如何写出让招生官眼前一亮的文书essay？

      
文书essay写作
 

      进入8月，Common申请系统已经开放，离ED的递交只剩下不到3个月的时间了。18-19年Common App的申请文书依旧为7个备选话题，如何理解这些话题，怎样为这些话题选材，直接决定了你的文书是否可以在众多的竞争者中脱颖而出。

 

      什么才是真正的好Essay？

   

      突然看到这样一个问题：什么才是真正的好文章？

 

      我给出了这样的答案：能引起读者共鸣的那就是好文章！

 

    

      在标化和GPA已成既定之时，一篇令人印象深刻的文书是招生官将你从众多申请者当中打捞出来的重要理由。换句话说，GPA和标化决定了招生官读不读你的申请，而文书则决定了读完你的申请招生官发不发你offer。

 

      Each year as more students are applying to colleges, they are submitting more applications than ever before, resulting in colleges receiving record numbers of applications. As a result, the volume of applications to highly selective colleges has reached new heights. Considering that admissions counselors have only a few minutes to read through each application, students need to view their essays as an opportunity to showcase their talents and interests, and to tell their story.

 

      While grades, courses and standardized test scores are always going to be the most significant factors in the admissions process, the other parts of the application, and especially the essays, can sometimes make all the difference between an acceptance and a denial.

 

      It is important for the student to view the essays not as an obstacle to fear, but rather as an opportunity to speak directly with the admissions committee. Your grades, standardized test scores, extracurricular activities and letters of recommendation are already part of your application, so there is no point in discussing any of this, for it would only be redundant. You need to view your essay as a means of selling yourself to the admissions committee. This is a time to flaunt your talents and your accomplishments, but be very careful not to do so in a self-serving, pompous way. The essay portion is the only part of the application where you have complete control, so take advantage of it and express your individuality.

 

 

      Common Essay的目的是让招生官们在最短时间内认识你，并看看到你的特质，记住与众不同的你。所以要求我们通过这些问题勾勒出来“你究竟是谁了？“

 

      有涉及到问及个人背景、成长经历的问题，我们可以毫无保留的去挖掘成长过程中的各种有趣的小事，千万不要忽略这些小事，因为这可以体现出你的生长环境，以及这些环境可能对你造成的影响力。成长背景中的经历和经验，会在你遇到问题或者挑战的时候发挥作用。于是，这些题目中就有问及，当面临困难、质疑或者挑战的时候，你是如何处理的，这些处理的方式、方法和效率，可以让招生官看到你的个人能力和你的影响力是怎样的。在经历了挑战之后，自然会激发你去提高对于一件事情或者一项新事物认识的高度或者你的新创意，这也就是一个展示你个人潜能的机会。

 

      Think small: When writing the Common Application essay, too many students feel compelled to try and squeeze their entire life story into 650 words. This, friends, is impossible. It is almost always better to think small first. Find a story or event in your life that really meant something to you.  Did you win a competition at the last second?  Was your family stranded on vacation with no power for five days? Have you read something recently that blew your mind?  Now ask yourself- are any of these stories representative of my larger, most valuable qualities? The perfect essay topic showcases your personality, passions and/or ambitions without trying to do too much at once. Talking about your family’s adoption of a three-legged dog and how your pet’s perseverance and quirky attitude influenced the way you live your life, will make a better essay than a super general diatribe on why you like dogs, for example. If you find yourself getting lost while writing, ask: what am I trying to say about myself, and am I using a specific, compelling example to tell my story?

 

      Brand yourself: In order for your essay to be truly effective, a reader should be able to summarize your subject in a simple sentence. You accomplish this self-branding by choosing a creative topic (or a creative twist on a common topic), and writing about it with enough detail to burn an image of yourself in the reader’s brain. When it comes down to you and another similarly qualified candidate, you want an admissions officer to be able to stand up with your application in his/her hand and say, “I like the girl who performed trapeze in the circus,” or “How about the girl who saved her grandfather’s life?” It will be much harder to remember “the girl who practiced the trapeze, and was also good at riding bikes, and who got an A on every test and who generally worked very hard,” or “the girl who really loved her late grandfather and who feels like she embodies a lot of his core characteristics.” Focus your story. When you finish writing your first draft, do a branding test- try to label yourself based on your essay and see what you come up with. If you can’t easily narrow it down to a punchy description, you probably need to alter or simplify your essay.

 

 

      美国名校往往非常看重写作水平和文法，在大一的通识教育里面，也有很多的写作训练。所以文书是一个学生写作水平最直观的反应。

 

      如何运用比喻、幽默的修辞手法为文书添彩？文书里面的轻喜剧怎么写？

 

      如何用自己与众不同的方式来表现一个大众话题？例如，如何独特地表现自己特别爱学习这一老生常谈的话题？如何写沉重、严肃的话题？

 

      同一件事情，如果能用更巧妙的构思及修辞描述出来，会给招生官带来更愉快的阅读体验，自然也会大大提升你的入选概率。

 

      Kill those clichés: We’re not going to beat around the bush here: clichés really get our goats. When you take that trip down memory lane, telling us about the time you were a mover and a shaker putting your nose to the grindstone it makes our blood boil. We’re content and grammar snobs, so we find clichés to be extra unappealing, but we also have enough confidence in your creativity to know that you can do better. Admissions essay readers know it too, and expect you to think out of the box without using phrases like “think out of the box.” So strike those tired sentences from your essay and do it now. Never put off tomorrow what you can do today. It actually hurt us to write that.

 

      It’s all in the details: What is the difference between these two sentences? 1. My favorite activities included fishing and cooking my daily catch. 2. My friends and I woke up early every morning to catch bass on Lake Michigan, cooking our spoils with herbs picked from a local farm. In the first sentence, we understand that you enjoyed certain activities. In the second, yes, we know you like fishing but we also understand your commitment to an activity you engaged in every day and recognize that your fishing trips are a social effort. There is a sense of time and place- we can see the setting, smell the herbs. With a few extra words, sentence two tells us much more about your fishing experience. Many students have a tendency to skew generic in the telling of their personal stories.  What makes an essay memorable is often the sum of the little things. If you can paint a clear picture for your reader by providing details, you are much more likely to lodge a marker in their memories.

 

      If Nothing Else, Entertain: Imagine you’re a college essay reader at an upstanding academic institution and it is your job to read dozens of essays a day, every day, for weeks on end. Ninety percent of the essays that pass your desk are stone-cold boring, and maybe ten percent break through the fuzz and force you to pay attention. As an applicant, you want your essay to shine a bright light in the face of that oft-bored reader. No matter what your subject, serious, uplifting, sentimental or pithy, your essay should aim to entertain. This will require many elements working together in harmony. You will need a compelling subject, a direct and powerful narrative, impeccable grammar and a memorable style. A little laughter never hurts either. It is often hard to know whether an essay is truly entertaining until the end stages of writing, but when you are reading over your drafts, the question should always be in the back of your mind: Is this essay fun to read? Some students achieve entertainment value by being controversial. Others load their pieces with comic relief. Some are able to describe events in such detail that a reader simply must get to the end of the essay. No matter what tactics you end up using, your goal should be effortless and compelling readability.

 

 

      从录取数据来看，ED轮的录取率通常比RD轮高出很多，所以11月1日这一波ED轮的递交，同学们千万要把握好机会。一旦在ED轮获得录取，那你就比其他同学提前三个月结束战斗～想想就很兴奋呐

 

      Start Early and Take Your Time. Don’t wait until the last minute. Application essays almost always take longer than you anticipate. Invest the time necessary to do it right. It should be your best work. Ask others to review your drafts and offer comments and suggestions. Take comments and suggestions seriously – behind every good writer is usually at least one good editor!

 

      Write first, edit later: When it comes to writing, we are almost always our own worst critics.  So many students want and expect themselves to produce pure, uninhibited brilliance the first time their fingers hit the keys, but that is almost never the way good essay writing works. Writing a compelling essay is a process, and the best writing can often be plucked from our stream-of-consciousness efforts. Don’t edit yourself before you allow your creativity to warm up and pour onto the page. Never judge your writing until you have a few paragraphs written down first. You can always cut what doesn’t work and it is much easier to work with an overabundance of words and ideas than nothing at all.