“纽约时报”2019年最佳大学申请文书，第四、五篇

昨天我们分享过《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！后，有读者要求把另外两篇也尽快分享出来，SAT君不敢耽搁，今天就把另外两篇分享给大家。

一篇是被西洛杉矶学院录取的，另一篇是被雷德兰兹大学录取的，大家仔细揣摩下他们的写作思路和技巧。

（PS：有同学说要翻译成中文的，SAT君觉得没必要啊，这比你做托福阅读要轻松多了）

四、西洛杉矶学院录取文书

Mark Garcia在洛杉矶家中

他是西洛杉矶学院West Los Angeles College新生。

“I got the usual looks from people fresh out of bars or parties, either because of the stench of a hard night’s work on my clothes or because I was muttering to myself while feverishly flipping flashcards.”

—Mark Isai Garcia

“No more broken plates, you understand?”

I could make little sense of the broken English that spat from his mouth but his scrunched-up face spoke a universal language. It was a Friday night in Little Tokyo, and while families were eating five-star meals in the front dining room, a 14-year-old boy was in the back washing their dishes.

Wash the plates by hand, dump them into the sanitizer, place the plates into the machine, dry the plates off, return the plates to their designated spot and repeat — hopefully without damaging any. On this night though, a porcelain plate slipped through my soapy fingers and shattered onto the floor in five pieces. My face flushed even as I tried to keep my composure, but inside I was screaming, “Why me!?” as if my scream would make the plate whole again.

The shattered plate was only one of the many worries fighting relentlessly inside my head for attention — there was the Advanced Placement United States history midterm, a low grade in calculus, the eviction notice, a little brother getting into trouble and a dozen other smaller but pressing concerns.

For me, there was no calling in sick to clear my head, getting some much needed rest or carving out study time before an upcoming exam. I had to contribute to the necessities. I shut up, got back to work and pushed with all the energy I had left. I knew all too well the symptoms of bottling up my emotions — the bitter taste of salt in each drop of sweat, losing myself in the background music and the muscle aches were nothing new to me.

It was 12 a.m. when my shift finally ended. I boarded the bus home and took out my notes to study. I got the usual looks from people fresh out of bars or parties, either because of the stench of a hard night’s work on my clothes or because I was muttering to myself while feverishly flipping flashcards on a bus in the middle of the night.

Their stares didn’t bother me at all. I was used to those too, and they were nothing more than another set of speed bumps in the way of achieving my goals. I was tired of seeing childhood friends flashing gang signs, relatives glued to the beer bottle or my dad coming home late at night with burn scars from work. 

Something had to change and I knew it fell to me to initiate that change.

Fortunately, I also knew I had dedication, desire and grit in my blood. My grandfather was part of the first wave of Mexican immigrants that settled in Los Angeles. He returned home to a small village in rural Oaxaca, with his savings and tales of the land of opportunity.

Both of my parents left Oaxaca in their early teenage years and began working long hours in Los Angeles, as a cook and a maid. The work ethic was passed down generations; from the cornfields in Oaxaca, to the restaurants in Los Angeles, to the classroom, which helped me thrive both in school and work.

On this particular night, as I walked through the front door at home, I saw an uplifting surprise: My mother had fallen asleep waiting up for me despite her own long day. I tucked the cash tips I made that night into her purse and turned off the TV.

I peered into our bedroom where my brothers and cousins were lost in their blissful dreams. Watching my siblings snore and breathe slowly sparked a yawn that cued the rest of my body’s delayed exhaustion. 

However, it would be a while before I could join them in sleep. I had an essay due early the next morning, and Ms. DePaolo doesn’t accept late work.

五、雷德兰兹大学录取文书

Andy Patriquin在圣地亚哥家中

他将入读雷德兰兹大学University of Redlands。

“The trash itself was a lens through which I saw what was going on in Chatham.”

—Andy Patriquin

It was the peak of the day’s heat on July 5, 2017, in the small vacation town of Chatham, Mass. My partner Benjamin and I emerged from the vast backyards of neighboring shoreline homes with big green barrels of garbage held over our backs and dumped them into the back of a garbage truck. As I hopped on the back step to ride to our next stop, I thought about how despite being sweaty, sore, covered in bug bites and garbage juice, I couldn’t have been happier to have this job.

Like many kids, I liked trash trucks as a toddler. Unlike most kids, I stuck with it forever. At the age of 8, I joined a community on YouTube of like-minded enthusiasts who posted videos of garbage trucks, under the name “trashmonster26.”

I spent a large portion of the next nine years filming all the different models of trash trucks that I could find, not only in my hometown, San Diego, but in Sacramento and Boston, where during family vacations I would take the opportunity to chase different kinds of trucks that couldn’t be found in San Diego.

I have such a vast knowledge of these vehicles that I can name the make, model and year of almost any garbage truck in the country after just a glance. The channel has amassed over 6,000 subscribers and four million views over the years. Most of my older friends who shared this interest went on to become garbage collectors when they reached adulthood, a path that my parents strongly discouraged.

I always knew growing up that I was going to go to college after high school, but I still wanted the experience of working on a truck. Although there are virtually no hauling companies that hire anyone under 18, I knew of a small family company near my grandparents on the East Coast that might break that norm to fill their need for seasonal help, Benjamin T. Nickerson Inc. I called their office, and after some persistent follow-up emails, I was hired to work for the summer.

To my classmates, moving to a small fishing town and handling other people’s waste all day sounds like the very least enjoyable summer possible. For me, it was one of the most liberating experiences of my life.

My day started at the crack of dawn, long before the vacationers in the area would even consider waking up. I was free from the confines of the classroom walls, free from the nagging of my parents. It was just me and the open road.

The trash itself was a lens through which I saw what was going on in Chatham. I saw American flags and spent fireworks on the 5th of July. The worst stops of the day were the dumpsters at fish piers, which had a stronger stench than the Chatham Transfer Station, an industrial building where we dumped the day’s load before it was transported to a landfill miles away. At one boat fabrication shop, a dangerous combination of sawdust and reactive chemicals caused a small fire in the truck.

There are very few similarities that one could find between my classmates at High Tech High and my customers in Chatham. The kids in my class were from diverse backgrounds and cultural groups all over San Diego. The summer vacation crowd in Chatham was almost exclusively white and wealthy.

The one thing that unified them, at least in my mind, was that they were not willing to take on my job. When my classmates thought about applying for jobs, they were thinking about air-conditioned movie theaters and retail stores, not backbreaking manual labor.

I’ve considered going into a field relevant to the management of waste, like civil engineering, but I think I may also pursue another passion of mine, like criminal law or political science. I know that no matter what path I choose, this experience will be part of how I end up there.

希望这五篇文书能给2024届的准留学生们写作文书时带来一点新的思路。

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