为你写诗《纽约时报》精选美本文书分享
在申请美国大学时,我们都知道除了GPA、标化成绩、竞赛奖项、特长等硬件条件之外,文书也特别重要,因为美国大学采用所谓holistic approach,很看重通过“自传式”文书,了解申请人自我剖析的内涵和思想。每年申请季,都会有很多“凭借一封文书就能脱颖而出”的故事。美国留学文书
究竟要怎样才能写出富有深度,且深受招生官喜爱的优秀申请文书呢?每年美本申请季结束后,《纽约时报》都会向当年申请季的学生征集申请文书。和大部分学生描写自己的成就不同,这些精选的文书描述了他们普通的日常,却折射出对金钱、工作、社会阶级等思考。
在今天的这篇文章里,我们将揭秘今年《纽约时报》挑选并刊登的4篇美国大学优秀申请文书,包括录取了哈佛、康奈尔等顶级大学的文书。
这四位学生中,一位是用诗歌来表达思想的黑人学生;一位是在移民父母的建筑项目中工作的艺术家;一位在康涅狄格州高档区却表现地格外与众不同;一位用编制毯子的故事讲述自己的人生。
由于篇幅有限,这里我们仅在这里为大家展示其中一部分,希望可以给大家的美本申请一些新的准备思路和角度。
哈佛录取文书
申请人:Julius Ewungkem来自宾州的Bethlehem
就读院校:哈佛大学
‘She might be free,but the world still doesn’t have to treat her equally.No one is obligated to give her a job.She is the same person that she was the week before.’
“她可能自由了,但这个世界并不一定要平等地对待她。没有人有义务给她一份工作。她还是一个星期前的她”
Julius Ewungkem Jr.
Some challenges transcend time,constantly popping up in different forms
As a society,we strive to quantify success
有些挑战超越了时间,不断以不同的形式出现
作为一个社会,我们努力量化成功
“If you work hard,you’ll see results”
This phrase is constantly used to blame others
And a specific group of people have felt the brunt of this attack
Yes,slavery in the U.S.was abolished over 150 years ago
“如果你努力工作,你会看到结果”
这个短语经常用来责备别人
有一群人在这次袭击中首当其冲
是的,美国的奴隶制在150多年前就被废除了
But let me paint a picture
Let’s say your great-great-great-grandmother was a newly liberated slave in 1863.
How free is she truly?
She might be free,but the world still doesn’t have to treat her equally.No one is obligated to give her a job.She is the same person that she was the week before.
我来描绘一个画面
假设你的曾曾曾祖母是1863年新解放的奴隶。
她到底有多自由?
她可能自由了,但这个世界仍然不能平等地对待她。没有人有义务给她一份工作。她和一周前是同一个人。美国本科留学文书
And her kids
They are now growing up with a mother who can’t read or write while at the same time struggling to live in a society evolving to house a new race
Are her children supposed to immediately succeed?
And what about their children?
And their children?
还有她的孩子
他们的母亲不会读不会写,同时他们又在一个不断演变着容纳新种族的社会里挣扎着生活
她的孩子会马上成功吗?
那么他们的孩子呢?
他们的孩子的孩子呢?
We are so quick to look at issues
High rates of crime,poverty,and unemployment
And begin to point fingers
Yes,the civil rights movement won equal rights for African-Americans sixty years ago
But segregation is as prevalent as it’s ever been
So,who is really to blame?
我们看问题的速度太快了
犯罪率、贫困率和失业率居高不下
然后开始指指点点
是的,民权运动在60年前为非裔美国人赢得了平等权利
但是种族隔离和以往一样盛行
那么,到底是谁的错呢?
It’s easy for me to look at some of my best friends from my middle school and blame them
“They chose to skip class”“They chose to fight in the hallways”
But did they choose to grow up in an environment that doesn’t value education?
Did they choose to grow up with one parent who is working two jobs?
Is something wrong with them,or am I just lucky?
对我来说,看着我中学时的一些好朋友责备他们是很容易的
"他们选择逃课""他们选择在走廊里打架"
但是他们选择在一个不重视教育的环境中成长吗?
他们是选择在单亲家庭中长大,还是父母做两份工作?
是他们出了什么问题,还是我只是运气好? 美本文书
Lucky to have two parents who’ve put education before anything
Lucky to attend a high school with plentiful resources
We no longer have laws in place that are made solely to hold back those of certain groups
But that doesn’t mean the effects aren’t the same
幸运的是,有一对把教育放在首位的父母
有幸上了一所资源丰富的高中
我们不再有专门为阻止某些群体的行为而制定的法律
但这并不意味着影响是不同的
And as we continue along our journey
We must ask ourselves
“Whose choices truly created this outcome?”and“How do we fix this mentality and issue?”
Many solutions have been proposed
But one seems to be truly effective in both the short and long term
Education
当我们继续我们的旅程
我们必须问自己
到底是谁的选择造成了这样的结果?以及“我们如何解决这种心态和问题?”
人们提出了许多解决办法
但有一种方法在短期和长期看来都是真正有效的
教育
Not just of the perpetrators,the ignorant,but as well as those who suffer from this society
We all need to learn more,not just the students but the teachers as well
Even as I spread awareness,I know there are so many who know more and there is so much to learn
But is he truly racist or did he grow up in a family that perpetrated those views?
An attack should not be our first response,rather,we need to teach
不只是犯罪者,无知的人,还有这个社会的受害者
我们都需要学习更多,不仅仅是学生,还有老师
即使在我传播意识的同时,我知道还有很多人知道得更多,还有很多东西要学
但他是真正的种族主义者,还是他成长的家庭犯下了这些观点?
攻击不应该是我们的第一反应,相反,我们需要教导
Show the history,the ups,the downs
The accomplishments,the breakthroughs,the struggles
Show why we are in the state we are in
And for me personally?
I’ll try
To break into homogenous communities and try to teach
To show my dreads,curls,and naps
To not wait for that next person to say something,but rather be that next person
To always be proud of who I am
历史,起起伏伏
成就,突破,挣扎
为什么我们处于这样的状态
就我个人而言?
我会尽力的
进入同族的社区,试着去教书
来展示我的恐惧、卷发和小憩
不要等下一个人说什么,而是做下一个人
永远为自己感到骄傲
为你写诗《纽约时报》精选美本文书分享
康奈尔大学录取文书
申请人:Maria Mendoza Blanco,来自佛吉尼亚州的Vienna
就读院校:康奈尔大学(Cornell University)
‘When we arrived,my parents caught the American dream like Tío Conejo used his rabbit tricksiness to outwit Tío Tigre in the fables:so artfully that they themselves hardly believed they’d pulled it off.’
Maria Mendoza Blanco
If I had it my way,I’d never set foot in a Home Depot ever again.
如果让我自己选择,我再也不会踏进Home Depot家居装修商店了。
Every Ace Hardware,every Lowe’s,every boutique tile place,every obscure little hardware store that only sells Phillips-head screwdrivers smells the same way:dusty.Sawdust,catdust,paint-flake-dust,laminate-dust,ancient-grumpy-cashier-dust.It’s post-apocalyptic,the shuffling shoppers dead-eyed from looking at a thousand identical refrigerators,fluorescent tube lights casting ultramarine pallor over their faces.
每个五金件商店、每个家居装修店、每个精品瓷砖商店、每个不起眼的只卖十字螺丝刀的小五金店,闻起来都一样:满是灰尘的味道。锯屑,猫咪毛发,脱落的油漆粉尘,层压粉尘,古旧的柜子带来的粉尘。这简直是世界末日。来来往往的购物者们在上千个看起来完全相同的冰箱中疲惫地扫视,日光灯照在他们的脸上,泛着青色的苍白。
We kill tigers,you see.
你看,我们能杀死老虎。
“Where are we going?”I’ll ask,and my father will say,“Lowe’s.Hay que matar tigres.”Gotta kill tigers,gotta take side jobs to fill in the gaps where the money doesn’t quite reach.Where others might have taken up Uber,my family started building houses,with me and my brother in tow.
“我们去哪?”我会问,我父亲会回答:“家居装修店。Hay que matar tigres(西语:要杀死老虎)。”要杀死老虎,必须要做些副业来填补家庭财政的空白。别人可能选择去当优步司机,而我的爸爸则会拖着我和我的兄弟一起装修房屋。美国留学申请材料
When we arrived,my parents caught the American dream like Tío Conejo used his rabbit tricksiness to outwit Tío Tigre in the fables:so artfully that they themselves hardly believed they’d pulled it off.We killed tigers in Georgetown and Langley,diplomat townhomes and tasteless McMansions alike.We moved seven times within the same ZIP code,as my parents bought ugly houses and sold them beautiful.
我们刚来美国的时候,我的父母实现了他们的美国梦,就像在寓言中兔子先生用自己的计策击败了老虎先生:如此巧妙,连他们都几乎不相信自己会实现这一梦想。我们在乔治敦和兰利、外交官联排别墅,和没有品味的麦克马斯特都“杀了老虎”。我的父母买下旧房子,装修精美后再售出,我们也因此在一片区域内搬了七次家。
It isn’t much like HGTV.I spent countless hours searching for nonexistent cans of Spackle in the back shelves of Home Depot.My mother laid out carpet samples on the floor and paced around them,forever deliberating between ivory and cream.She’d be on the phone with some hung over subcontractor when she picked me up from art club.I’d sit in an abandoned corner and sketch as they haggled eternally over hardwood pallets at auction.I wouldn’t be surprised if I spent more time under the watchful eye of an orange-aproned paint mixer than a babysitter.
它不像美国家居生活频道HGTV的节目。我花了无数个小时在家居超市的后货架上寻找仿佛不存在的墙粉喷罐。我的母亲把地毯样品铺在地上,走来走去,比较象牙白和奶油白的区别。她从艺术俱乐部接我时,还会一直和一些分包商打电话。当他们在拍卖会上为了一个硬木小床讨价还价时,我就坐在一个不起眼的角落里素描。如果说和一个居家保姆比,我出现在橙围裙的油漆工眼皮子下的时间更长,我也不会觉得奇怪。
All this is to say that construction runs in the veins of the Blancos.My grandfather,after all,came out of nowhere to build a concrete empire on the baked dirt of Maracaibo.The mixers molder now in that hinterland,but the force of his success was what fueled our escape from Venezuela before things got bad.
我们的建筑事业从布兰科斯起步。毕竟,我的祖父就从那里发家,在马拉开波的泥地上建立起一个水泥帝国。祖父的搅拌机留在了那片土壤,但他的成功却让我们得以在委内瑞拉事态恶化前逃了出来。
What use would my grandfather have had for all the sketches I’ve sketched,all the paintings I’ve painted,I wonder?Could my parents paper their clients’walls with pages from my sketchbook,could they tear up the canvas and use it for insulation?Probably not.
我想,祖父对我的画和我的事业起了什么作用?我的父母能用我速写本的纸涂在顾客的墙上吗,我的画布能给他们用做绝缘材料吗?应该不能。
In art,there’s this fantasy of The Muse reaching down and the lucky artist’s paintbrush dancing with a press of her rosy fingertip.The truth is that I can have the most perfect concept handed to me by the ghost of Gentileschi herself,and I’ll still get in my own way.Perfectionism won’t let me pick a background color for weeks,envy will distract me with foolhardy attempts at others’success,simple laziness will keep me in bed watching episodes of“Chopped”15 times.
在艺术界有个传说,说如果得到了缪斯的眷顾,她就会来到艺术家玫瑰色的指尖上,让笔刷翩翩起舞。事实是,真蒂莱斯基(意大利女画家)常常在我身上“显灵”,而我仍然能够展示出自己的风格。我的完美主义不会让我在一个背景色上纠结好几周;眼红别人的成功,我也会分心去鲁莽尝试模仿,而简单的懒惰会使我瘫在床上看“Chopped”节目看15次。
Whenever my still-white canvas stretched blankly into the infinite,I thought about that,about the long nights my parents must have spent thinking about their own parents.About the three hours daily my mother spends commuting to her day job.About my father’s lost stories,the jokes he doesn’t tell because English warps his humor.About the life they left behind in Maracaibo,all so that we could live here.All so that I could come here and be an artist,of all things.
空白的画布常常给人无限联想,每当我看到空画布,我都会想到,我的父母也会在漫漫长夜里想起他们的先辈;会想到我母亲每天大约要花三个小时上下班;会想到记忆深处父亲的故事,和他因为英语不好而讲不出的笑话;会想到他们为了让我们住在美国而放弃了马拉开波的记忆。这一切的一切,都是为了让我能够来到这里,成为一名艺术家。
So it’s not easy moving from concrete to canvas.But I must do it anyway,because the force of my ambition and,well,my talent demand it.Because my family’s risk deserves a risk of my own.A risk that I must fight my indolence and ennui for.A risk that will honor our sacrifice of all these years between two lands.I can’t let all those dusty hours at Home Depot go to waste.Hay que matar tigres.
因此,从“混凝土”过渡到“画布”并不容易。但是无论如何我也必须这样做,为了我的志向和我的天赋,也为了努力不辜负我的家人。因此,我要挑战我的懒惰和疲倦,来弥补我们家族辗转两地而付出的牺牲。我不能让家具店里那些尘土飞扬的时光浪费掉。Hay que matar tigres(西语:要杀死老虎)。美国留学文书写作
申请文书是美本申请中至关重要的核心部分。进入申请季,唯一的变量只剩下文书。申请文书就是你的话筒——它传递着你的世界观与抱负。
它需要你满怀热情地去讲述一个故事,用个性化的、有深度的趣闻来展现你的性格、你的兴趣、你的价值观、你的生活经历、你对世界的看法、你的抱负,甚至是你的幽默感。
对你心仪的梦校来说,录取或拒绝你,常常取决于申请文书上的细微差别。
从上面举的两篇录取学生的申请文书中,我们不难发现,好的文书就是在讲自己的故事,是信念与理想照亮后的“平平无奇”的生活。
他们文书中有许多都是通过以小见大的形式,来展示背后的思考。并从这些见微知著的事情上,从多个侧面突出自己的品格,给读者留下了深刻的印象。
此外,一个好的细节描写可以使故事显得更加真实与真挚,让文章看起来更加具有吸引力。所以也不要担心过多的细节描写会占据你的整体篇幅,因为这些细节都有助于展现真实可信的故事,体现作者与他人的不同,表现自己的想法和声音。
美本文书,和所有其他国家大学申请的文书,要求都截然不同。所要求的写作手法、切入点、语言和深度,也往往是学生所不熟悉的。
到底“如何讲好自己的故事”?
对于正在申请季的学生,美留网提供申请文书辅导服务。申请老师均来自美国顶尖Top20的名校,我们会根据你的独特想法和经历,对你的申请文书进行专业的手把手指导,产出独特、高质量、给申请加分的申请文书。
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