文書是美本申請中至關重要的一環，隨著2023屆申請季開始，同學們陸續進入了主文書的構思和寫作階段。為此，智友留學為大家整理了哈佛大學最新發布的優秀文書及專家點評。

上期，我們帶大家欣賞了出色的五篇新生文書（戳這里：【收藏】哈佛大學公開2022年十篇優秀申請文書及專家點評！（上）），今天一起來看看另外五篇吧！

“You should scrub off the top layer of your skin whenever you lose a round,” my debate teammate once advised me.

“That’s not practical,” I replied.

“Neither is your refusal to wear clothes you’ve lost important debate rounds in. Your wardrobe has very little to do with your success.”

Half of me disagrees with him. I still bring three BIC Round Stic pencils with 0.7 lead to every test because my gut tells me this fastidious procedure raises my scores. I’m still convinced that labs receive better grades if written in Calibri. And I still won’t rewear clothes in which I’ve lost crucial rounds.

Yet the other half of me is equally dismissive of my own superstitions. I love logic, never failing to check that steps in a proof lead to a precise conclusion without gaps in reasoning.

Fortunately, I often abandon my penchant for pragmatism to accommodate for my unwarranted superstitions. And since I only feel the need to act logicalcally in selective situations, I am perfectly content with the illogical nature of my other habits:

Raised with my great-grandmother, grandparents, and parents all under one roof, I never lacked a consultant to help me transcribe Korean holiday dates from the lunar calendar onto my schedule. Yet whenever all four generations of my family celebrates with a traditional meal of bulgogi, my untraceable and admittedly nonexistent Italian blood flares in protest; I rebelliously cook myself linguine con le vongole that clashes terribly with my mom’s pungent kimchi.

If I plot a graph of “hours I spend in physical activity” versus “week of the year,” the result looks like an irregular cardiac cycle. The upsurges symbolize my battles with colossal walls of water in hopes of catching a smooth surf back to Mission Bay shore. The ensuing period of rest mirrors the hours I spend researching in that one spot in my debate team’s war room that isn’t covered in papers (yet), or at the piano sight-reading the newest Adele song. Then the diastolic tranquility is interrupted by the weekends when I’m sprinting through trenches to avoid paintballs swarming above my favorite arena at Paintball USA.

I find comfort in the familiar. I treasure the regular midnight chats with my brother as we indulge in batter while baking cupcakes for a friend’s birthday, keeping our voices hushed to avoid waking our mom and facing her “salmonella is in your near future” lecture. Yet, some of my fondest memories involve talking to people with whom I share nothing in common. Whether my conversations are about the Qatari coach’s research on Kuwait’s female voting patterns, or about the infinite differences between the “common app” and the Oxford interviewing process, or even about my friend’s Swedish school’s peculiar policy of mandating uniforms only on Wednesdays, I love comparing cultures with debaters from different countries.

My behavior is unpredictable. Yet it’s predictably unpredictable. Sure, I’ll never eat a Korean dinner like one might expect. But I’ll always be cooking linguine the moment I catch a whiff of kimchi.

通常情況下，最成功的文書往往講述的是“接地氣”的話題。我的學生寫過不少平凡的話題，例如：打掃衛生、啟動洗碗機、削橡皮、尋找一塊浮木，以及照顧不止一只柴犬。因此，我很享受閱讀這篇文書。Choi選擇了一個常常被他人忽略的話題——迷信，并成功地將它作為一個聚焦鏡頭，探索自己生活中的不同部分。

通過描述生活中看似不關聯的事件，Choi展示了她的自省能力，同時讓讀者對她的個人形象有了更豐富的認識。Choi并不是一個沒有特點的成功者。她的迷信，以及她在邏輯和迷信之間的反復掙扎，都使她極具吸引力，讓人們情不自禁地喜歡她。正如我經常提醒我的學生：古怪就是酷。

Choi在文書開頭引用了一段對話，瞬間吸引了讀者的注意力。一想到要“擦掉自己的一層皮膚”，人們可能會感到畏懼，這是可以理解的。那么，接下來會發生什么呢？開頭的對話促使讀者繼續閱讀下去。

在文書的前半部分，我們看到善于辯論是她的性格特征之一。在下文中，她巧妙地將自己的迷信與生活中其他重要的部分聯系起來，包括她的文化積淀、家庭、沖浪運動、音樂、彩彈射擊、燒烤活動、與陌生人的對話，以及對世界各地不同文化的觀察。這些聯系讓讀者了解到，為什么Choi會成為一個極具好奇心、古怪的人。她富有創意，會采取不同方法解決問題：她將韓國和意大利美食結合起來（光是想象一下混雜的口味就令人舌尖顫抖）；在鋼琴上演奏流行音樂（可能是用與莫扎特或貝多芬截然不同的演奏方式）。

如果一定要提供改進建議，就是我在讀完這篇文書后想了解更多。也許她可以從目前的內容稍微擴展一下：她從這個不尋常的過程中學到了什么？這些經歷是如何影響她看待世界的方式并影響她的行動的？她在哪些方面應用了這種學習方式？

綜上，在這篇文書中，Choi做了許多其他學生的文書中沒有做到的事：她采取了一種獨特的方法，用一個樸實的話題作為“線”，將她生活的各個部分串聯起來。

Several years ago, my mother told me I listen to “white people music.” And I suppose that’s true—rock 'n' roll tends to spring from the middle-class basements of young, white men. Though I did point out that its origins trace back to jazz musicians of the Harlem Renaissance. Also that one of the greatest guitarists of all time—dear Mr.Hendrix; may he rest in peace—was black.

My devotion to punk rock began in seventh grade, when Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” came up on my iTunes shuffle. I started to look into their other releases, eventually immersing myself into the complete punk discography. My mother, having grown up
in a racially segregated New York, was more likely to listen to Stevie Wonder than Stevie Nicks.

But, she must have figured, to each her own. So while my compatriots indulged in the music of Taylor Swift, One Direction, and Lady
Gaga, my tacky Hot Topic headphones blasted Green Day, Ramones, and The Clash. My young adolescent ears drank in the raw, chaotic beauty, an echo of the pain of the past. The thrashing, pulsating vitality of the instruments painted a picture, connecting me to the disillusioned kids who launched an epic movement of liberation some 40 years ago.

Punkers question authority. Aggressively contrarian, they advocate for the other side—the side that seemed smothered silent during the post-Vietnam era. They rejected the established norms. They spoke out and weren’t afraid.

I had always felt different from my peers. In my girls’s prep school, the goal was to be blond and good at soccer. I was neither, which automatically deemed me “uncool”. I had a few close friends but never felt like I was part of a whole.

Then came the punk philosophy, for the outliers, for those who were different. That was something I could be part of.

Instead of trying to conform to my peers, I adopted an anti-conformist attitude. Much like the prematurely gray anti-hero of my favorite book, I sneered at all the “phonies” around me. I resented anything popular. Uggs? Wouldn’t buy them. Yoga pants? Never. Starbucks?Well, I could make a few concessions.

But I felt more cynical than liberated. I wasted so much energy on being different than I lost track of what actually made me happy. I insisted I didn’t care what people thought of me, which was true. Yet if I based my actions almost solely on their behavior, how could I deny their influence?

Luckily, as I transitioned from a private school to a brand new public high school, I got to clean the slate. I bought yoga pants and found they were comfortable. I listened to a wide variety of music, even the eh kind that wasn’t 100% hardcore punk. And I was happier.

I revised my punk philosophy: Do as you like—whether it fits into the “system” or not.

The Beatles’s “Revolution” lyrics sum it up well:

You tell me it’s the institution

Well, you know

You’d better free your mind instead.

What I think Lennon was getting at is questioning everything does not entail opposing everything. Defiance for the sake of defiance is unproductive at best, destructive at worst. I believe in life’s greater Truths, like Love and Justice. These Truths are what should govern my actions—not what’s popular and what isn’t. Striving to act on these ideals has helped me stay true to myself, regardless of what’s considered “conformist."

Perhaps I’ve failed the punk movement. We’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime, I’ll do what makes me happy and change what doesn’t. I’ll wear Doc Martens instead of Uggs; I’ll partake in a grande pumpkin spice latte; I’ll watch Gossip Girl; I’ll blare my favorite guitar solo over the speakers in my room.

And that’s as punk as it gets.

讀到尖銳的標題和言辭激烈的開頭后，我立刻被這篇文書所吸引。我和許多同事從小就是學校榮譽課程中極少數有色人種，一直被告知自己在喜歡“白人的東西”。

當你在文書里講述自己特別的個人經歷時，它可以使有相似經歷的讀者產生情感共鳴，同時也會吸引經歷截然不同的人。

這名學生對母親言論的回復，對朋克搖滾的起源和政治背景的了解程度，都表明她不僅僅是一名朋克音樂的粉絲。她的好奇心促使她研究和學習朋克音樂的歷史根源，并自信地就朋克音樂的起源和受眾，提出了一個對立的觀點。

我喜歡的部分是：學生對朋克搖滾的興趣從愛好發展成激情，最終形成一種身份認同。文書不應只說明個人成長經歷的開始和結束，也要展示其中復雜的過程。

該學生生動、簡潔地描述了她在學校的經歷。盡管她在學校并不合群，但并沒有詆毀其他同學。當描寫自己對“享受星巴克”讓步時，她還運用了幽默和文字技巧。

這篇文書的轉折點在于，作者開始對自己的堅持表示質疑：不追隨主流文化是否真的能讓自己開心，這也體現了作者更深層次的自我反省和個人成長。

在文書中使用引語和歌詞可能會使讀者轉移注意力，但這位學生有效地利用歌詞作為出發點，展開了深入的思考。文書的結論很有說服力，它讓我們看到一個人接納自己的方方面面，而不是固執地堅持自己的與眾不同。

這篇文書以自信、充滿活力的聲音收尾，擲地有聲，結尾的句子正如演出結束時一個華麗的“扔麥”。如果你想分享自己的激情如何促進個人成長、努力融入環境、逐步認識自我或確立價值觀，這篇文書將是一個很好的例子。

Finally, I had found a volunteer opportunity at the Long Marine Lab, a marine biology research facility at UC Santa Cruz! I envisioned swimming with dolphins, or perhaps studying behavioral patterns of decorator crabs. But when I discovered the nature of my work on the first day of volunteering, my excitement turned to disappointment: I’d be picking through albatross boluses, the indigestible materials they cough up before going to sea. Sure enough, after three hours of separating fishing line from brown muck, I began to dread what I was in for. At that point, I had no clue of just how interesting the opportunity would turn out to be, and it would remind me of how easily I become engrossed and fascinated by all sorts of random stuff.

It didn’t take long for my boredom with the boluses to shift toward curiosity. In the first place, the project itself was fascinating. The idea was to research the behavior and diet of albatrosses at sea. These birds can fly for months without touching land! When the birds have chicks, they cough up whatever they’ve eaten at sea to feed their young. When the chicks become old enough to fly, they cough up the hard, indigestible materials left in their stomachs. These boluses contain squid beaks that can reveal the types of squid eaten and the area where the squid were caught. We volunteers would pick through the boluses, separating out anything that looked interesting.

As I got better at dissecting these blobs, I started finding crazy stuff, and my colleagues and I would often discuss important findings. There was, of course, the search for the biggest squid beak, and the fish eyes were always interesting. But most shocking was the plastic. Beyond the normal Styrofoam and fishing line were plastic bottle caps, lighters, even toothbrushes. Occasionally, Asian writing revealed distant origins. Once, I picked through a bolus permeated with orange goo, eventually to discover the round mouthpiece of a balloon. The origins of these artifacts were sad, but also fascinating. I learned of the Texas-sized trash heap in the middle of the Pacific, the effects of which I was witnessing firsthand. I gained a heightened awareness of the damage inflicted on the oceans by humans, and their far-reaching impacts. Perhaps most importantly, I realized that even the most tedious things can blow my mind.

If dissecting boluses can be so interesting, imagine the things I’ve yet to discover! I play piano and can see myself dedicating my life to the instrument, but I can’t bear to think of everything else I’d have to miss. I’d love to study albatrosses, but also particle physics or history, and preferably all three. At this point in my life, I can’t imagine picking just one area. At the same time, though, I love studying subjects in depth. I tend to get overwhelmed by my options, since I can’t possibly choose them all. But at least I know I’ll never be bored in life: there are just too many subjects to learn about, books to read, pieces to play, albatrosses to save, and boluses to dissect.

Lisa通過她富有創意的描述性文字，成功地激發了讀者的真實情感。這篇文書之所以能脫穎而出，是因為它描述生動的意象、傳達作者發自內心的感受和有益的內省。

Lisa的寓言使我立刻聯想到一只被關在封閉籠子的鳥。籠子象征著我們在生活中所面對的一切，以及我們的恐懼。Lisa的第一次芭蕾舞獨奏非常精彩，就在某一刻，她拋開恐懼（打開籠子），并通過認真的自我反省，選擇擁抱未來的挑戰（勇往直前）。

在1-3段中，Lisa美麗豐富的語言和形象的描述瞬間吸引了我們。她講述自己因壓力，對失敗、家庭和公眾輿論的恐懼而動彈不得。我感同身受，并且想了解更多。她那溫暖的幽默閃耀著完美的光芒：她想要放空大腦，并提醒自己不要摔倒，以免被她的母親或家人責罵。Lisa將她“可愛的老師”看作她的后備力量、舒適區和支持者，這是許多人可以感受到的。她的焦慮是相對的，她用這一點解釋她厭惡風險的本性。

在4-5段中，Lisa的單人表演生動地描述了她起舞和轉變的契機——恐懼變成了激情和興奮。她在轉動的那瞬間充滿詩意，微笑，擺脫了恐懼，像一杯溫暖的牛奶一樣擁抱風險?！鞍踩偙群蠡诤脝?？” 這是一個尖銳的問題。通過反省，Lisa表達了她追求挑戰的愿望，因為這將使她進步。她也知道自己并不會總是成功，但“勇敢是值得的”。

Lisa最后列舉了自己擔任領導角色的具體活動，并表達她將在學校里繼續參加的意向。招生官十分樂于看到渴望走出舒適區，并愿意在校園里繼續挑戰自己的學生。如果要使這篇文章更有說服力，Lisa可以更具體地強調她在大學將如何解決新障礙帶來的恐懼，并將其與芭蕾舞中學到的經驗聯系起來。

這篇文書非常出色，它采用獨特的敘事形式，寫得充滿活力、有趣、深刻和緊扣主題。Lisa的個人品質貫穿整篇文書，即創造力、決心、克服障礙、自我反省、在風險中成長，當然還有激情！在動力方面，她給我們上了一課：擺脫負面情緒，激流勇進——“playing it dangerous”。

Ref：

https://www.thecrimson.com/topic/sponsored-successful-harvard-essays-2022/