, and then wake up me and my siblings. We would wrap ourselves in blankets as we ate our breakfast by the fire. I would complain about having to wake up early, never considering that my dad had been up long before.

Every morning for years he woke me up, packed my lunch, and drove me to school. He helped me with homework, coached my soccer team and taught me how to ski. Even as I’ve gotten older and started to pour my own cereal, my dad hasn’t stopped waking up early. He gets up long before my alarm clock even thinks about waking me, walks to his office (a desk, chair and laptop situated above our garage) and starts to work. He works nearly every day, only taking the occasional break to engage in such leisure activities as splitting wood and mowing the lawn. As I’ve grown older I’ve looked up to him more and more.

There have been times in the past four years when I’ve come home with seemingly unbearable amounts of homework and I’ve thought, “I could settle for a B on this essay” or “How important really are the laws of thermodynamics?” On those late nights, when I’m on the verge of trading my notebooks in for a tv remote, I think about my dad. I think about how hard he’s worked to make my life easier, and I realize that mediocrity isn’t a viable option. I go downstairs, pour myself a glass of ice water, turn on some music, and get back to my work.

Sometimes it’s hard to imagine my dad being young, but twenty-nine years ago, my dad was entering his senior year at Gilford High School. He had won a soccer championship under head coach Dave Pinkham, and was on track for another title that year. He was doing lawn care with his brother to make some extra money, and dreading the speech he would have to make at graduation.

I am now entering my senior year at Gilford High School. I won a soccer championship under the same Dave Pinkham as a sophomore, and hopefully I’m heading toward another this year. I’m running Leggett Lawn Care (which, despite its two unofficial part-time employees, has not yet gone public) and denying the inevitability of the speech I have to make this June. I’m keeping up my grades and trying to emulate my dad by putting others first. I teach Sunday School at my church, support the freshmen and sophomores on my soccer team, and give up countless hours of sleep helping my classmates with calculus. It’s now my turn to go out into the world and figure out what I want to do and who I want to become. I don’t know exactly where I see myself in five years; I don’t even know which state I’ll be living in next fall. I do know though that if I’m half the man my father is, (which genetically I am) I’ll have the strength and humility that I need to selflessly contribute to the world around me.

招生官点评：

为了突破招生部门的注意力，许多候选人选择了一个不寻常的话题。然而，即使主题本身更具普遍性，一篇文章也可以产生影响。

涉及熟悉主题的申请人必须找到方法，为他们的叙述带来特异性和自我洞察力，使他们经历的特殊性重新引起共鸣。

康纳能够将一个关于从父母榜样中寻找灵感的故事完全变成自己的故事，这绝非易事。他的文章唤起了植根于坚韧和谦逊的质朴教养。

康纳描绘了一幅令人发自内心且难忘的画面：新英格兰气温低于零度的早晨，他的父亲将早餐带到楼上，以便康纳和他的兄弟姐妹可以裹着毯子，在父亲卧室的燃气壁炉旁吃饭。

这个小插曲有力地概括了康纳家庭生活中的舒适温暖和父亲鼓舞人心的坚韧精神，“我会抱怨早起，从来没有考虑过我父亲早就起床了。”

文章接着阐述了父亲对家庭的无私奉献（“只是偶尔休息一下，从事劈柴、割草等休闲活动”）。

虽然许多学生可能钦佩父母的牺牲，但康纳对父亲职业道德和价值观的叙述因其对话风格而让人感觉真诚。当康纳告诉我们，他越来越仰慕父亲取之不尽的精神时，我们能确切地领会他的意思。

涉及榜样主题的文书通常会冒着将聚光灯从真正寻求录取的申请者身上转移的风险。

康纳则将注意力完全转移回自己身上，从而避免了这个陷阱。他将自己的学术坚韧归功于父亲的榜样，“当我即将用笔记本换电视遥控器时，我就会想起我的父亲。”这种简单的措辞蕴含着力量，我们认识到康纳是发自内心的写作，而不是从题库中写出来的。

然后，他将父亲在高中的岁月与自己的岁月进行了比较——从成功的足球锦标赛，到兼职草坪护理，再到毕业演讲。

康纳所钦佩的父亲无条件的服务行为在康纳自己的教堂教学、足球支持和微积分辅导中得到了回报。

这种联系感觉很低调，而不是恢复哗众取宠，这篇文章的成功清楚地证明了不要过度推销自己的价值，以及一个讲述得很好的轶事能够唤起整个童年的能力。

三、
文章：Samantha C’s Essay

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I’ve always been a storyteller, but I’ve only been an alleged fish killer since age five. As a child, my head was so filled up with stories that I might have forgotten to feed Bubbles the class pet just one time too often. Once I pulverized an entire pencil, because I was daydreaming instead of taking it out of the sharpener.More than anything else, I became an obsessive list-maker. I memorized and wrote down long lists of my stuffed animals, cities around the world, and my favorite historical time periods. I created itineraries and packing lists for my Build-A-Bears, then arranged them in rows on a pretend airplane. I drew family trees for a made-up family during the Industrial Revolution. I wrote lists until the spine of my notebook cracked under the weight of graphite.

For a long time, I thought this was something that I alone did, and that I did alone. Lying on the floor of my bedroom, I spun fantastical stories of mundane events. Each story opened and closed in my head, untold and unsung.

Years later, though—to my amazement—I discovered other people who were interested in the same things I was. Wandering into fanfiction websites and online forums, I was welcomed into a vibrant community of writers—serious, silly, passionate people who wrote hundreds of thousands of words analyzing character dynamics and exploring endless plot threads. When I finally started posting my own thoughts, I didn’t feel like I was taking a risk or venturing into new territory. I had been speaking these words to myself since I was five, preparing myself to finally shout them into the real world. And people responded.

Spurred on by this excitement, I started writing stories for other people to read. I had fallen in love with the community writing had given me, and with writing itself. I wanted to contribute my own small piece to a world much bigger than me. I shouted my stories up to the WiFi signals that caught and carried them, waiting to be found by someone else writing lists in her bedroom alone.

In high school, I also found joy in editing. I loved analyzing, polishing, and curating my classmates’ short stories, poems, and artwork to make them shine for my school’s literary magazine. I spent hours with other editors, passionately arguing the merits and weaknesses of dozens of writing pieces. Editing the school newspaper, meanwhile, became a way to spotlight members of the school community, from profiling new staff and faculty to polling the student body about the stigma surrounding menstruation.

I’ve now had my poems published in a national literary journal and have joined the editorial staff of an international literary magazine for teens. I feel like I’m discovering my power, and with it my ability to create change. Last year, I founded SPEAK, a creative writing program for elementary school students. I wanted to assist younger writers so they could create their own communities. During SPEAK sessions, I taught a group of students how to draw a map of a fantasy wolf kingdom they had designed, helped a girl edit her classmate’s poem about hula hoops, and listened to a third-grader talk faster and faster as we discussed the meaning of soup in The Tale of Despereaux.

I’ve now turned SPEAK into a self-sustaining club at my school, and I’m expanding the program onto an online platform. Writing changed my life, but it only happened when I started sharing my work, putting it out there, and starting conversations—not just responding. Alone, stories used to abstract me from the outside world. Now, stories connect me to the world, creating communities instead of pulling me away from them. For too many of us, our stories are born in our heads, and they die there. I’m going to change that, for myself and for as many people as I can bring with me.

招生官点评：

我喜欢这篇文章！读完第一句话后，我就想继续读下去。到了第三句话的时候，我已经迫不及待地想要见到这个学生了！

这篇文章的成功是因为我们不仅深入了解了学生与生俱来的好奇心和想象力，而且我们了解到了她的个人成长。我们看到学生变得更加自信，并在更大的社区中找到了自己的位置。

流行文化和历史典故是一种很好的接触，使写作变得人性化，同时使其具有很强的可读性。

但最重要的是，有一条成长的叙事线索。学生偶尔会取得一些成就，这些成就是成长的里程碑，但这并不像是一份简历或人为的清单……

当我们了解他们的创作过程以及故事在他们生活中的重要性时，这一切最终都融合在一起 。好奇、有创造力、关心他人……以及个人成长感。许多伟大的主题和个人特质会让读过文章的人不仅会喜欢上这个学生，而且想认识她。

四、
文章：Simar B’ Essay

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June 2nd, 2019. The birth of the new me, or "Simar 2.0" as mom called me. However, I still felt like "Simar 1.0," perceiving nothing more than the odd new sensation of a liberating breeze fluttering through my hair.At age seventeen, I got a haircut for the first time in my life.As a Sikh, I inherited a tradition of unshorn, cloth-bound hair, and, for most of my life, I followed my community in wholeheartedly embracing our religion. Over time, however, I felt my hair weighing me down, both materially and metaphorically.

Sikhism teaches that God is one. I asked mom why then was God cleaved into different religions? If all paths were equal, I asked dad, then why not follow some other religion instead? My unease consistently dismissed by our Sikh community, I decided to follow the religion of God: no religion. My hair, though, remained; if I knew my heart, then cutting my hair served no purpose.

Nevertheless, that unshorn hair represented an unequivocal beacon for a now defunct identity. I visited my calculus teacher's office hours, only to be peppered by incessant questions about Sikhism. He pigeonholed me into being a spokesperson for something I no longer associated with. Flustered, I excused myself to the bathroom, examining this other me in the mirror.

Why this hair? This question kept coming back.

I ransacked my conscience, and it became painfully obvious. Fear. Fear of what my conservative grandparents might think. Fear of what my Sikh family friends might say. Fear of what my peers might ask. This hair had usurped my sense of self.

So off it came.

A few days after crossing my personal Rubicon, I flew to India to meet my grandparents.

Breezing through the airport, I perceived something remarkably different about my experience: the absence of the penetrating surveillance that had consistently accompanied me for seventeen years. It was uncanny; I felt as an anodyne presence.

Apprehensively entering my grandparents' New Delhi home some eighteen hours later, I found myself enveloped in hugs. Savoring the moment, I failed to probe why. I recognize now that, in spite of their intransigent religious views, they appreciated that I had made a decision about my identity based on belief, based on being true to my evolving sense of self. I think my grandparents found that admirable.

A few weeks later, dad confessed, "I regret that you did not cut your hair earlier."

I have no regrets.

My hair made me work harder than everyone else simply because I looked different. Sanctimonious people lecture us on having pride in our differences, rarely considering the difficulties which being different entails. For example, a fake Facebook page created by an unknown schoolmate with my birthday listed as September 11th, 2001. Dealing with attacks fueled by ignorance never becomes easier, but such aggressions bolster my courage to face what other people think. In standing up for myself, I become myself.

On some level, I know appearances should not matter. Yet, in many uncomfortable ways, they still do, and they give birth to many disparities. Through the simple act of cutting my hair, I left the confines of intolerance, but my experience opened my eyes to those whose struggles cannot be resolved so easily. This motivates me to never be a bystander, to always energetically take the side of the persecuted in the fight against the powerful.

Over my years of shadowing, I have seen a healthcare system where patients receive inferior care solely on the basis of perceived race. Exposure to this institutionalized injustice motivates me to volunteer with a free health clinic to provide glucose screenings to the underprivileged. We must lead with personal initiative first, starting on the individual level and building from there. Only then can we bring about systemic change to reform the institutions and practices that perpetuate prejudice within medicine and without.

招生官点评：

从本文一开始，西马尔就将我们带入了一个有意义的成长叙事，尽管它如此独特，但却是普遍可以理解的
西马尔所选择的主题是理想的，因为它不仅具有反思性，而且具有启发性；虽然并非所有读者都必须面对属于锡克教的社会和文化责任和影响，但西马尔以激烈而动人的清晰度揭示了这场斗争。
通过故事，可以看到他们巧妙地将文化和宗教的独特挑战融入到夺回身份并成为真正的自己的强大体验中。
通过这样做，学生巧妙地证明他们拥有自我理解、内在力量和成长能力，这些都是打破和重塑自出生以来定义我们的限制所必需的。

西马尔以坚定、清晰的声音完成了这一切，积极抵制常见的诱惑，用极端的词语选择或夸张的语气来夸大他们的挣扎，这些可能会让招生官感到不舒服。
相反，语气仍然非常真实，在面对挫折和逆境时总是表现得诚实和实事求是，提供了一些现实生活中的经历实例，例如机场监视、有针对性的欺凌以及因为原因而被老师误解。
西马尔的文章是一个很好的例子，说明个人陈述不需要普遍以“幸福的结局”为特色，也不需要以轻松愉快和感激的中心语气来展示成长
这位学生出色地以沉思、体贴和赋权的方式处理了我们通常认为的“沉重”话题。

Ref:

https://www.thecrimson.com/topic/sponsored-successful-harvard-essays-2023/