在申请人数日益剧增的背景下，美国顶尖大学的门槛也越来越高。据哈佛大学最新招生情况统计，2023年共有56,937名学生递交了申请，最终1,942名学生获得哈佛录取，录取率为有史以来第二低3.41%，仅次于去年的3.19%。
那么在有限的申请材料中，如何让招生官仅透过文字就对你产生兴趣？在上万份申请文书中，他们又会被什么样的故事所打动？按照惯例，The Crimson公布了2023年度7篇成功申请哈佛大学的优秀申请文书范例，各位正在准备申请的同学们可以仔细阅读这几篇优秀文书，对你的文书写作也许会有意想不到的启发。
Samantha’s Essay
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.
专业点评：
这篇文书的第一句话就是很好的“钩子”，激发读者继续阅读的兴趣。
这篇文书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，还让我们了解了他们的个人成长。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了一起。
好奇、有创造力、关心他人……以及个人成长感。许多优秀的主题和个人特质让读者不仅喜欢这个学生，而且迫不及待地想认识他。
Amy's Essay
There’s a theory that even though each color has a specific wavelength that never changes, how people perceive a specific color may have subtle differences based on small differences in photoreceptors, and the color that one person might consider red might still be red in another’s mind but could look different— a little duller, softer, cooler. Furthermore, how a person’s brain processes the color may also be linked to that person’s environment. Some studies have suggested that color sensitivity could be linked to one’s native languages: for example, people who speak languages that have specific names for eleven colors are able to easily distinguish those eleven colors, but people who speak languages with fewer color specific words may have a harder time distinguishing them.
So it appears that even at the most elementary level of sight, the world is not an objective thing. Instead, what we know and what we remember can influence what and how we see. The color blue may just be the color blue to a three year old, perhaps her favorite color even, but an adult might connect it to so much more—the lake by his childhood home or the eye color of a loved one.
I first consciously became aware of the power that our experiences have to change perception when I went to turn on a light in my house after learning about photons in class. What had previously been a mundane light suddenly became a fascinating application of atomic structure, and I thought that I could almost perceive the electrons jumping up and down from energy level to energy level to produce the photons that I saw. I then realized that my world had steadily been changing throughout my years in school as I learned more and more. I now see oligopolies in the soda aisles of the supermarkets. I see the charges warring with each other in every strike of lightning, and the patterns of old American politics still swaying things today. Knowledge and making connections with that knowledge is the difference between seeing the seven oceans glittering in the sun and merely seeing the color blue. It’s the difference between just seeing red and seeing the scarlet of roses blooming, the burgundy of blood pumping through veins, and crimson of anger so fierce that you could burst. Knowledge is color; it is depth, and it is seeing a whole new world without having to move an inch.
It is knowledge, too, that can bring people together. I love listening to people’s stories and hearing about what they know and love, because if I learn about what they know, I can learn how they see the world; consequently, since behavior is often based upon perception, I can understand why a person behaves the way they do. On a road trip during the summer, my mom kept looking up at the streetlights lining the highways. When I asked why, she told me that whenever she saw lights by a highway she would wonder if her company had made them. She would guess how tall they were, how wide, and what style they were. She told me that ever since she started working for her company, lights no longer were just lights to her. They were a story of people who first had to measure the wind speed to figure out what dimension the lights had to be, and then of engineers, of money passing hands—possibly even under her own supervision as an accountant—and then of transportation, and of the people who had to install them. I might never perceive lights the exact way my mother does or see her “red” but by hearing her describe what she knows, I can understand her world and realize her role in ours.
Beauty and color are in the world, but it is seeking the unknown and making new connections that unlocks them from their greyscale cage.
专业点评：
Amy撰写了一篇出色的、发人深省的文书，以“求知欲”为中心，使用生动而又形象的语言将有趣的科学理论、颜色和视觉研究联系起来，展示我们有限或广泛的知识如何塑造我们的现实和经历。整篇文章中显而易见的是Amy不断学习的热情和成长，并将她的知识与周围的环境联系起来，以寻找隐藏的真相。通过学习他人的知识或故事来理解他人的行为或感知，这是一个简单但又深刻的宏观主题--对知识、真理的好奇心、分享想法和经验无疑可以将许多人聚集在一起。
这篇文章的结构非常出色；每一段都进一步说明了Amy对新信息和联系的渴望。在第 1-2 段中，她从一个引人入胜的科学背景开始，说明颜色尽管具有特定的波长，但根据他们所掌握的语言数量，对两个人来说在视觉上可能会有所不同。这很吸引人，让人情不自禁地想读下去。然后她将关于颜色的理论和研究巧妙地联系起来，推断出我们的世界并不是一刀切的旅程，我们的个人教育、经历可以改变我们的视角和看法。
在第 3 段中，Amy举例说明了她的第一个“恍然大悟”的时刻，实现并可视化了她在课堂上学习的关于光子粒子的真正科学过程。她那像海绵一样的思维，沉浸在不断发展的世界中的新数据流中，开始将日常活动与宏观思想（经济、自然现象和政治）联系起来。这部分的阐述非常出色！
第 4 段展现了一个变革者的形象。她提出的将教育与社会理解相结合的格言进一步启发了我们：教育、开放的心态和了解他人的故事和经历确实可以在看似不同的世界之间架起桥梁。Amy提供了最后一个例子，利用她母亲对高速公路路灯的认识来表明任何人都可以将他们的知识、经验与身处环境联系起来。Amy在结尾处精彩地传授了她自己生活中的智慧，以及对“寻求未知和建立联系”的清晰内省。
总之，Amy得出了一个有力的结论： 教育、同理心、倾听、理解和沟通，这些都是她对生活充满激情的动力。Amy说她渴望了解所有事物，尤其是人类，她把自己描绘成一个充满热情、好奇心强、讨人喜欢的学生，是一个充满活力的学术团体的理想成员。
Una's Essay
The first word I ever spoke was my name. I was intrigued that my entire identity could be attached to and compressed into such a simple sound. I would tell everyone I met that my name meant “one,” that it made me special because it sounded like “unique.” When I learned to write, I covered sheets of paper with the letters U, N, and A. Eventually, I realized that paper was not enough—I needed to cover the world with my name, my graffiti tag.
This came to a screeching halt in kindergarten. One day in music class, I scratched UNA into the piano’s wood. Everyone was surprised that I tagged my name and not someone else’s. I didn’t want someone else to suffer for my misdeeds. I wanted to take something, to make it mine.
Kindergarten was also the year my parents signed me up for piano lessons, and every aspect of them was torture. I had to learn to read an entirely new language, stretch my fingers to fit challenging intervals, use my arms with enough force to sound chords but not topple over, grope around blindly while keeping my eyes on the music, and the brain-splitting feat of doing this with each hand separately. Hardest was the very act of sitting down to practice. The physical challenges were more or less surmountable, but tackling them felt lonely and pointless.
I only fell in love with music when I found myself in a sweaty church on the Upper West Side—my first chamber music concert, the final event of a two-week camp the summer before sixth grade. I was nervous. My group, playing a Shostakovich prelude, was the youngest, so we went first. My legs shook uncontrollably before, during, and after I played. I nearly became sick afterward from shame and relief. I was so disappointed that I thought I could never face my new music friends again. From the front row, I plotted my escape route for when the concert finished. But I didn’t run. I watched the whole concert. I watched the big kids breathe in unison, occupying the same disconnected body. I fell in love with music through the way they belonged to each other, the way they saw each other without even looking.
I stuck with that chamber camp. In the twenty chamber groups that have made up my last six years, I’ve performed in six-inch heels and nearly fallen off-stage during my bow. I’ve performed in sneakers and a sweatshirt, on pianos with half the keys broken and the other half wildly out of tune, in subway stations, nursing homes, international orchestras, Carnegie Hall, and on Zoom.
Chamber music doesn’t work when everyone aims to be a star; it works when everyone lets everyone else shine through. It’s more fun that way. A musical notation I rarely saw before playing chamber music is “una corda,” which says to put the soft pedal down and play on only “one string,” usually to highlight another player’s solo. I don’t need to be the loudest to breathe in unison with my friends, to create something beautiful. In that moment, I’m not just Una, I’m the pianist in the Dohnanyi sextet.
I started to love music only when I realized it doesn’t belong to me. I had to stop trying to make piano my own and take pleasure in sharing it. I learned that the rests in my part were as meaningful as the notes; that although my name means “one,” I’d rather not be the “only.” My favorite compliment I’ve received was that I made an audience member feel like they were sitting onstage next to me. This, to me, is the essence of chamber music. To pull your audience onto the stage, trusting your group isn’t enough—you have to fuse together, to forget you exist. For a few minutes, you have to surrender your name.
专业点评：
Una作为一名音乐家的成长经历使得这篇文章颇具意义。她通过对自己名字的有力而内省的陈述迅速吸引了读者的注意力。年幼时渴望用自己的名字和涂鸦覆盖世界，作为自我表达的一种形式，这增添了好奇心和个性的元素。Una对潜在后果的认识和她承担责任的最终愿望表明了她的正直和自我意识。
一篇强有力的文书包含了脆弱性。Una在探索自己的旅程时展示了她的经历，描述了弹钢琴所带来的身体和精神上的困难，以及孤独和无意义的感觉。她在面对障碍时展现出来的毅力和决心也让人动容。
Una描述她在室内乐音乐会上的变革性经历让这篇文书真正闪耀起来，她对音乐将人们联系在一起的开放心态以及深刻认识是真正令人感动的。
此外，Una的文书通过她在不同场合的多样化表演进一步展示了她对音乐的执着。了解室内音乐的协作本质以及让他人发光发热的意愿，展示了Una作为音乐家的成长以及对通过团队合作创造的美的欣赏。
Una在文书的结尾意识到，创造美妙的音乐并不需要成为最响亮的人或明星。她接受与朋友们共同呼吸的理念，并在让别人发光发热的过程中找到快乐。这种见解再次反映了她作为音乐家的成长以及她对合作和共享经验重要性的理解。
总的来说，这篇文章成功地传达了Una的个人成长旅程、她对音乐的热爱，以及她对协作和无私的变革力量的理解。叙事结构、生动的描述、脆弱性、反思的基调，以及读者感官的融合，使Una的文章引人入胜、有影响力且令人难忘。
Georgina's Essay
With the blazing morning sun beaming through the window, I had an inclination to make a stand to sell Lebanese laymounada - a light lemonade flavored with a splash of rosewater. Throughout my childhood, anytime the temperature spiked over seventy degrees, there would be laymounada waiting for me at my Teta’s (grandmother in Lebanese Arabic) house.
At that moment, I scoured the cabinets and secured the glass pitcher only to realize we did not have lemons. To my disappointment, I realized my days of being an entrepreneur and generating revenue from my laymounada stand were over before they could even begin. I sat at the kitchen table, wallowing in disappointment. I wanted everyone to be able to taste my Teta’s laymounada. Suddenly, I had an idea that would either prove to be inventive or a total failure. I would sell lemonade without the lemons. Revolutionary, right?
I ripped off a rectangular sheet of paper towel and jotted down my business plan. I listed the key elements of the business plan: a drawing of a cup, a rose, and the price- “fifty scents”- to correlate with the rose-themed business. I sat outside of my childhood home located in a cul-de-sac of five houses and sold my neighbors a rose drink- a combination of filtered water, packets of sugar, and a dash of rosewater. Granted, I only made about $10 from a combination of my parents and generous neighbors who did not drink the “lemonade”, but the experience allowed me to realize regardless of the obstacle, if you are passionate, you can persevere. Teta’s laymounada was my introduction to entrepreneurship.
The entrepreneurial skills gained from my laymounada stand allowed me to establish A&G Jewelry, co-founded with my sister when I was twelve. This business focused on representing our Lebanese heritage. Using supplies we found around our house and from our local craft store, we created a variety of pieces that featured traditional Middle Eastern coins, beads, and clay baked into the shape of Lebanon. My sister and I collaborated to create marketing tools to promote our new business. Before we knew it, A&G Jewelry had earned a spot at my church’s annual Lebanese festival. After tirelessly marketing and selling our jewelry for three days straight, we had made over $900 in revenue, which we decided to donate to the church.
Entrepreneurship took a new form in high school when my sister and I founded our second partnership, The Model Brockton City Council. We saw a need to engage our peers in local government by designing a simulation of our city council. We had to collect signatures, present to many administrators, and market our new club. The initial goal to have more people try my lemonade resonated with me as I strived to have more people engage in their civic duties. Today, over twenty-five of my classmates frequently attend my meetings.
With my first business venture selling laymounada, I made $10; with A&G Jewelry, $900; with the Model Brockton City Council, the revenue amounted to $0. Although there was not a financial gain, I attained experience as a negotiator, problem solver, creative thinker, and most importantly, I became persistent.
Twelve years have passed since that summer day with my “laymounada,” and I have yet to maintain a long-lasting business. My six-year-old self would have seen this lack of continuity as a colossal failure, but instead, it instilled an intense curiosity in me. Little did I know the experience would remain so vivid after all these years. It has continued to push me, compelling me to challenge myself both academically and entrepreneurially. As I grow older, my intrinsic drive to have a lemonade stand, regardless of whatever obstacles come my way, persists as a deep-seated love of business.
When life doesn’t give you lemons, still make lemonade (or laymounada, as my Teta would say).
专业点评：
许多成功的大学作文遵循一个简单的公式：钩子+主题+故事+成长。虽然具体内容可能会有所不同，但如果你能把这四个要素都包括在内，你就会有一篇直击人心的文章。
钩子：“钩子“的作用是吸引读者。招生官每天都会阅读数百篇文章，所以尽量第一时间吸引他们的注意力。可以用一些引人入胜或与众不同的内容作为文章的开头。
Georgina的钩子就是她的柠檬水摊。黎巴嫩柠檬水有什么特别之处？它和普通柠檬水有什么不同？Teta是谁？Georgina用她对经典柠檬水摊故事的文化诠释，激发了读者的好奇心。
主题：“主题”是连接整篇文章的一个想法，并赋予它意义。一个好的主题发人深省，让读者看完文章后感到满足。Georgina的主题是认为生活没有给她柠檬。她在家里找不到一个柠檬，所以她不得不发挥创意，出售不含柠檬的柠檬水。这段经历培养了她的毅力，并促成了一系列其他创业项目。最后，这篇文章又回到了这个主题，将一切串联在一起：“当生活没有给你柠檬时，仍然要做柠檬水（或者像Teta所说的黎巴嫩柠檬水）。”
故事：当谈到讲故事时，黄金法则是“展示，而不是讲述”。不要只是告诉招生官你是一个多么优秀的人。相反，试着通过你的故事向他们展示你的个性、品格和成就。在Georgina的故事中，她分享了所有让她难忘的柠檬水摊经历的丰富多彩的细节。比如将她的饮料定价为“五十种香味”，以迎合玫瑰主题。她还开玩笑说，她赚的10美元主要来自支持她的父母和慷慨的邻居，他们甚至都懒得喝“柠檬水”。这些细节将Georgina描绘成有趣、有创造力、有进取心的人，同时也展示了她的谦逊。
同时，她还很好地描述了自己是如何对社区产生影响的：“在连续三天不知疲倦地推广和销售我们的珠宝后，我们已经获得了900多美元的收入，我们决定把这笔钱捐给教会。”
成长：所有优秀的的申请文书都会清楚地表明了你是如何从自己的经历中成长起来的。一定要强调你从自己的经历中学到了什么或收获了什么。例如，Georgina了解到，她在创业过程中缺乏连续性并不是“巨大的失败”。相反，这培养了她的好奇心、坚持能力和对商业的热爱。在文章的结尾，Georgina显然是是一个（对商业）充满热情的人，有着开拓自己道路的记录。她能够从每一次经历中吸取教训，并将其应用到下一步中。
Georgina抓住了这四个关键元素--钩子、主题、故事和成长--这就是这篇文章成功的原因。
以上就是今年哈佛大学公布的部分优秀文书，剩下还有很多有深意的学生申请故事值得大家一读。由于篇幅有限，大家可自行前往官网阅读，相信这些优秀学生的文书范例，一定能给予大家更多在文书写作上的方向和灵感~