《纽约时报》年度精选文书披露！被藤校录取的文书还可以这么写！

想知道名校到底青睐什么样的文书吗？

每年，在申请季结束后，《纽约时报》都会向当年申请季的学生征集申请文书，并从中挑选出最优秀的刊登出来。今年选取了被顶级名校录取的五篇文书，我们节选了其中被哈佛大学、哥伦比亚大学和威斯康辛麦迪逊大学录取的三位学生所写的文书，分享给大家，快来感受一下吧。

1、哈佛录取文书

“The first thing my Pap said was ‘Give her a hug, you can’t hurt her now’.”

—Victoria Oswald

My kitchen is largely occupied by my old, dirty, warm-brown dinner table.

我的厨房很大程度上被我那张旧、肮脏、暖棕色的餐桌所占据。

It’s seen better days. Every time I sit down, I’m surrounded by splatters of old paint, hot glue and the occasional dab of nail polish (that’s thanks to my older sisters). Whenever I sit at either of our two chairs, I have to be extra careful they don’t fall apart because the legs are held together by a tedious mixture of wood glue, brute force and pure spite.

这个餐桌记录了我那些美好的时光。每当我坐下来的时候，我都会被油漆、热胶水和偶尔的指甲油（这要归功于我的姐姐们）所包围。当我想要坐在两把椅子中的任何一把椅子上时，我都必须格外小心它们别坏掉，因为椅子的腿部简直是由木胶、蛮力和纯粹的怨恨混合在一起的。

The kitchen table itself has been the hub of my family for the entire first half of my life. When I was younger, we (my Gram, Pap and two older sisters) would eat a home-cooked meal, courtesy of my Gram, at that old, dirty, warm-brown dinner table at exactly 7 p.m. every single night.

在我整个生命的前半部分，厨房餐桌就是我家的中心。当我小一些的时候，我们（我的祖母、祖父和两个姐姐）会在每一个晚上7点准时在那个陈旧、肮脏、暖棕色餐桌上吃一顿祖母做的家常菜。

At these family dinners, I would argue with my Pap for fun, watch him get yelled at by my Gram for interrupting me eating my dinner and listen to my sisters either fight or joke; it was always a gamble.

Originally, my kitchen table had five sturdy wooden seats. A couple years later when my oldest sister was 16 years old and I was 8, the chair count lowered to four, as my oldest sister moved out. She fought too much with my Gram and wouldn’t follow the rules, so she left.

在家庭聚餐的过程中，我会和我的祖父争吵、看着他被我的祖母吼叫说“不要打扰孩子吃晚饭”、和我的姐妹们打架或开玩笑；这总像是一场赌博。

最初，我的厨房桌子围绕着五个坚固的木制座椅。几年后，当我的大姐16岁，我8岁时，她搬出去了，于是椅子数减少到4个。她和我的祖母争吵过太多次，且依然不愿意遵守家里的规则，所以她离开了。

Three years later my grandmother was diagnosed with small-cell lung cancer. That triggered a few more changes to our dinner table routine. First, my other older sister started to skip dinners. Not because of the inevitable food quality decline (cancer messes with your taste buds and overall cooking abilities), but because she was never home. I don’t think that she wanted to be around post-cancer-diagnosis Gram.

三年后，我的祖母被诊断出患有小细胞肺癌。这引发了我们餐桌例程的一些变化。首先，我的另一个姐姐开始不再吃晚餐。这不是因为不可避免的食品质量下降（癌症会影响你的味蕾与整体烹饪的质量），而是因为她不再回家。我觉得她并不想陪伴在确诊癌症的祖母身边。

The chair count dropped to three. The dinners themselves after a year or so were much less frequent, not so much because of my Gram, but because my Pap was determined to make Gram rest. She ignored my Pap’s concerns, so it sort of ended up in a middle gray area that I had to live in.

椅子数量下降到了三个。在这之后的一年里，家里晚餐的频率降低了很多，不是因为我的祖母，而是因为我的祖父决定让祖母好好地休息。她却忽视祖父的担忧，所以最终我落入他们中间的灰色区域。

A year and a half after my grandmother got cancer, she died. It may sound quick in words, but it was pretty dragged out. Don’t get me wrong, I love my grandmother, but people with cancer are usually dead long before they die.

在我的祖母得了癌症一年半之后，她去世了。虽然听起来很快，但是这个事情对于我们来说是非常漫长的。不要误会我的意思，我爱我的祖母，但癌症患者通常在去世前很早就已经了无生趣了。

I was there when she died, right smack dab in the middle of our living room. I was on one side of the bed, and my Pap was on the other. Her labored breaths slowed and then stopped. It sounds depressing, but it was sort of a happy moment. The first thing my Pap said was “Give her a hug, you can’t hurt her now.” And, despite the phlegmy cancer smell, I did. We only needed two chairs.

她去世的时候我就在旁边，正好就在我们起居室的中间。我在床的一边，我的祖父在另一边，祖母艰难的呼吸缓慢地停止了。这听起来令人沮丧，但这却是一个让我们得到宽慰的时刻。在这之后，祖父说的第一句话是“给她一个拥抱吧，放心你不会伤害到她。”尽管有痰癌的味道，我还是给了她一个拥抱。现在，我们只需要两把椅子了。

After that, Pap and I, with the remnants of our nontraditional American family, built an extra nontraditional family. It took a while before we stabilized ourselves, because, to be honest, we were low-income before grandma got cancer, but post-cancer was much worse.

在那之后，我的祖父和我，在非传统美国家庭的残余下，建立了一个新的非传统家庭。让我们自己稳定下来，花了我们一段时间，因为，说实话，我们在祖母得癌症之前是低收入家庭，并在她得了癌症后变得更糟糕。

Pap and I cut down on everything. We got rid of our cable, phone and internet. We used less oil, we used less water, we wasted less food, and at times we didn’t have a car because our minivan took up a bunch of gas and liked to break down frequently. But, despite a dreadfully boring WiFi-less and phoneless year, we made it through.

祖父和我开始节省一切吃穿用度。我们停掉了我们的电缆、电话和互联网。我们使用的油更少，我们用的水更少，我们浪费的食物更少。有时我们没有可以用的车，因为我们的小型货车耗油量很大，而且会经常坏掉。但是，尽管没有网路和电话的日子非常无聊，但我们挺过来了。

I still live in the same house, except now it has Wi-Fi. Our kitchen table is still standing, though we took the center piece of wood out so now it’s the perfect size for just the two of us. We don’t have nightly dinners anymore, but sometimes Pap and I sit on the couch and hang out.

现在我仍然住在同一栋房子里，并且现在有了Wi-Fi。我们的厨房桌子仍然站在那里，我们把中间的木头拿出来了，所以现在它拥有着适合我们两个人的完美尺寸。我们不再有家庭晚餐，但有时祖父会和我坐在沙发上闲聊。

Sure, maybe our coffee table chats aren’t the same as our nightly family dinners, and maybe our television doesn’t turn on anymore. Maybe our kitchen has ants, and maybe we have to listen to the Super Bowl on our outdated radio from the ’90s, and maybe, possibly, he is getting sicker now, too.

当然，也许我们在咖啡桌边的聊天与我们的夜间家庭聚餐不一样，也许我们的电视机不再打开了。也许我们的厨房里有蚂蚁，也许我们不得不听从90年代购买的过时的收音机里播放的超级碗，也许，他现在身体也变得越来越虚弱。

I don’t care that my new life revolves around a holey old couch, a grumpy old man, a couple of fat cats and a bearded dragon. I’m content with my Pap, and I’m content with the fact that every night at 7 p.m., two empty chairs surround my old, dirty, warm-brown dinner table in the darkness of my kitchen. These days, the lights are on in the living room.

我不在意我的新生活围绕着一个多孔的旧沙发、一个脾气暴躁的老人、几只肥猫和一条留着胡须的龙。我很满意和祖父一起的生活，我很满意这样的现实：每天晚上7点，在厨房的黑暗中，两把空椅子环绕着那个陈旧、肮脏、暖棕色的餐桌。在这些日子里，客厅里的灯依然亮着。

2、哥伦比亚录取文书

Astrid Liden在明尼苏达州Hopkins Library，她将入读哥伦比亚大学Columbia University。

As Arthur Read, my favorite aardvark, would say, “Having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card.” Well, it was hard. I didn’t have my library card. Again.

我最喜欢的土豚Arthur Read说：“当你拿到图书证时，想要玩得开心并不难。”不过，这对于我来说有些难。我和往常一样，还是没有图书证。

The librarian probably had me on “recent history” since this happened so often, so she just looked me up on the computer. I, the little glasses-wearing 9-year-old patron, simply wanted to check out a book, but now I had two problems: I did not have my library card and my fines were too high to check out.

因为我总是没有图书证，我的名字应该上了管理员系统的 “历史记录”，她一搜就从电脑里搜索到我了。我，一个戴着眼镜的9岁小顾客，只是想借本书，却遇到了两大难题：我没有图书证，而且，无证借书的罚款太高，我负担不起。

Pulling out the dollar bill I had found in my duct tape wallet, I paid the 20 percent of my fine that let me check out a book and left, gritting my teeth. If I could have checked out a book called “Handling Money for Kids,” I would have, because most of my “wealth” went right back to the library.

我咬紧牙关，从钱包里找出了几美元，支付了20％的罚款，这样我才能借出一本书。 如果我能借出一本名为“帮助孩子理财”的书，我一定会借，因为我的大部分“财富”都会立即用来支付给图书馆。

Thanks to my mom, I practically had a library card from birth. I would go to my library not just to read books but to be immersed in them. I would find my stool, sit in the children’s area and read. I would get dropped off at the library while my mom worked, and I would follow my usual routine: sit, read, return, repeat, and if I was lucky, check out.

感谢我的妈妈，我从出生起就拥有了一张图书证。我去图书馆，不仅是为了阅读书籍，而是为了沉浸其中。我会找到一个凳子，坐在儿童阅读区开始阅读。当我妈妈忙工作的时候就会把我放在图书馆里，我也会依照惯例：坐下、阅读、还回去、再重复这样的动作，如果幸运的话，我可以把书借出图书馆。

The purpose of my visit was usually the same: read books or play on the computer. But as I grew up, I realized that things had begun to change. My mom began coming to the library with us more often. While I would be reading or finishing homework, she would be right there, typing beside me. Our worlds coexisted, but for a reason.

我去图书馆的目的通常是相同的：阅读书籍或者在电脑上玩游戏。但当我渐渐长大，我发现了一些变化。我妈妈开始经常和我们一起去图书馆。我看书或者写作业的时候，她会坐在我旁边打字。因为一个原因，我和妈妈相依相存。

For three years, my mother was unemployed. As a single mother, the struggle of not having a job, home or car was immense. I stopped my usual routine and was fine with it. With two tabs open, I continued on with my work.

这三年来，我妈妈一直处于失业状态。作为一位单身母亲，没有了工作、家和车子，她的压力很大。我改变了常规的作息，并且适应得很好。打开两个页面，我继续做着我的工作。

I would log on daily to Zillow, job search websites and websites about stroke rehabilitation for my grandfather, asking if any of my findings would work. “Gracias, mija,” my mom always said, but I realized the stress ensued. We were in different worlds, but they collided.

我每天都会登录Zillow、求职网站和帮助中风的祖父康复的网站，期待能找到一些机会。“Gracias，mija. ”我妈妈总会说这句话，但我知道生活的压力还在继续向我们袭来。我们生活在两个不同的世界，但经常发生交汇碰撞。

When we had nowhere to live, we would spend hours at the library, using what I thought to be the key to the world: library computers. Whether it was at our childhood library or the library 40 miles away by the farm where we were staying, the library was this stability.

当我们无处可居时，我们会花几个小时在图书馆，图书馆的电脑是让我通往这个世界的钥匙。无论是在我们的儿童图书馆，还是在我们住的农场40英里外的图书馆，图书馆总是稳稳地屹立在那里。

Sitting behind the service desk today, I see and hear it all: the little girl begging to check out Junie B. Jones, the boys playing Roblox on the computer, the woman filing her taxes, the call from “Sports Guy” asking for the latest results, the woman asking about the weather.

今天坐在服务台后面，我看到并听到很多事：一个小女孩乞求借出Junie B. Jones，男孩们在电脑上玩Roblox，一个女人填写税务申报表，“体育男”打电话询问最新结果，一个女人在询问天气。

I hear Spanish, English, Somali. I get the usual rule-breakers: kids running, out of breath, to the desk asking, “Can I have a Guest Pass?”

我听到了西班牙语、英语、索马里语。我看到了常见的违规者：几个孩子气喘吁吁地跑过来，问到：“可以给我一张宾客通行证吗？”

At first, the slowly printed receipt is just a number, but I soon realize it is much more. I was once saying, “My mom forgot her card” or “When does the library close?” or “Can I use the phone?” Back then, I was the patron on the computer, the kid in the reading area. Now, I am the specialist at the desk looking up the forgotten library cards. Sitting at the desk does not make me forget my past, it helps me embrace it.

起初，慢速打印的收据只是一个数字，但我发现它正在不断增加。我曾经说过，“我妈妈忘带卡了”，问“图书馆什么时候关门”或者“我可以使用一下电话吗”。那时候，我是来图书馆的客人，属于阅读区里的孩子。现在，我是图书管理专员，负责查找被遗忘的图书证。坐在我的办公桌前，我没有忘记过去，我的工作反而让我懂得拥抱过去。

The library gives people access to a resource that opens doors in one way for one person, and in others for the next. Even after my mom got a job, the library remained a source of security and comfort. By working at a place that gave me so much, I have learned to give back. I now have the opportunity to open the library to others, just as it was opened up to me.

图书馆是人们获取资源的渠道，每一个人都能在这里找到想要的资源。即使在我妈妈找到工作之后，图书馆仍然是能带给我安全和舒适的源泉。在这里工作，我收获了很多，我也学会了回馈。我现在有机会向其他人开放图书馆，就像它曾经对我开放怀抱一样。

3、威斯康辛麦迪逊大学文书

Kelley Schlise在威斯康辛家中，

今年将入读威斯康辛麦迪逊大学University of Wisconsin-Madison。

“Life is a process of accepting the messes and learning to clean them up.”

—Kelley Schlise

Not many 17-year-old girls know how to solder two copper pipes together or light the pilot light on a water heater. I venture that most people would struggle to tell the difference between a regular 90-degree PVC elbow and a street 90.

These are skills and distinctions I have learned over the past five years as an assistant to my dad in his one-man plumbing business. My summer job involves messes that constantly elicit physical and mental discomfort, and the work demands an attitude of grittiness and grace that I frequently struggle to adopt. 

Nevertheless, I persist. I am the plumber’s daughter and the plumber’s helper.

Each humid morning, I wrestle myself into a pair of used men’s jeans from Goodwill that most of my peers would refuse to be seen wearing in public. I slip my tape measure onto my belt, tie my hair back as I run out the door, and climb into the passenger seat of the plumber truck, which is really an aged white minivan with two kinds of pipes strapped to the top.

As my peers begin their shifts nannying, lifeguarding or checking out groceries, my dad and I haul unwieldy toolboxes and heavy-duty saws into the depths of people’s houses. Although at times we work in the gold-plated master bathrooms of mansions with lake views, we usually end up in dank, mildewed basements where I get lost in mazes of storage boxes looking for the water meter.

Five summers navigating the pipes of Milwaukee have taught me that the messy parts of people’s houses reflect the messy parts of their lives. My dad and I make plenty of our own messes too. When his rugged Sawzall blade slices through walls, clouds of plaster permeate the air. Sometimes there are no walls at all, and we work in primordial jungles of fiberglass insulation, floor joists and rusted cast iron stacks.

I constantly leap over tangled piles of wrenches and extension cords. My mouth and nose are covered by a dust mask; my jeans are smudged with pipe dope, and my hands are blackened with the grime of a hard day’s work. As I observe the chaos around me, chaos rises within me. Nothing is beautiful or tidy; everything I see is ugly. I feel powerless, frustrated and unable to think clearly.

Plumbing work is a microcosm of the messes of the world, and sometimes I despise it. I question why I endure the dust and sweat when I could be in my air-conditioned house, vacuuming my bedroom, making avocado toast for breakfast and finishing my summer homework early. I could even find another job, a normal one that more closely resembles the work of my peers.

Yet as much as I despise the mess of plumbing, I despise myself for becoming affected by such trivial qualms and for being so easily aggravated by disorder. After all, the world was built by people willing to get their hands dirty.

And when I think about it, I cope with messes all the time. The uncertainties and contradictions of my teenage brain are far more tangled than any extension cord, but I keep trying to sort them out. Life is a process of accepting the messes and learning to clean them up, and plumbing work is no different.

As much as my dad and I create chaos, we create order, and if I look carefully I can find it in each newly soldered array of copper pipes or in the way my dad’s toolboxes all fit together in the back of his van. 

Moreover, when customers express gratitude for our work, I understand that, in a small way, we bring order to their lives. The physical and mental discomforts of plumbing are worth it.

仔细分析这三篇文章，我们发现这些Essay都围绕自己身边的日常琐事展开，以小见大，见微知著。看似平凡的生活往往成为打动招生官的利器。

然而现实中大多数人的情况是：相似的经历千篇一律，有趣的文书万里挑一。

对于新一届申请者而言，要认真揣摩这些优秀文书的写作技巧，如何把真实的事情写的更深刻，突出独特性，又提升一定的高度，让故事更有可读性，能够通过短短一篇文书打动招生官。

鉴于篇幅有限，大家先感受这三篇，明天再给大家分享另外两篇。

本文转自公号：棒呆留学精选（ID:mindimp）,一个专业的美本高端留学机构，转载请注明出处，SAT君诚意推荐。

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