10篇被哈佛大学秒录的优秀文书分享分析

此时此刻，相信同学们已经调整好状态在全力以赴备战接下来的UC九校和RD的申请了。在这个过程中，我们都会思考到一个问题：到底什么样的文书才能打动梦校的招生官呢？

毕竟一篇文书有时能够直接决定申请者是被录取还是被拒绝。

为了帮助大家更好地准备，本期老师特别挑选了10篇被哈佛大学秒录的优秀文书，从主题选择到语言表达逐一去解析它们的独特之处在哪里？它们又是如何展现申请者的潜力和个人魅力的呢？希望这些案例能为同学们的文书创作提供灵感，一起来看看吧！

01、Sarika's Essay

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.

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.

I, too, can dance.

文书点评

文章开头讲述了Sarika早期对舞蹈的迷恋，开头在电视跳舞的粉色老鼠是出自动画片《Angelina Ballerina: The Next Steps》中。电视中美妙和灵活的舞姿深深吸引了Sarika，但是当她开始试图模仿这些舞蹈动作时，她的身体因为坐轮椅而受限，这让她很难受和沮丧。然而Sarika并没有过多地讲述她轮椅的事，而是继续分享她尝试弹钢琴、画画和吹笛子的经历，可是也统统遇到了相同的挫折。

然而，这些努力都成为了她增强动力的垫脚石，引导着她走向一个她可以真正成功的领域——写作。当Sarika开始接触写作时，她的故事发生了戏剧性的转折而这一发现不仅是一种安慰！更是她找到自己声音的胜利。

写作成为了她的舞台，文字使她能够优雅地移动，讲述故事和表达概念就像舞者优雅和流畅的舞姿一样。Sarika用了很多舞蹈相关的意象来描述她的写作过程，比如她的铅笔“旋转”，她的故事“从纸上跃起”，融合了对舞蹈的描述让写作变得更加鲜活。

整篇文章节奏紧凑，情感转变的非常真实。可以感受到作者的内心是很强大并且非常有创造力的女生，最后在写作中找到了属于自己的表达方式，主题非常明确，和开头完美呼应。

02、Billy's Essay

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.

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.

文书点评

Billy的故事是从征服皮博迪滑板场的巨大坡道开始的，看似普通的话题其实与他的申请背景有着挺大反差。

Billy说自己是一个高度有条理的行程制定者，他一直喜欢掌控一切的感觉。四年级的小Bily骑着BMX自行车来参加比赛的形象和他丰富的课外领导能力和对环境工程壮志勃勃的抱负是有着很大反差的。

虽然没有明确说明，但Billy的文章向我们展示了他自由自在的童年与他严格安排的高中时代有多大的不同。虽然感觉像是很久以前的事了，但Billy并没有忘记直面厄运并心甘情愿地放手是什么感觉。

Billy的U字型滑道的故事是这篇文书成功的关键——有条理的行程制定者也同样欢迎不确定性。这个故事让Billy整个人的形象变得鲜活，而不会只显得谨慎或不灵活。

03、Daniella's Essay

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.

文书点评

做点心、烘焙的主题在文书中已经蛮普通的了。但是Daniella的文章以率真、幽默和创造性脱颖而出。她通过一个看似普通的主题——烘烤饼干，展现了自己独特的视角和多面性。文章生动地呈现了她如何解决问题、看待生活以及她珍视的品质。在语言表达上，她用幽默的笔触传递韧性、创造力、求知欲和对哲学的思考，清晰而有力地塑造出她的“声音”。她选择的词汇不仅富有创造性，还深刻地反映了她的多维特质，比如科学家“记录了每一次试验”，而音乐家则“试图创造一种狂想曲甜点”。

文章巧妙地以烘焙饼干的过程为线索，融入了丰富的感官细节，让读者仿佛可以闻到、尝到、触摸到那些巧克力块。在此过程中，她以饼干的“完美化”为隐喻，展现了自己在化学、科学和音乐领域的探索和成长，而非堆砌各种资历或经历。这种以隐喻贯穿全文的写作手法虽然常见，但Daniella通过细节和词汇的掌控，使其充满真实感和自然流露的思考。整篇文章以“展示”代替“讲述”，让读者直观感受到她如何坚持不懈地追求完美，这种结构令人印象深刻且颇具力量。

04、Michelle's Essay

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.

文书点评

Michelle的文章为读者呈现了一段生动有趣、引人入胜的旅程，讲述了他们作为移民到伊利诺伊州新生活的经历(Eely-noise!)可以试着读一读这个词，就可以感觉到作者是有点小幽默在身的。

虽然有些移民经历文章可能显得平淡无奇，但Michelle巧如地利用“Fish Out of Water”的俚语，构建了一个延伸的隐喻，将他对生物学和艺术的热爱与他学习英语到掌握英语的不断发展联系起来。

文章的独特之处在于Michelle坦率而幽默地描述了每天与语言斗争的经历，从最初用“肢体语言"来表示想上厕所，到找到美丽的新词来表达自己时难以言喻的兴奋，展示出Michelle最终成长为一位能熟练运用英语的作家。

这篇文章充分展示了Michelle对音乐、艺术、生物学等各种兴趣的热爱，但最令人印象深刻的是Michelle对适应美国生活和文化的细致入微和内省的记录。Michele是真心热爱写作，并乐于找到合适的词语来表达自己的想法，展示自己的毅力和对学习的热爱。

Michelle对成长为作家和艺术家的真诚热情贯穿了整篇文章温暖而幽默，极具感染力。

05、Lauren's Essay

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.

文书点评

当开头读到we all deserve to die的情节，我就知道这篇文章绝对不会简单，它带给我肾上腺素飙升的感觉。在Lauren的每句话中我都能感觉到她的热情，音乐剧对她来说不单单是一个爱好，而且塑造了她一种智力的成长。Lauren描述了这些音乐剧的政治背景如何点燃了她对社会正义的热情。她还展现了一种既善于分析又富有创造力的思维，将历史歌曲与枪支暴力和疫情等现代问题联系起来。而这点正是哈佛想要找的学生，展现你的热爱并让它闪耀起来！你的大学文书就是让你真实的声音得以表达的最佳场所。

因此在文书中，同学们一定要选择一个你真正感兴趣并投入的主题，这种热情是非常具有感染力的，会给读者留下持久的印象。Lauren成功地将对桑德海姆作品的热情和想要成为政治变革者的愿景结合了起来。这种热情感和目标的联结让她成功成为哈佛大学的一份子。

06、Marcus' Essay

The Zoo

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.

文书点评

Marcus的故事聚焦于“身份认同”和“克服障碍”这两个主题。讨论两个主题是有风险的，但他完美地将它们交织在一起。

从童年的困惑(与水獭的邂逅)到未来的自我发现和被孤立(他变成了水獭)，再最终迎来了胜利。(他到自我接受和决心，对生活重拾激情和热爱)

在第1-2段中，动物园水獭的个人轶事非常有效地引出了Marcus从顺性别转变为跨性别的艰难过程。他母亲关于水獭自我隔离原因的智慧熠熠生辉，为接下来的内容奠定了基础。Marcus将自己比作曾在动物园见到的水獭，这一点让人忍不住继续阅读下去。

第3段有效地突出了他在高中转变过程中所经历的困难——他的出柜、他的衣着、他声音的变化以及学业上面临的挑战。每一个例子都让我们感受到他的困境和不易。

第4-5段描绘了Marcus的自我意识，他已经变成了动物园的水獭——一个展示品，一个怪胎。霸凌者的欺负和公开羞辱让他感动悲伤、孤立和对自我价值的质疑。我对他深感同情。

而第6段迎来了觉醒时刻，他意识到他不能再成为笑柄了，而是要成为变革的推动者。

第7段体现了胜利的喜悦，Marcus详细描述了他的喜悦、自我接受以及他现在的身份。他不能改变其他人的无知但可以作一个新的自我去过充满激情的生活。

总的来说，这篇成功的文章带领读者走过了一段生动、情感丰富且结构良好的旅程，分享了作者的独特经历，以及这些经历对他成长和成熟带来了非常大的影响。

07、Clara'sEssay

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.

文书点评

针织为元素的故事在题材上还是比较新鲜的。作者巧妙的将个人声音、深厚的家族背景以及当下的生活角色融合成了一段感人又具有说服力的故事。

从一开头床头的玻璃眼镜标本，实则是一个钩针编织，Clara用幽默的比喻手法抓住了读者的眼球。这个钩针编织是她祖母在越南战争时间维持家庭生计的手艺，这手艺不单单是个爱好，更是一种深刻意义上的家庭传统。Clara并没与花费过多地文字在讨论她的家庭有多么的苦难，这一点是很多学生会犯的失误，永远要多说自己现在的状态，不要过多谈论过往有多艰难！通过描写她在学习钩针编织的过程中遇到的挑战和失败，我能从里面感受到她的毅力和不轻言放弃的精神，这种对挫折的描写和克服困难的过程展现了她的成熟和自我意识的觉醒，这一点是佛招生官非常想要看到的！这是许多学生容易忽视的一点:无论你的过去有多么艰难你的文章必须关乎你现在的状态。最后结尾是点睛之笔，Clara还谈到了她将如何把家族传统和自己未来的大学目标结合到一起。

08、Francisco's Essay

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.

文书点评

Francisco写的《上飞机前三天》讲述了他参与麻省理工学院少数族裔工程与科学夏校(MITES)的经历，故事背景是以这个夏校为背景的自省之旅。故事从一个看似微不足道的决定开始——因为健康原因放弃喝牛奶，但很快就变成了一个隐喻，暗示着改变他人生的事接踵而至。

这篇文章巧妙地利用了这一内在转变，为Francisco将从根本上改变他对自己的认识以及与他人的交往的夏天做了铺垫。他一开始对 MITES 项目感到紧张，因为他预计竞争会非常激烈，会让他感到更加孤独。他在项目初期遇到的生理和心理上的困难，比如轻微的胃溃疡和强烈的疏离感，更加剧了他的担忧。

但是，在该计划每周一次的"家庭会议"上，故事发生了戏剧性的转变。"家庭会议"的目的是鼓励成员之间进行坦诚的交谈并提供支持。一次会议的主题是"你的身份中有什么重要的东西让你与众不同?"会议上，Francisco透露了越来越多的细节和隐私，将会议变成了一个充满共鸣和温馨的环境。Francisco对同龄人坦诚分享个人问题深有感触，这促使他重新考虑如何对待这个项目和他的同龄人。

Francisco的文章出色地说明了社区和坦诚的谈话如何对个人发展产生重大影响。

他的经历既证明了学习环境中安全空间的价值，也证明了换位思考的变革潜力。文章结束时，Francisco已经成长为一个真正的人，他承认自己现在是"真正的Francisco"，朋友们都叫他"Cisco"。他强调了这段经历如何让他有信心做真实的自己，并给了他无价的社交技能、自我价值和情感坚韧，他将终生受用。

09、Michael's Essay

I’ve been alone for three years now.

My freshman year, my mother had to take a job as a live-in caregiver to make enough money to pay rent and other bills after my uncle got married and moved out. I was ecstatic. I could finally have the entire house to myself. I had imagined the countless hours on the PS4, nobody telling me to go to sleep or to go do my homework. I felt free. Unexpectedly, though, this freedom came at the expense of my childhood.

To compensate for never being home, my mother called me three times a day. The first call would always be at 6:00 a.m, like clockwork. That was the call to wake me up so that I wouldn’t miss the bus and be late for school. Then there was the 4:00 p.m call where we went over anything and everything that happened in school that day. Lastly, there was the 7:00 p.m call which always seemed to last over an hour. This was the call that made me miss my mother the most. We labeled this call the “multi-purpose” call. Sometimes we would just talk about how we were both doing. Other times she would teach me things I needed to know, like how to do laundry, how to go grocery shopping, or how to cook. But one thing that she always seemed to bring up was how she wished things were different and how much she ached with the desire to be home with her son.

That last call always weighed heavily on my heart. When around friends and their families, I would often put my head down and smile because their interactions would remind me so much of when my mother was with me every day. It made me miss her insurmountably, to the point where I began to despise every aspect of this “independence.” To me, it was loneliness, isolation, and nights laying in bed wishing I had a loved one in the house that I could talk to or hug. I was forced to become a man instead of living out my days as a kid. What hurt me the most, though, was knowing that my mother hated our situation even more than I did. She hated knowing her only child was growing up without her and it hurt her more than words could explain. She would always say how I was her pride and joy, but I’ve always thought of myself to be her hope, her hope for a better life.

That is why I have worked so hard in school. My mother has dedicated and sacrificed years of her life to make sure that her son could live a great one, and all she has ever asked from me in return was to do well in school. There were numerous times when I felt discouraged and unmotivated, but the thought of letting down the woman that has broken her back for me was far stronger than any fatigue I may have felt.

For three long years now, I have entered my house after school expecting nothing but silence and darkness. I lay in bed at night yearning to hear any sound at all that would signal that there was life in the house beside me. Then I wake up the next morning, get ready for school, and start the cycle all over again. I have almost gotten used to being alone. But I won’t let my story end here. The reason why I have worked myself so hard is so that things can be different for me and my mother. She always says that everything she’s doing now is for me and that when she gets old it’ll be my turn. Except when my turn comes, she will never have to be alone.

文书点评

“I’ve been alone for three years now.”Michael的文章以一个引人入胜的开头展开，让人不禁好奇为什么他会“孤独了三年”。随着故事推进，我们得知了母亲为了生活选择了从事住家保姆的工作，而他因此独享了整栋房子。最开始的这种新鲜感和自由让他感到兴奋，但不久后，他意识到这些“自由”背后是沉重的代价——童年的消逝和孤独的负担。

文章巧妙地通过母子之间每天三次的电话，突出他们深厚的情感纽带以及因分离带来的痛苦。Michael的独立并非大学新生时主动的独立，而是被迫接受的一种生活方式，这种经历塑造了他的坚韧和成熟。尽管与母亲分离让他感到悲伤，但他学会将这种情感转化为追求学术成功的动力，并且以此支撑自己走向更好的未来。

整篇文章清晰而生动地讲述了他在无法控制、孤独的环境中成长的故事，不仅展现了他的韧性、成熟和对目标的执着，还表明他已为大学生活做好了充分准备。这些经历和品质，也让他具备了哈佛大学所看重的潜力——在面对挑战时茁壮成长，并为社会带来积极影响。

10、Orlee's Essay

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.

文书点评

作者是非常有趣的一位小姐姐，开头讲述了她买胸罩的尴尬瞬间，她勇敢的选择分享尴尬，这个开场无疑拉近了她和读者的距离。随后她就让我们知道他有两位对时尚一窍不通的妈妈。我现在已经迫不及待想要读下去了。

起初Orlee的祖母展现出来的是她对世界的看法是比较严厉和无情的，她希望Orlee能尽快融入社会，可以被视为一个正常人。祖母散发出来的感觉让我非常焦虑，这真的是正确的教育方式吗？可是很快，我就意识到祖母对她融入社会的担忧不无道理。

Orlee本身患有先天性足部畸形，这限制了她跑步的能力，并且还患有严重的、危害到生命的食物过敏症……她直截了当的说着她的病情，让我们感受到了她的乐观和如何勇敢地直面困难。

或许读到这里读者已经给她归类，贴上标签了，但是Orlee立即将重点放在了她在校园中众多的优势上，并提供了几个清晰的例子来说明她如何全身心投入并克服他人的负面看法。

这篇文章之所以成功，在于它告诉我们 Orlee 是谁，她的人物性格和成长历程是什么，她重视朋友和队友，并希望把同样的能量带到她的大学。同时，她勇敢、乐观、聪明、好奇、自信、善良，通过给自己设定目标和规划愿景来支持她的世界观。

这是她的故事，也正是哈佛招生官想看到的。

通过这10篇文书，我们不难发现，打动招生官的文书往往都具备这些特质：真实、独特、充满思考深度，并能通过细节展现申请者的多面性。这不仅是哈佛大学的偏好，也是其他顶尖大学评估申请文书的重要标准！

一篇优秀的文书不在于多么惊天动地的故事，而在于用真诚和细腻的笔触，把你的经历和思考写得打动人心～希望本期的范文能给大家带来启发，也祝愿所有同学们的邮箱每天被好消息塞满，offer如雪花般飘来！