对于志在美国名校的同学们，我们都知道文书的重要性，也知道要把自己的故事讲好，一篇好的文书可以让你低分逆袭、一篇不好的文书也能让你高分脆拒，但你真的知道美国名校招生官到底喜欢什么样的文书吗？
每年申请季的到来，同学们都少不了熬夜赶文书、改文书，甚至几天过去了，连写作方向和思路都找不到，每天在电脑前想破脑袋，写了删、删了写，就是熬不出一段满意的文字。
相信经历过申请的同学，不少都遇到过这些问题：
什么样的内容适合写进申请文书？
怎么写文书开头，更能吸引读者注意？
什么样的文书内容，会让招生官频频点头？
如何收尾，会帮你一招制胜？
名校喜欢什么样的文书，网上的各种攻略、模板靠谱吗，那么多的申请案例有适合我的吗？
与其网络上寻找各种信息，倒不如看看官方发布的标准答案！
哈佛大学校报《The Crimson》每年都会邀请哈佛新生分享自己的申请文书，并从中精选10篇最佳文书进行点评发布，这些文书代表了大学招生官眼中的最高水平，有非常高的参考价值。
如果我们去仔细分析这些文书，可以发现里面的规律真的太明显了，而这些文书写作的小技巧，我们都知道了吗？
01文书选材很重要
真的需要根据不同学校打造不同的文书吗？一样的题目写一样的文书不行吗？专注于文书研究的Admitsee曾经根据收集到的15000篇大学文书发布过一份报告。
在汇总539份斯坦福大学录取文书和393份哈佛大学录取文书后，Admitsee发现：
happy（快乐）
passion（热情）
better（更好）
improve（进步）
这些积极改变的文字，经常会出现在斯坦福大学录取的文书中。
cancer（癌症）
difficult（困难）
hard（艰难）
tough（艰苦）
但是这些相对消极、苦难的的词汇却多次在哈佛大学录取文书中出现。
我们可以看出，斯坦福似乎对学生的个性更感兴趣，而哈佛似乎对学生的成就记录更感兴趣。
从今年的10篇精选文书中，我们就可以印证这个问题，痛苦的经历、恶化的身体、贫血、抑郁、用运动对抗疾病、从小就不得不面对的种族问题……这些消极的问题困扰着学生们，也深深影响了学生们的成长！
而直面困难、克服困难就经历，都成为了哈佛招生官最看重的内容。
02
引人入胜的文书开头
好的文书一定是一个精彩的故事，而故事中引人入胜的开头，就是吸引招生官兴趣的关键所在，哈佛校报点评到，在文书中，以独特的句子开篇，一定会吸引招生官的目光。
I am a conservative. Point-blank.
The backbone of my life is my writing desk.
“Let’s face it, you’re slow,” my violin teacher said.
I sat under the table, burying my head tightly in my folded arms, while the other children sat on the carpet, listening to the teacher’s story.
首句简短、有力，减小阅读负担，同时引起兴趣。
可以写一个违背常识的内容，引发好奇，也可以直接描述故事，让读者瞬间进入情景，进而想继续读下去。
03
简洁有力的文书结尾
文书开头重要，结尾同样重要，结尾往往能决定招生官对这篇文书的最后印象，开头重在吸引阅读兴趣，结尾就要让招生官觉得你正好是哈佛所需要的人。
The whole team eventually follows us into the water to start the day’s warm up, and a small smile, fond and content, flits across my face before I join them.
My hope is that, one day, these children will also feel compelled to do the same, helping others adapt to an unfamiliar environment. With this, we can truly create a caring and cohesive network of support for the children of our society.
Math, for me, is a vast map of knowledge where theories intersect each other like pathways in a cornfield, and that explains the laws of nature and the universe itself. However, no matter what mathematical sphere shall I soar in, I will always have my family with me and the joy of that day when I was running freely in the cornfield.
结尾一般是全文的总结，总结自己的故事，展现出故事把你塑造成了什么样的人，达成了什么目标，与你现在的理想有什么联系。
也可以是首尾呼应，进一步强调你在文章开头立下的“人设”，展现你的独特之处，哈佛校报很赞赏这种写法，认为它“exhibit full-circle imagery which underscores the essay's theme”（展示了完整的形象，强调了文章的主题）。
04
以小见大、提出目标
那么，文书里又应该写什么？一定是最闪亮的经历吧？其实，并不是！
在这十篇精选文书中，写的都是生活中的小事，比如打雪仗、学习游泳、听故事、练习小提琴……
从一件很小但又能体现个人特点的事情入手，引申到你的优秀品质，如何从这件事中获得启发，提升文章的主题。
哈佛录取的都是精英，学校希望学生不只是为自己，也要为他人、为世界做些什么，所以在文书中也要指明，你想通过哈佛的教育实现什么宏大的目标？展现出自己是一个有理想、有动力改变世界的人。
Everyone needs a guiding light through the lonesome process of adaptation, a friendly bump to lift them from the dark shroud of isolation. That’s what Jack did for me—with a rather painful bump to the head—and it’s also what I do for these immigrant children.
My hope is that, one day, these children will also feel compelled to do the same, helping others adapt to an unfamiliar environment. With this, we can truly create a caring and cohesive network of support for the children of our society.
这些目标也最好与国际社会关心的、亟待解决的议题相结合，让招生官看出你是一个关心世界、关心人类命运的学生。
需要注意的是，目标一定是要根据在文书中所描写的经历中获得的感悟，这样才能体现真实性。哈佛校报
精选文书&点评哈佛校报精选文书一Danielle
I wrap my scarf more firmly around my neck, feeling the chill of the brisk January air as I trudge my way to practice. The bus stop isn’t actually that far from the pool, but with a heavy backpack and the fancy shoes that my host sister insisted I wear, the three-minute trek seems to last forever. Turning the corner three blocks down, I finally make it to the parking lot and see one of my friends.
“Salut, Thomas.”
He knows that it’s me without even looking. “Salut, Danielle.” He finishes fiddling with his bicycle lock and stands to greet me. I lean in for my customary kiss, and he obliges, bisous-ing me once on each cheek, before we walk toward Piscine Bréquigny together.
Easy conversation flows between us as our well-trained feet follow the paths to our respective changing rooms. I punch in the code on the girls’ side and open the door. Familiar figures stand in various states of undress, and bisous go all around while we change and speculate on the various tortures Marc will put us through today. Then we head down to the pool deck, ready to meet our fates.
I get to our coach first, and mentally switch back into English. “Hey, Marc, what’s up?”
He shrugs. “Fine.”
I laugh and give him a high five, then move on to bisous and ça va? the rest of the boys. When I get to Islem, who is Algerian, the two of us proceed to execute our exceedingly complex non-French secret handshake, recently perfected at Tours during last week’s three-day meet. (We foreigners have to stick together, after all.) We end with a perfect fist bump, and I smirk.
Islem winks back at me. “Et ouais.” That’s how we roll.
Marc eventually yells at us to get to work, and we all start to put on our caps and goggles. I pull out my team cap from home, reflecting on how much I’ve changed since I left. Four months ago, I was mute, standing awkwardly to the side, hoping that English instructions for the new and frightening social interaction would suddenly appear out of thin air. Now, flawless French rolls off my lips as I greet my friends, laughing freely at inside jokes, not thinking twice about kissing swimsuit-clad swimmers on the cheek. I’m not just on the team anymore—I’m part of it, and every single bisous reminds of that fact.
Someone pushes me into the pool and my shriek is swallowed by the water. I surface and swear my revenge, glaring all the while at Pierre, the obvious culprit, who is grinning unabashedly. Then he yelps and falls as he himself is pushed in as well. The whole team eventually follows us into the water to start the day’s warm up, and a small smile, fond and content, flits across my face before I join them.
官方点评
关于如何写出一篇优秀的文章，我分享的第一条建议是，学生不要想太多。不是每个人都需要在年满16岁时治愈疾病或在专业期刊上发表论文。
让我了解你作为一个人是什么样的，通常最简单的日常故事足以帮助学生们最有效地做到这一点。
诚然，我不太喜欢运动员写关于体育的文章(这些文章经常让人觉得枯燥乏味)，所以当我读到开头的段落时，我感到有些不安。我很快就克服了。
以下是我阅读这篇文章时做的笔记:
开头：有效地设置场景，吸引我想要更多地了解她的国外经历，看起来很友好。
更衣室/与团队的互动：表现得风度翩翩，幽默风趣，与教练的交流、与队友的对话和握手，展示了一种适应能力和将人们团结在一起的能力。
练习/反思时刻：离家四个月对大多数人来说都是一件令人生畏的事情，更不用说一个高中生了，这显示了一个真正的承诺和毅力。在她的旅程开始时，她似乎表现出了害怕和脆弱，但她学会了克服最初的焦虑，现在她表现出了自我欣赏。
结尾：从国外的经历中成长起来，她的精神、可爱和同学情谊是显而易见的。
当我读到这样一篇有趣的描述性文章时，我就像是被吸引进了一部迷你电影，我想继续读下去，看看事情会如何发展。到最后，我觉得我了解这个学生，我知道他们独特的个人特质是如何让他们成为任何大学招生人员的候选人的。
哈佛校报精选文书二Josh
I look over at the digital clock at the front of the bus just as the time changes to 8:30. The engine begins to rumble, the seat begins to shake, and the bus slowly pulls onto Route 6 and heads toward JPA—the Jay Pritzker Academy—near Siem Reap, Cambodia. The bus is alive with chatter. Peace Corps volunteers trade stories about their experiences in their assigned villages; international schoolteachers discuss their plans for the day’s lessons. I overhear one of the Peace Corps volunteers, Deidre, say, “I have to say, the Peace Corps offers incredible health care. They medevaced me to Bangkok when I got dengue fever.”
Today, I find myself unable to join the conversation. I stare blankly at the blue cloth seat in front of me, trying to gently coax my knotted stomach out of my throat. All I can think about is the empty seat beside me and the uncomfortable feeling of entering uncertain territory alone.
My friend and co-teacher, Shahriyar, is in the Angkor Hospital recovering from a serious bout of amoebic dysentery. I visited him yesterday. He was lying in bed with his summer reading in his right hand and an IV in his left. Looking pale and exhausted, he weakly lifted his head and greeted me. “I don’t know if you know this yet,” he said, “but I’m flying home tomorrow. Are you coming with me?” Though the news didn’t surprise me, the question caught me off guard. As I left the hospital room, I couldn’t help but think how easily this could have been me in his situation.
The bus drives over a speed bump faster than it should have, and I’m jolted back to the present. I try to take my mind off Shahriyar and look out the window at the world around me. Everything is so much different than it is in Deerfield, yet it all somehow feels very natural to me. To my left I see an elderly woman wearing a mask sweeping dust off the street; I smile at her, but she doesn’t notice. As the bus gets closer and closer to JPA, the fact that I will have to teach today’s lessons by myself begins to set in. I wonder if I’m physically capable of teaching three hours of class by myself in the ninetydegree heat and 90 percent humidity. In the past,
Shahriyar and I had always taken turns leading the class, giving each other a few moments to rest and rehydrate while the other taught. A part of me is afraid to do it. I’ve never had to lead the class without the comfort and support of having Shahriyar by my side. As I think about the challenges I will face, I realize how easy it would be to turn back. I only have to call Sokun—a local tuk-tuk driver and he’d take me to the airport. Knowing my co-teacher has become seriously ill, nobody would think less of me if I went home today.
As I sit in my seat, planning my trip home, the bus slows nearly to a stop and then turns onto a narrow red dirt road. I’ve suddenly plunged into a new world. The mess of worn-down concrete buildings and mopeds gives way to miles of flooded rice paddies stretching as far as I can see. Every few hundred yards I see boys and young men working barefoot in the fields. The bamboo huts that dot the landscape make me think back to my visit to the house of one of my students, Dari. I remember looking into his room and seeing a wooden table on his dirt floor. Close by, a bamboo shelf was filled with books. The globe he had won for being on the Honor Roll was proudly displayed on the bookshelf among his prized possessions. Smiling ear to ear, he told us that JPA was the best thing in his life. I realize that it really is too late to go home. I’ve already fallen in love with my students.
As the bus pulls into JPA’s driveway, the rest of the teachers begin gathering their materials. I remain seated, deep in thought. “Are you coming?” I hear a familiar voice ask me. I look up and see Deidre looking at me.
“Of course I am.”
官方点评
在关于社区服务的文章中，很容易陷入自我膨胀的陷阱：强调自己的个人牺牲和善行，并在这个过程中使自己看起来更喜欢自助服务而不是社区服务。
但是，Josh的文章则很好地避开了这个陷阱，巧妙地将同情、谦卑和奉献传达给他的同事和为他们工作的人，他留下来不是因为他怜悯他的学生，而是因为他爱他们。
因此，Josh的工作感觉上并没有像简历那样虚张声势，而是受到了做善事的真诚愿望的推动。
从结构上看，Josh的文章是固体的，追溯了他从不确定到重新下定决心的思维过程的轨迹。这个看似简单的故事情节因精心挑选的细节和画面而变得生动起来。
例如，第一段中关于登革热的即兴对话增添了不少惊喜，对柬埔寨乡村的描述生动而出色。描述Josh拜访他的学生Dari家的段落是这篇文章的亮点之一，这一场景作为文章的“灵感时刻”和“灵感时刻”都是可信的，值得纪念的是它所包含的深刻的同理心。
虽然Josh确实有一个相当独特的经历的优势：“不是每个哈佛申请人都能写他们的关于在和平队做志愿者的个人陈述”，但他文章的主要优点肯定是可以在这个背景下展现的。
他的文章是一篇最好的个人陈述：它不仅叙述了一段经历，还暗示了他性格中更深层的元素，并以一种不强迫展现的方式表达出来。读过Josh文章的人会知道，他的志愿服务经历对他来说远不止是简历素材。
哈佛校报精选文书三Winnie
Soft Wooden Heart
The backbone of my life is my writing desk. I like to describe its surface as an organized mess (despite my parents’ overdramatized description of a bomb site), a state of positive entropy and minimum energy. Math exercises overlap an organizer, set next to almost-empty tubes of paint and overdue library books. A constantly filled bottle of water sits behind a glasses’ case full of guitar picks, and carved into a mountain of paper, right in the middle, is a space reserved for my laptop—on days when I am slouching, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare needs to be slid under it. An eclectic desk shows an eclectic personality; mine has had the honor of being the training grounds prior to the Great (final) Battle (exam) of Chemistry, the peaceful meadow of relaxed reading afternoons, and all in all the pristine-turned-colorful canvas of an inquisitive mind.
I remember buying it with my mother five years ago, when my bruised knees protested against the tiny white-paint-gone-yellow one I had used since childhood. My new desk was made of native Rimu heartwood—solid, resilient, dependable—a perfect role model for me to grow into. Over the years, its material became representative of my New Zealand identity, its surface slowly coated in quirky personality, and its compartments filled with treasured memories; the heartwood desk echoed my heart.
At first, it did not fit with the decor of the rest of my room, which even now appears boxy and stark next to my grandiosely elegant writing desk, but its quiet strength is unafraid of individuality, just as I have learned to become. It has watched as I grew stronger branches, a straighter trunk, firmer roots; whereas I had once been but a shy young seedling, I sprouted leaves and with them the ability and yearning to provide shade for others. I have certainly physically grown into it, but although I would like to think that I have become completely independent, I remain human; in inevitable times of need, it is still my steadfast, sturdy desk that offers its support.
I sit here and, well, I write: joyfully, desolately, irately, wistfully—at times paralyzed by excitement, at others crippled by fear. I scrawl notes in my organizer (which is, naturally, not in the least organized), words overflow my blog, overemotional oranges and blues plague my illustrations; shallow scratch marks indent the wood from where I have pressed too passionately into paper. It may be solid, but it is elastic enough to be shaped, resilient enough to adapt: This is my soft wooden heart.
It can take it. My desk remains constant despite scars of experience—unassuming, stoic, ever watchful. Even when I dismembered dying cell phones, their frail key tones pleading for mercy, the desk stood there, nonchalant. Regardless of what fervor goes on from time to time, it knows there will eventually be a constant calm; my lively nest of rebuilt mobiles still calls this place home. Sometimes, I rest my uncertain head on its reassuring solid surface and the wood presses back into my heartbeat, communicating in Morse: “Don’t worry. Some things will never change.”
And, like a mother, it always turns out to be right. Beneath my seemingly chaotic coat of papers and objects; beneath the superfluous, temporary things that define my present life, my desk and my heart remain still—solid, stable, and evergreen, ready to be written onto and scratched into by experience.
官方点评
Winnie的文章告诉我们，一篇有意义的文章不一定是关于一项重大成就或一段痛苦的个人经历，通常，最有灵感的写作可以从一些简单和意想不到的东西演变而来，比如写字台。
她的文章之所以成功，是因为它邀请读者进入她的世界，在那里我们会发现一个聪明、独特、有自我意识的女孩。
通过她那张“eclectic”的桌子，我们看到了她对艺术的兴趣，她的学术能力，以及她在拖延症方面的挑战，我们看到了她对自己传统的自豪感，她与自我怀疑的斗争，以及她对自己适应变化和拥抱新体验的信心。
最后一句，我们觉得如果在教室里听到温妮的声音，或者在图书馆里坐在她旁边，我们会立刻认出她来。
温妮通过语言让自己带入生活的能力也给她的文章带来了一些挑战。她向我们展示了如此之多的东西，并以如此富有创造性的方式展示给读者，以至于读者会被那些争夺我们注意力的信息和比喻性语言所淹没。
文书是展示你是谁的宝贵机会，但没有必要把你生活的方方面面都编成650字，即使是最有天赋的作家，少往往是多！