哈佛校报最近公布了2021年度10篇成功申请到哈佛大学的优秀范文，其中不乏中国学生的范文。同时校报对每篇范文都给出了点评，对于这些文书之所以成为优秀范文指出了其中要害，值得我们学习。
01 Abigail：S改变了我的人生
I hate the letter “S”. Of the 164,777 words with “S”, I only grapple with one. To condemn an entire letter because of its use 0.0006% of the time sounds statistically absurd, but that one case changed 1 00% of my life. I used to have two parents, but now I have one, and the “S” in “parents” isn’t going anywhere.
“S” follows me. I can’t get through a day without being reminded that while my friends went out to dinner with their parents, I ate with my parent. As I write this essay, there is a blue line under the word “parent” telling me to check my grammar; even Grammarly assumes that I should have parents, but cancer doesn’t listen to edit suggestions. I won’t claim that my situation is as unique as 1 in 164,777, but it is still an exception to the rule - an outlier. The world isn’t meant for this special case.
The world wouldn’t abandon “S” because of me, so I tried to abandon “S”. I could get away from “S” if I stayed busy; you can’t have dinner with your “parent” (thanks again, Grammarly) if you’re too busy to have family dinner. Any spare time that I had, I filled. I became known as the “busy kid”- the one that everyone always asks, “How do you have time?” Morning meetings, classes, after school meetings, volleyball practice, dance class, rehearsal in Boston, homework, sleep, repeat. Though my specific schedule has changed over time, the busyness has not. I couldn’t fill the loss that “S” left in my life, but I could at least make sure I didn’t have to think about it. There were so many things in my life that I couldn’t control, so I controlled what I could- my schedule. I never succumbed to the stress of potentially over-committing. I thrived. It became a challenge to juggle it all, but I’d soon find a rhythm. But rhythm wasn’t what I wanted. Rhythm may not have an “S”, but “S” sure liked to come by when I was idle. So, I added another ball, and another, and another. Soon I noticed that the same “color” balls kept falling into my hands- theater, academics, politics. I began to want to come into contact with these more and more, so I further narrowed the scope of my color wheel and increased the shades of my primary colors.
Life became easier to juggle, but for the first time, I didn’t add another ball. I found my rhythm, and I embraced it. I stopped running away from a single “S” and began chasing a double “S”- passion. Passion has given me purpose. I was shackled to “S” as I tried to escape the confines of the traditional familial structure. No matter how far I ran, “S” stayed behind me because I kept looking back. I’ve finally learned to move forward instead of away, and it is liberating. “S” got me moving, but it hasn’t kept me going.
I wish I could end here, triumphant and basking in my new inspiration, but life is more convoluted. Motivation is a double edged sword; it keeps me facing forward, but it also keeps me from having to look back. I want to claim that I showed courage in being able to turn from “S”, but I cannot. Motivation is what keeps “S” at bay. I am not perfectly healed, but I am perfect at navigating the best way to heal me. I don’t seek out sadness, so “S” must stay on the sidelines, and until I am completely ready, motivation is more than enough for me.
Abigail的文章探讨了大学申请中最微妙的话题之一：处理个人或家庭悲剧。也许最常见的陷阱是把一个悲剧事件带进太多的悲情和失落感中，这样的叙述除了失落本身之外，就无法揭示作者自身的个性。简言之，这是一个“悲伤的故事”。然而，Abigail的文章巧妙地避开了这一点，利用智慧和使用字母“s”的框架装置，以引人入胜和发人深省的方式分享了一段深刻的个人旅程。
Abigail没有单纯关注父母中一人死于癌症，而是反思了自己的生活以及她不得不做出的调整。特别令人痛心的是，她表达了这样一种感觉：她与仅存一位父母的生活似乎有点反常，不断提醒她其他人的家庭结构是完整的，这让她心神不宁。
让这篇文章更加引人入胜的是，当她学会如何应对损失时，我们是如何瞥见她的内心生活的。这里有一种诚实，她向读者揭示了她试图通过不断忙碌来填补生活中的空白。更令人满意的是，当她发现自己热衷于的事情时，这些致力于各种活动的尝试演变成了她所谓的“双s”或“激情”。也许这篇文章可以通过让读者了解这些激情可能是什么来进一步加强，因为我们可以根据她提到的活动进行推测。
最后，我们在Abigail的结尾反思中看到了现实主义和成熟感。在这样一篇文章的结尾很容易有一种叙事上的完美感，但她明智地承认“生活更复杂”。这一辛酸的启示为我们提供了一扇了解她持续奋斗的窗口，但她在这篇文章中的成长和坦率给我们留下了深刻的印象。
02 Jiafeng：中国的毛笔字
I have a fetish for writing.
I’m not talking about crafting prose or verses, or even sentences out of words. But simply constructing letters and characters from strokes of ink gives me immense satisfaction. It’s not quite calligraphy, as I don’t use calligraphic pens or Chinese writing brushes; I prefer it simple, spontaneous, and subconscious. I often find myself crafting characters in the margins of notebooks with a fifty-cent pencil, or tracing letters out of thin air with anything from chopsticks to fingertips.
The art of handwriting is a relic in the information era. Why write when one can type? Perhaps the Chinese had an answer before the advent of keyboards. “One’s handwriting,” said the ancient Chinese, “is a painting of one’s mind.” After all, when I practice my handwriting, I am crafting characters.
My character.
I particularly enjoy meticulously designing a character, stroke by stroke, and eventually building up, letter by letter, to a quote personalized in my own voice. Every movement of the pen and every droplet of ink all lead to something profound, as if the arches of every "m" are doorways to revelations. After all, characters are the building blocks of language, and language is the only vehicle through which knowledge unfolds. Thus, in a way, these letters under my pen are themselves representations of knowledge, and the delicate beauty of every letter proves, visually, the intrinsic beauty of knowing. I suppose handwriting reminds me of my conviction in this visual manner: through learning answers are found, lives enriched, and societies bettered.
Moreover, perhaps this strange passion in polishing every single character of a word delineates my dedication to learning, testifies my zeal for my conviction, and sketches a crucial stroke of my character.
"We--must--know ... " the mathematician David Hilbert's voice echoes in resolute cursive at the tip of my pen, as he, addressing German scientists in 1930, propounds the goal of modern intellectuals. My pen firmly nods in agreement with Hilbert, while my mind again fumbles for the path to knowledge.
The versatility of handwriting enthralls me. The Chinese developed many styles -- called hands -- of writing. Fittingly, each hand seems to parallel one of my many academic interests. Characters of the Regular Hand (kai shu), a legible script, serve me well during many long hours when I scratch my head and try to prove a mathematical statement rigorously, as the legibility illuminates my logic on paper. Words of the Running Hand (xing shu), a semi-cursive script, are like the passionate words that I speak before a committee of Model United Nations delegates, propounding a decisive course of action: the words, both spoken and written, are swift and coherent but resolute and emphatic. And strokes of the Cursive Hand (cao shu) resemble those sudden artistic sparks when I deliver a line on stage: free spontaneous, but emphatic syllables travel through the lights like rivers of ink flowing on the page.
Yet the fact that the three distinctive hands cooperate so seamlessly, fusing together the glorious culture of writing, is perhaps a fable of learning, a testament that the many talents of the Renaissance Man could all be worthwhile for enriching human society. Such is my methodology: just like I organize my different hands into a neat personal style with my fetish for writing, I can unify my broad interests with my passion for learning.
“...We -- will -- know!” Hilbert finishes his adage, as I frantically slice an exclamation mark as the final stroke of this painting of my mind.
I must know: for knowing, like well-crafted letters, has an inherent beauty and an intrinsic value. I will know: for my versatile interests in academics will flow like my versatile styles of writing.
I must know and I will know: for my fetish for writing is a fetish for learning.
# 招生官点评 #
Jiafeng的文章成功地运用了笔迹的隐喻，以及巨大的身体满足感，展示了追求知识的无限乐趣。我们可以想象他在笔记本上写满了自发创作的信件。我们看到他用筷子和指尖在空中画汉字。我们了解到，他通过一种艺术表达了他内心深处的自我，这种艺术已经成为信息时代的遗物。当我们窥视他的心灵时，我们了解到了Jiafeng性格的一些基本特征——他无法抑制地被纯学习的复杂美所吸引。
Jiafeng接着透露，他的智力追求不是由一种而是由三种中国书法风格形成的，每种风格都反映了他智力成长的独特因素。我们可以看到Jiafeng在数学证明方面的逻辑，在模拟联合国面前演讲时的修辞能力，以及在舞台上发表台词时的即兴火花。他通过写作将这些博学的追求结合起来，向读者表明他的广泛兴趣都是同一发现原则的表达。当读者读完Jiafeng的文章时，他们对他从学习中获得的乐趣毫无疑问——他们已经体验到他在这篇精心构思的个人陈述的每一行中都体现了这种思想庆祝。
03 Carrie：故事女孩
The best compliment I ever received was from my little brother: “My science teacher’s unbelievably good at telling stories,” he announced. “Nearly as good as you.” I thought about that, how I savor a good story the way some people savor last-minute touchdowns.
I learned in biology that I’m composed of 7 × 10 27 atoms, but that number didn’t mean anything to me until I read Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything. One sentence stayed with me for weeks: “Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you.” It estimates that each human has about 2 billion atoms of Shakespeare hanging around inside—quite a comfort, as I try to write this essay. I thought about every one of my atoms, wondering where they had been and what miracles they had witnessed.
My physical body is a string of atoms, but what of my inner self, my soul, my essence? I’ve come to the realization that my life has been a string as well, a string of stories. Every one of us is made of star stuff, forged through fires, and emerging as nicked as the surface of the moon. It frustrated me no end that I couldn’t sit down with all the people I met, interrogating them about their lives, identifying every last story that made them who they are.
I remember how magical it was the first time I read a fiction book: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I was duly impressed with Quidditch and the Invisibility Cloak, of course, but I was absolutely spellbound by how much I could learn about Harry. The kippers he had for breakfast, the supplies he bought for Potions—the details everyone skimmed over were remarkable to me. Fiction was a revelation. Here, at last, was a window into another person’s string of stories!
Over the years, I’ve thought long and hard about that immortal question: What superpower would you choose? I considered the usual suspects—invisibility, superhuman strength, flying—but threw them out immediately. My superhero alter ego would be Story Girl. She wouldn’t run marathons, but she could walk for miles and miles in other people’s shoes. She’d know that all it takes for empathy and understanding is the right story.
Imagine my astonishment when I discovered Radiolab on NPR. Here was my imaginary superpower, embodied in real life! I had been struggling with AP Biology, seeing it as a class full of complicated processes and alien vocabulary. That changed radically when I listened, enthralled, as Radiolab traced the effects of dopamine on love and gambling. This was science, sure, but it was science as I’d never heard it before. It contained conflict and emotion and a narrative; it made me anxious to learn more. It wasn’t that I was obtuse for biology; I just hadn’t found the stories in it before.
I’m convinced that you can learn anything in the form of a story. The layperson often writes off concepts—entropy, the Maginot Line, anapestic meter—as too foreign to comprehend. But with the right framing, the world suddenly becomes an open book, enticing and ripe for exploration. I want to become a writer to find those stories, much like Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich from Radiolab, making intimidating subjects become familiar and inviting for everyone. I want to become Story Girl.
# 招生官点评 #
Carrie在开始她的文章时，想起了她哥哥的一句深情的赞美，介绍了她最热情的努力：讲故事。通过回忆与她对故事的热爱有关的轶事，她确立了自己是一个非常好奇和富有创造力的人；一个最大的美德是对知识的无限渴望的人。大学非常珍视好奇心，而Carrie的这种特殊价值观鼓励招生官继续阅读。
继续探索故事和科学之间的交叉点，Carrie揭示了她过去在AP生物学方面的困难；也就是说，直到她了解到隐藏在主题中的惊人故事。通过结合她以前的兴趣和她对生物学的新发现的热爱，Carrie能够突出她过去的经历如何帮助她克服新的挑战。这把她描绘成一个有弹性和足智多谋的问题解决者：大学非常重视学生的特点。
Carrie在结束她的文章时相信，通过故事，一切都是可能的。她阐述了她未来在讲故事方面的抱负，以及她希望通过故事的力量让每个人都能享受到学习的乐趣。通过将自己的目标与超级英雄相比较，Carrie能够强调自己为社会变革做出贡献的热情。最重要的是，Carrie的雄心壮志表明她可以积极地为哈佛社区做出贡献，使她成为一名强有力的申请人。
"Paint this vase before you leave today," my teacher directed as she placed foreign brushes and paints in my hands. I looked at her blankly. Where were the charts of colors and books of techniques? Why was her smile so decidedly encouraging? The sudden expectations made no sense.
She smiled. "Don't worry, just paint."
In a daze, I assembled my supplies the way the older students did. I was scared. I knew everything but nothing. And even in those first blissful moments of experimentation, it hurt to realize that my painting was all wrong. The gleam of light. The distorted reflection. A thousand details taunted me with their refusal to melt into the glass. The vase was lifeless at best.
As the draining hours of work wore on, I began wearing reckless holes in my mixing plate. It was my fourth hour here. Why had I not received even a single piece of guidance?
At the peak of my frustration, she finally reentered the studio, yawning with excruciating casualness. I felt myself snap.
"I barely know how to hold a brush," I muttered almost aggressively, "how could I possibly have the technique to paint this?"
She looked at me with a shocked innocence that only heightened the feeling of abandonment. "What do you mean you don't have the technique?"
It was as though she failed to realize I was a complete beginner.
And then suddenly she broke into a pitch of urgent obviousness: "What are you doing! Don't you see those details?? There's orange from the wall and light brown from the floor. There's even dark green from that paint box over there. You have to look at the whole picture," she stole a glance at my face of bewilderment, and, sighing, grabbed my paint,stained hand. "Listen, it's not in here," she implored, shaking my captive limb. "It's here." The intensity with which she looked into my eyes was overwhelming.
I returned the gaze emptily. Never had I been so confused…
But over the years I did begin to see. The shades of red and blue in gray concrete, the tints of Phthalo in summer skies, and winter’s Currelean. It was beautiful and illogical. Black was darker with green and red, and white was never white.
I began to study animals. The proportions and fan brush techniques were certainly difficult, but they were the simple part. It was the strategic tints of light and bold color that created life. I would spend hours discovering the exact blue that would make a fish seem on the verge of tears and hours more shaping a deer’s ears to speak of serenity instead of danger.
In return for probing into previously ignored details, my canvas and paints opened the world. I began to appreciate the pink kiss of ever-evolving sunsets and the even suppression of melancholy. When my father came home from a business trip, it was no longer a matter of simple happiness, but of fatigue and gladness' underlying shades. The personalities who had once seemed so annoyingly arrogant now turned soft with their complexities of doubt and inspiration. Each mundane scene is as deep and varied as the paint needed to capture it.
One day, I will learn to paint people. As I run faster into the heart of art and my love for politics and law, I will learn to see the faces behind each page of cold policy text, the amazing innovation sketched in the tattered Constitution, and the progressiveness living in oak-paneled courts.
It won’t be too far. I know that in a few years I will see a thousand more colors than I do today. Yet the most beautiful part about art is that there is no end. No matter how deep I penetrate its shimmering realms, the enigmatic caverns of wonder will stay.
我最喜欢的大学论文从某个时刻开始，最后把那个时刻与世界的更大真相联系起来。在本文中，Elizabeth巧妙地运用了这种结构。
本文以对话展开，将读者置于行动的中间。她只分享使场景生动的细节，比如搅拌盘上的洞和老师的哈欠。她跳过了那些会让读者感到厌烦并使一篇短文陷入困境的背景故事和解释。读者留下的感觉就像我们坐在她身边，盯着一个空花瓶和一套颜料，不知道如何开始。
SPARC的论文写作方法说，最 好的大学论文展示了学生如何做到这五件事中的一件（或多件）：抓住机会，克服障碍追求目标，提出重要问题，冒明智的风险，或利用有限的资源创造。这篇文章是“创造”文章的一个很好的例子。然而，它真正的力量在于展示作者如何在挫折和与普遍问题的斗争中追求自己的目标。
随着这篇文章从个人的过渡到普遍的，她画花瓶的经历成为了她如何看待世界的隐喻。绘画不仅帮助她欣赏日落中的微妙色彩，还让她明白生活中没有什么是黑白的。这一平行关系尤其适用于将Elizabeth对政治学和艺术的兴趣联系起来。
05 Justine：“贴标签”
When I was a child, I begged my parents for my very own Brother PT-1400 P-Touch Handheld Label Maker to fulfill all of my labeling needs. Other kids had Nintendos and would spend their free time with Mario and Luigi. While they pummeled their video game controllers furiously, the pads of their thumbs dancing across their joysticks, I would type out labels on my industrial-standard P-Touch with just as much zeal. I labeled everything imaginable, dividing hundreds of pens into Ziploc bags by color, then rubber-banding them by point size. The finishing touch, of course, was always a glossy, three-eighths-inch-wide tag, freshly churned out from my handheld labeler and decisively pasted upon the numerous plastic bags I had successfully compiled.
Labeling became therapeutic for me; organizing my surroundings into specific groups to be labeled provides me with a sense of stability. I may not physically need the shiny color-coded label verifying the contents of a plastic bag as BLUE HIGHLIGHTERS—FAT, to identify them as such, but seeing these classifications so plainly allows me to appreciate the reliability of my categorizations. There are no exceptions when I label the top ledge of my bookshelf as containing works from ACHEBE, CHINUA TO CONRAD, JOSEPH. Each book is either filtered into that category or placed definitively into another one. Yet, such consistency only exists in these inanimate objects.
Thus, the break in my role as a labeler comes when I interact with people. Their lives are too complicated, their personalities too intricate for me to resolutely summarize in a few words or even with the 26.2 feet of laminated adhesive tape compatible with my label maker. I have learned that a thin line exists between labeling and just being judgmental when evaluating individuals. I can hardly superficially characterize others as simply as I do my material possessions because people refuse to be so cleanly separated and compartmentalized. My sister Joyce jokes freely and talks with me for hours about everything from the disturbing popularity of vampires in pop culture to cubic watermelons, yet those who don’t know her well usually think of her as timid and introverted. My mother is sometimes my biggest supporter, spouting words of encouragement and, at other instances, my most unrelenting critic. The overlap becomes too indistinct, the contradictions too apparent, even as I attempt to classify those people in the world whom I know best.
Neither would I want others to be predictable enough for me to label. The real joy in human interaction lies in the excitement of the unknown. Overturning expectations can be necessary to preserving the vitality of relationships. If I were never surprised by the behaviors of those around me, my biggest source of entertainment would vanish. For all my love of order when it comes to my room, I don’t want myself, or the people with whom I interact, to fit squarely into any one category. I meticulously follow directions to the millimeter in the chemistry lab but measure ingredients by pinches and dashes in the comfort of my kitchen. I’m a self-proclaimed grammar Nazi, but I’ll admit e. e. cummings’s irreverence does appeal. I’ll chart my television show schedule on Excel, but I would never dream of confronting my chores with as much organization. I even call myself a labeler, but not when it comes to people. As Walt Whitman might put it, “Do I contradict myself? / Very well, then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes.).”
I therefore refrain from the temptation to label—despite it being an act that makes me feel so fulfilled when applied to physical objects—when real people are the subjects. The consequences of premature labeling are too great, the risk of inaccuracy too high because, most of the time, not even the hundreds of alphanumeric digits and symbols available for entry on my P-Touch can effectively describe who an individual really is.
# 招生官点评 #
有趣但富有洞察力，也许Justine个人陈述中最突出的品质在于她在轶事式的繁荣和诚实的内省之间取得了平衡。通过将偶尔的幽默和诙谐的评论融入到抒情和认真的自我反省中，Justine巧妙地传达了名校梦寐以求的自由、真诚的智慧和成熟。
Justine打破了僵局，回忆起她童年的一刻，那一刻抓住了她对标签的热情。当申请有选择性的学术机构时，特质和特殊的个人习惯，无论多么微不足道，总是被视为个性的标志。Justine通过探索她对整理所有财产的奉献精神，安全地摆脱了“安全行事”的诱惑，这种奉献精神一直伴随着她进入青春期。
她还从一个原始的诚实和情感的地方写下了她奇异的激情背后的理由。Justine对标签的依赖是基于她对混乱世界中的稳定和秩序感的渴望——一种读者可以在不同程度上同情的未受影响的渴望。然而，她认识到，用一种毫不动摇的动力去划分她所遇到的每一件事和每一个人，来驾驭生活的方方面面是不明智的。
在这样做的过程中，Justine无缝地过渡到了后者，这是她个人陈述中更为沉思的一半。她通过分析这个世界是如何令人困惑和充满矛盾的，与她整洁有序的铅笔盒形成鲜明对比，从而得出一些见解。正如Justine所反映的那样，每个人都有另一个复杂的世界，人们不能简单地归结为“几句话”，也不可能捕捉到他们的性格，“即使26.2英尺的层压胶带与[她的]标签制造商兼容。”
在结束时，Justine回到了开始这一切的前提，提醒读者，她认为划分世界最终是徒劳的。Justine个人陈述中最神奇的部分是什么？它读起来很容易，充满了意象，并采用了一个简单的概念来介绍一个更大、更周到的对话。
后五篇内容请敬请期待更新哦！
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