“Ella, what did you think of Douglass’s view on Christianity?” I gulped. Increasingly powerful palpitations throbbed in my heart as my eyes darted around the classroom – searching for a profound response to Dr. Franklin’s question. I took a deep breath while reaching the most genuine answer I could conjure.
Dr. Franklin stared at me blankly as he attempted to interpret the thoughts I didn’t voice. My lack of familiarity with the assigned text wasn’t a consideration that crossed his mind because he was familiar with my past contributions to class discussions. I was a fervent critic of the corrupted culture behind Christianity of the Puritans in Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” and modern evangelicals involved in the puzzling divinity of Donald Trump. He arched his flummoxed brows as he began to open his mouth.
“Professor, what I mean is that I’m not sure whether or not I even have a say on Douglass’s statements on Christianity in his Narrative of the Life.”
In class, I often separated the culture of Christianity from the religion. To tie these immensely disparate concepts as one and coin it as Christianity would present fallacies that contradict with the Christianity I knew. Lack of tolerance and hostility were products of humans’ sinful nature – not the teachings of Christ. People were just using Christianity as an excuse to exalt themselves rather than the holy name of Jesus. These were the “facts.”
My greatest realization came when Douglass declared Christian slave-holders as the worst slave-holders he ever met because of their deceptive feign of piety and use of Christianity to justify the oppression of their slaves. I realized that I couldn’t bring myself to raise the same argument that I used to convince myself that my Christianity of love was the only true Christianity. To Douglass, Christianity was the opposite. I didn’t want to dismiss his story. People use this sacred religion to spread hatred, and to many, this is the only Christianity they know. Their experiences aren’t any bit falser than mine.
Christianity isn’t the only culture that harbors truth that transcends the “facts.” America’s less of a perfect amalgamation of different ethnic cultures and more of a society severed by tribal conflicts rooted in the long established political culture of the nation. Issues such as racism, white privilege, and gender disparity are highly salient topics of current political discussion. However, during a time when people can use online platforms with algorithms that provide content they want to see, we fail to acknowledge the truth in other people’s experiences and express empathy.
As a Korean-American in the South, I am no stranger to intolerance. I remember the countless instances of people mocking my parents for their English pronunciation and my brother’s stutter. Because their words were less eloquent, people deemed their thoughts as less valuable as well. I protect my family and translate their words whenever they have a doctor’s appointment or need more ketchup at McDonald’s. My protective nature drives my desire to connect with different people and build understanding. To do so, however, I step outside my Korean American Southern Baptist paradigm because my experiences do not constitute everyone else’s.
Excluded from the Manichaean narrative of this country, I observe the turmoil in our nation through a separate lens - a blessing and a curse. Not only do I find myself awkwardly fixed in a black vs. white America, but I also fail to define my identity sandwiched between Korean and American. In the end, I find myself stuck amongst the conventional labels and binaries that divide America.
“You seem to work harder than most to understand other people’s points of view,” Dr. Franklin said after I shared these thoughts to the class.
“I find this easier because I spent my childhood assuming that my culture was always the exception,” I replied. As an anomaly, accepting different truths is second nature.
在“黑人的命也很重要（Black Lives Matters）”运动席卷美国、种族关系紧张的时代，Ella能够提出一个强有力的、勇敢的观点：她觉得自己既不是黑人也不是白人。这篇文章的真正优势在于它愿意去探讨人们在大学论文中很少提及的地方：种族、政治和宗教。
她对宗教的奉献是显而易见的，但她也愿意质疑“基督教”这个词被操纵的真实目的。这需要有智慧的勇气去问你自己宗教的难题，而不是屈服于认知失调。这是一种存在于一个强大的独立思考者身上的特质，他可以推动各种各样的辩论——学术辩论或其他辩论。
她的用词继续强调勇敢和力量。“我保护我的家人”Ella将其作为她的家人与他们在南方因口音和传统而经历的日常种族主义之间的盾牌。她幽默的怪癖显示出潜在的种族主义。她甚至需要保护她的家人不受在麦当劳再吃番茄酱的卑微要求！想象一下，如果一个人很紧张，不敢再要一些番茄酱，即使是这样平凡的活动也因为种族紧张和误解的摩擦而变得困难。这是一种通过Ella的生活经历对社会真实状况进行冷静评论的有力方式。
她将主要的社会辩论（例如特朗普主义）与日常经历（她在医生办公室的翻译）联系在一起，节奏柔和而有力。她在讨论一些高雅的话题时展示了自己的智慧，但也在描述她每天的善行时展示了自己的智慧。
Ella创造性地在她的故事中编入无数的文学作品，而不显得咄咄逼人。其中包括押头韵和将长句与短句并列以表达观点。
她的最后一段对话很微妙，但很精彩。“...我的文化是个例外”。读者在日常生活中对她的困境、挑战和勇气充满同情。
Ella是一位大胆的独立思想家，有着明确的社会良知，并有能力在不完美世界的模糊和挑战中涉水前行。
When I failed math in my sophomore year of high school, a bitter dispute engulfed my household -- “Nicolas Yan vs. Mathematics.” I was the plaintiff, appearing pro se, while my father represented the defendant (inanimate as it was). My brother and sister constituted a rather understaffed jury, and my mother presided over the case as judge.
In a frightening departure from racial stereotype, I charged Mathematics with the capital offences of being “too difficult” and “irrelevant to my aspirations," citing my recent shortcomings in the subject as evi. dence. My father entered a not guilty plea on the defendant's behalf, for he had always harbored hopes that I would follow in his entrepreneurial footsteps -- and who ever heard of a businessman who wasn't an accomplished mathematician? He argued that because I had fallen sick before my examination and had been unable to sit one of the papers, it would be a travesty of justice to blame my "Ungraded” mark on his client. The judge nodded sagely.
With heartrending pathos, I recalled how I had studied A-Level Mathematics with calculus a year before the rest of my cohort, bravely grappling with such perverse concepts as the poisson distribution to no avail. I decried the subject's lack of real-life utility and lamented my inability to reconcile further effort with any plausible success; so that to persist with Mathematics would be a Sisyphean endeavor. Since I had no interest in becoming the entrepreneur that my father envisioned, I petitioned the court for academic refuge in the humanities. The members of the jury exchanged sympathetic glances and put their heads together to deliberate.
In hushed tones, they weighed the particulars of the case. Then, my sister announced their unanimous decision with magisterial gravity: "Nicolas shouldn't have to do math if he doesn't want to!" I was ecstatic; my father distraught. With a bang of her metaphorical gavel, the judge sentenced the defendant to "Death by Omission"-- and so I chose my subjects for 11th Grade sans Mathematics. To my father's disappointment, a future in business for me now seemed implausible.
Over the next year, however, new evidence that threw the court's initial verdict into question surfaced. Languishing on death row, Mathematics exercised its right to appeal, and so our quasi-court reconvened in the living room.
My father reiterated his client's innocence, maintaining that Mathematics was neither "irrelevant" nor "too difficult." He proudly recounted how just two months earlier, when my friends had convinced me to join them in creating a business case competition for high school students (clerical note: the loftily-titled New Zealand Secondary Schools Case Competition), I stood in front of the Board of a company and successfully pitched them to sponsor us-- was this not evidence that l could succeed in business? I think I saw a tear roll down his cheek as he implored me to give Mathematics another chance.
I considered the truth of his words. While writing a real-world business case for NZSSCC, l had been struck by how mathematical processes actually made sense when deployed in a practical context, and how numbers could tell a story just as vividly as words can. By reviewing business models and comparing financial projections to actual returns, one can read a company's story and identify areas of potential growth; whether the company then took advantage of these opportunities determined its success. It wasn't that my role in organizing NZSSCC had magically taught me to embrace all things mathematical or commercial -- I was still the same person -- but I recognized that no intellectual constraints prevented me from succeeding in Mathematics; I needed only the courage to seize an opportunity for personal growth.
I stood up and addressed my family: “I’ll do it.” Then, without waiting for the court’s final verdict, I crossed the room to embrace my father: and the rest, as they (seldom) say, was Mathematics.
对一些人来说，数学概念如极限、对数和导数，会带来恐惧或恐吓的感觉。因此，Nicolas的大学论文反思自己与数学的冲突，提供了一个相关的、实事求是的视角，展示了他最终是如何认识和理解这门曾经令人恐惧的学科的重要性的。Nicolas的陈述不仅采用了一种独特的、引人入胜的方式来吸引读者，而且他还从数学到他与家人的关系，到他的成熟过程，以及他的课外活动，都有各种各样的联系。许多因素帮助Nicolas的陈述为他的申请文件增添了色彩，使他对自己的身份有了进一步的了解。
Nicolas选择数学作为聚焦透镜是有效的，原因有很多。首先，它是真实和平易近人的。它不是关于一些宏大的想法、事件或成就。相反，这是一个许多学生和相关人士都能理解的话题。从这个中心主题出发，Nicolas将其与生活的各个方面进行了深刻的联系。在他的文章的开头，数学被描述为对手，或者Nicolas巧妙地描述为“被告”。然而，在他的文章结束时，作为他成长的证明，Nicolas与前被告达成了一项和解。
通过Nicolas在数学问题上的冲突，我们更深入地了解了他与父亲的关系，以及Nicolas实现父亲追随其创业脚步的愿望中存在的紧张关系。他父亲最初试图与他讲道理的尝试遭到了拒绝，但Nicolas后来承认他“考虑到了他的话的真实性”，并最终拥抱了他的父亲，这意味着他们在相互理解的情况下达成了一致。此外，Nicolas将其对数学的逐渐理解与他在创建以商业为中心的新西兰中学案例竞赛中的重要组织角色联系起来，承认“数学过程在实际环境中的实际运用是有意义的，以及数字如何能像文字一样生动地讲述一个故事。”正如他所说，“我只需要勇气来抓住个人成长的机会”，他最终意识到了这一点。
除了各种联系之外，Nicolas还以法庭场景的形式以一种引人入胜的方式陈述了他的案件，原告Nicolas指控被告数学太难，与他的生活无关。考虑到字数限制，我们应该更深入了解Nicolas所画的每一个联系，以及他如何将这些不同的经验教训应用到他生活的其他部分。
Nicolas运用了一系列成功论文所必需的特征：一个允许更深入反省的主题，一个引人入胜的方法，以及他的主题和他生活的各个方面之间的大量联系，提供了对他是谁以及他如何思考的洞察力。
09 Anthony：在日本的两个夏天
I had never seen houses floating down a river. Minutes before there had not even been a river. An immense wall of water was destroying everything in its wake, picking up fishing boats to smash them against buildings. It was the morning of March 11, 2011. Seeing the images of destruction wrought by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, I felt as if something within myself was also being shaken, for I had just spent two of the happiest summers of my life there.
In the summer of my freshman year, I received the Kikkoman National Scholarship, which allowed me to travel to Japan to stay with a host family in Tokyo for ten weeks. I arrived just as the swine flu panic gripped the world, so I was not allowed to attend high school with my host brother, Yamato. Instead, I took Japanese language, judo, and karate classes and explored the confusing sprawl of the largest city in the world. I spent time with the old men of my neighborhood in the onsen, or hot spring, questioning them about the Japan of their youth. They laughed and told me that if I wanted to see for myself, I should work on a farm.
The next summer I returned to Japan, deciding to heed the old men’s advice and volunteer on a farm in Japan’s northernmost island, Hokkaido. I spent two weeks working more than fourteen hours a day. I held thirty-pound bags of garlic with one hand while trying to tie them to a rope hanging from the ceiling with the other, but couldn’t hold the bags in the air long enough. Other days were spent pulling up endless rows of daikon, or Japanese radish, which left rashes on my arms that itched for weeks. Completely exhausted, I stumbled back to the farmhouse, only to be greeted by the family’s young children who were eager to play. I passed out every night in a room too small for me to straighten my legs. One day, I overslept a lunch break by two hours. I awoke mortified, and hurried to the father. After I apologized in the most polite form of Japanese, his face broke into a broad grin. He patted me on the back and said, “You are a good worker, Anthony. There is no need to apologize.” This single exchange revealed the true spirit of the Japanese farmer. The family had lived for years in conditions that thoroughly wore me out in only a few days. I had missed two hours of work, yet they were still perpetually thankful to me. In their life of unbelievable hardship, they still found room for compassion.
When I had first gone to Tokyo, I had sought the soul of the nation among its skyscrapers and urban hot springs. The next summer I spurned the beaten track in an attempt to discover the true spirit of Japan. While lugging enormously heavy bags of garlic and picking daikon, I found that spirit. The farmers worked harder than anyone I have ever met, but they still made room in their hearts for me. So when the tsunami threatened the people to whom I owed so much, I had to act. Remembering the lesson of compassion I learned from the farm family, I started a fund-raiser in my community called “One Thousand Cranes for Japan.” Little more than two weeks later, we had raised over $8,000 and a flock of one thousand cranes was on its way to Japan.
# 招生官点评 #
这篇文章非常简洁明了。Anthony明智地使用了2011年海啸这一著名历史事件的图像，为他的故事设定了场景。他在日本访问了两个夏天，深入讲述了自己的所学：第一个夏天，他探索了东京，学习了语言和文化；第二个夏天，他住在日本农村，在农场工作了很长时间。
这篇文章的美实际上在于它的简洁。诚然，从他讲述故事的方式来看，这不是一篇开创性的或原创的文章；相反，Anthony给人的印象是非常有趣、勤奋、求知欲强、敬业、谦逊、讨人喜欢——所有这些都是招生官在申请者身上寻找的特质。
我们希望看到申请者从开始到结束是如何学习、成长或改变的——Anthony理所当然地花了更多的时间来描述农业的艰苦工作和生活方式，以及他从这次经历中学到了什么。Anthony在结尾引用了他关于海啸的开篇段落，并以帮助灾民的募捐给读者留下了深刻印象。
这并不一定是遗漏，但也许可以加上一两句话来解释Anthony为什么一开始就在日本。他与这个国家、语言或文化有什么联系？它是否与学术兴趣有关？如果是这样的话，那将使他那篇已经很有说服力的文章在招生官员眼中变得更加有力。
10 Nikolas：和癌症朋友的相处
I learned the definition of cancer at the age of fourteen. I was taking my chapter 7 biology test when I came upon the last question, “What is cancer?”, to which I answered: “The abnormal, unrestricted growth of cells.” After handing in the test, I moved on to chapter 8, oblivious then to how earth-shattering such a disease could be.
I learned the meaning of cancer two years later. A girl named Kiersten came into my family by way of my oldest brother who had fallen in love with her. I distinctly recall her hair catching the sea breeze as she walked with us along the Jersey shore, a blonde wave in my surrounding family's sea of brunette. Physically, she may have been different, but she redefined what family meant to me. She attended my concerts, went to my award ceremonies, and helped me study for tests. Whenever I needed support, she was there. Little did I know that our roles would be reversed, forever changing my outlook on life.
Kiersten was diagnosed with Stage II Hodgkin's lymphoma at the age of 22. Tears and hair fell alike after each of her 20 rounds of chemotherapy as we feared the worst. It was an unbearable tragedy watching someone so vivacious skirt the line between life and death. Her cancer was later classified as refractory, or resistant to treatment. Frustration and despair flooded my mind as I heard this news. And so I prayed. In what universe did this dynamic make any sense? I prayed to God and to even her cancer itself to just leave her alone. Eventually, Kiersten was able to leave the hospital to stay for six weeks at my home.
My family and I transformed the house into an antimicrobial sanctuary, protecting Kiersten from any outside illness. I watched TV with her, baked cookies for her, and observed her persistence as she regained strength and achieved remission. We beat biology, time, and death, all at the same time, with cookies, TV, and friendship. Yet I was so concerned with helping Kiersten that I had not realized how she helped me during her battle with cancer.
I had been so used to solving my problems intellectually that when it came time to emotionally support someone, I was afraid. I could define cancer, but what do I say to someone with it? There were days where I did not think I could be optimistic in the face of such adversity. But the beauty that resulted from sympathizing as opposed to analyzing and putting aside my own worries and troubles for someone else was an enormous epiphany for me. My problems dissipated into thin air the moment I came home and dropped my books and bags to talk with Kiersten. The more I talked, laughed, smiled, and shared memories with her, the more I began to realize all that she taught me. She influenced me in the fact that she demonstrated the power of loyalty, companionship, and optimism in the face of desperate, life-threatening situations. She showed me the importance of loving to live and living to love. Most of all, she gave me the insight necessary to fully help others not just with intellect and preparation, but with solidarity and compassion. In this way, I became able to help myself and others with not only my brain, but with my heart. And that, in the words of Robert Frost, “has made all the difference.”
# 招生官点评 #
