如何寫好一篇Essay？

留學申請少不了寫文書，無論何種申請文書，其目的只有一個：讓招生官了解你是一個什么樣的人。

很多人覺得難，面對看過成千上萬文書的招生官，什么樣文書才能入他們法眼呢？

下面有一些建議，可以幫助你了解招生人員在尋找什么。U.S. News 編輯了一些幫助學生進入學校的大學論文范例。他們說，招生辦的工作人員也分享了這些文章，文章之所以脫穎而出，是因為學生們的聲音發出了光芒，幫助學校了解了學生。

馬薩諸塞州塔夫茨大學(Tufts University)招生管理主任Karen Richardson表示:“我們實際上是在傾聽學生的聲音，并試圖弄清楚他們在我們的校園里會成為什么樣的角色。這不僅僅是學生選擇寫的主題，而是他們如何寫。我們鼓勵學生展示而不是講述，以幫助讀者了解他們是誰。”

紐約漢密爾頓學院(Hamilton College)負責招生管理的副校長Monica Inzer說：“一篇好的Essay對我而言，能讓我在看到學生在申請表格中看不到的那一面?！?/p>

對許多學生來說，因為他們的生活經驗可能有限，所有找到自己的聲音往往是一項挑戰。此外，到目前為止，學生一直在按照高中老師的指示寫作，而不是為自己。

在其招生頁面上，漢密爾頓列出了該校錄取學生撰寫的多篇大學論文范例。盡管Inzer拒絕單獨挑出一篇文章，但她表示，這些例子提供了學生們不同的聲音和背景。

下面節選的這篇文章，學生通過對飛釣（fly-fishing）的熱愛展現了自己的個性。

1

I kept a firm grip on the rainbow trout as I removed the lure from its lip. Then, my heart racing with excitement, I lowered the fish to the water and watched it flash away.

I remained hooked.

I caught that 10-inch fryling five years ago on Fall Creek using a $5 fly rod given to me by my neighbor Gil. The creek is spectacular as it cascades down the 150-foot drop of Ithaca Falls. Only 100-feet further, however, it runs past a decrepit gun factory and underneath a graffitied bridge before flowing adjacent to my high school and out to Cayuga Lake. Aside from the falls, the creek is largely overlooked. Nearly all of the high school students I know who cross that bridge daily do so with no thought of the creek below.

When I was a toddler, my moms say I used to point and ask, "What? What? What?" Even now my inquisitive nature is obvious. Unlike my friends, I had noticed people fly fishing in Fall Creek. Mesmerized by their graceful casts, I pestered Gil into teaching me. From that first thrilling encounter with a trout, I knew I needed to catch more. I had a new string of questions. I wanted to understand trout behavior, how to find them, and what they ate. There was research to do.

I devoted myself to fly fishing. I asked questions. I woke up at 4 a.m. to fish before school. I spent days not catching anything. Yet, I persisted.?The Kid's Book of Fishing?was replaced by Norman MacLean's?A River Runs Through It. Soon Ernest Hemingway's essays found their place next to?Trout Unlimitedmagazines by my bed.

I sought teachers. I continued to fish with Gil, and at his invitation joined the local Trout Unlimited Chapter. I enrolled in a fly-tying class.

There I met Ken, a soft-spoken molecular biologist, who taught me to start each fly I make by crimping the hook to reduce harm to fish, and Mike, a sarcastic Deadhead lawyer, who turns over rocks at all times of year to "match the hatch" and figure out which insects fish are eating. Thanks to my mentors, I can identify and create almost every type of Northeastern mayfly, caddisfly, and stonefly.

The more I learned, the more protective I felt of the creek and its inhabitants. My knowledge of mayflies and experience fishing in many New York streams led me to notice the lack of Blue-Winged Olive Mayflies in Fall Creek. I figured out why while discussing water quality in my AP Biology class; lead from the gun factory had contaminated the creek and ruined the mayfly habitat. Now, I participate in stream clean-up days, have documented the impact of invasive species on trout and other native fish, and have chosen to continue to explore the effects of pollutants on waterways in my AP Environmental Science class.

Last year, on a frigid October morning, I started a conversation with the man fishing next to me. Banks, I later learned, is a contemporary artist who nearly died struggling with a heroin addiction. When we meet on the creek these days we talk about casting techniques, aquatic insects, and fishing ethics. We also talk about the healing power of fly fishing. I know Banks would agree with Henry David Thoreau, who wrote "[Many men] lay so much stress on the fish which they catch or fail to catch, and on nothing else, as if there were nothing else to be caught."

Initially, my goal was to catch trout. What I landed was a passion. Thanks to that first morning on Fall Creek, I've found a calling that consumes my free time, compels me to teach fly fishing to others, and drives what I want to study in college.

I will be leaving Fall Creek soon. I am eager to step into new streams.

“這更多的是關于聲音，而不是其他任何東西，”Inzer指出，一篇過于客觀的文章可能會削弱學生的個性。

馬里蘭州約翰·霍普金斯大學本科生招生主任Ellen Kim說:“我們認識到，要想在高中生涯中申請到一所好大學需要多年的努力和奉獻。但是幫助招生委員會在課堂、俱樂部和社區中描繪學生的形象，需要傾聽學生的聲音和觀點?！?/p>

有些大學除了個人論文外，還需要一篇補充論文。招生專家指出，這些論文通常篇幅較短，重點是回答學院提出的一個具體問題。

不過，在某些情況下，學?？赡軙蜒a充作文作為首要任務。圣約翰學院(St. John's College)負責招生的副校長Benjamin Baum說，圣約翰學院的情況就是如此。

Baum說:“我們稱之為補充，但實際上，這是學生們在申請時要寫的最重要的一篇論文。這篇論文允許學校根據圣約翰學院的學術重點為申請者量身定制問題?！?/p>

專家表示，補充短文往往很短，但圣約翰學院(St. John’s College)卻與這一趨勢背道而馳，要求至少400字。這是因為學校對學生就選定的主題進行長篇寫作很感興趣。

Baum強調這篇關于學生對政治和法律哲學的熱愛的補充文章是一個很好的例子:

2

Last year in my Constitutional Law class, I fell in love with political and legal philosophy. Sexy, right?

Maybe not, but I loved the rules, the structure, and the big questions that surrounded organizing a government. I thought about these things constantly—while brushing my teeth, doing chores, and driving to school. Unable to take this beloved course a second time, I chose my senior classes with more than a touch of melancholy. I was skeptical that even the most appealing humanities class, AP Literature, would be anything but anticlimactic by comparison. I'd become so accustomed to reading the function-focused writings of Locke, Rousseau, Madison, Thoreau, that I found it difficult to see "literature" as anything more than mere stories. I wanted substance that I could actually do something with, and I didn't expect to find it in AP Lit.

Settling down to read our first assigned book, Sophocles'?Antigone, I was apathetic. We'd done a pre-reading exercise earlier in class and I'd gathered thatAntigone?was just the sad story of a wannabe-martyr-descendant-of-Oedipus who crosses the wrong king, dies, breaks her fiance's heart with her death, leading him, and her would-be mother-in-law by extension, to suicide, blah, blah, blah. I fanned the pages with my thumb, checked the time (10:15 p.m.), and willed myself to make it through the first ten pages without falling asleep.

Rousseau's familiar skepticism of an unchecked ruler, Locke's notions of natural rights philosophy, and Thoreau's willingness to violate immoral laws. Wait—this was a literature class, and yet here was Sophocles articulating the same concerns of the Framers of the Constitution (hundreds of years before any of them were born).

Antigone has become my favorite book because it wraps political and legal theory around complex characters and a compelling narrative. Prior to reading Antigone , I assumed that if I hadn't read every book that pertained to the architecture of US government, I had at least heard of them.

But I was so mistaken. Antigone proved this assumption wrong because Antigone itself was a case study in the actual consequences of ideas discussed by political philosophers. In other words, Antigonehumanized the esoteric and function-driven debates I'd studied last year. Witnessing Haemon cradle his dead fiance in his arms, then subsequently kill himself before his father's eyes, allowed me to see all of the ideas I'd spent hours considering as not purely political questions, but as human ones. Finishing the play, I was ashamed that I'd harbored such skepticism at the outset of my reading. My experience with Antigone reminds me why I get excited each time I use calculus in physics or art in cooking, and I look forward to a lifetime of making these connections.

從引人注目的開場白到對主題的強調，Baum說這個例子之所以突出是因為學生的“知識熱情”。學生對深入學術概念的接受向招生團隊表明，她非常適合這所大學。

雖然圣約翰學院可能會要求學生給出更深入的答案，但其他學?？粗睾啙?，要求學生寫出簡潔的答案。

塔夫茨大學分享的一個例子，用不到250個字就把讀者從學生對折紙的熱愛帶到了對科學的熱愛。

3

Using a flimsy piece of printer paper, I remember folding my first paper crane. Reading instructions off a dusty origami book from my basement, my fingers fumbled with the paper, folding, unfolding, refolding, and possibly some frustration-induced crumpling. Nearly an hour later, with little creases scattered across its body and a misaligned beak, it was clear that origami wasn't a natural talent of mine.

Despite its deformities, there was an endearing quality to the bird I couldn't quite explain. After sixteen folds, it resembled the paper only in color and material. I would fold countless other designs, until my room was covered with creations from simple paper boats to intricate seven part lotus flowers.

The joy I found in origami lied in the fact that I had the freedom to invent anything; with each fold, creativity flowed through my fingers, converting curiosity of the potential of each fold into an irrepressible desire to create more. It is what motivated me to read about 2D kinematics to win a projectile motion challenge, and understand the chemistry behind qualitative analysis of cations for a lab.

Everything I could ever want to know and more is right at my fingertips. From the change in weight I feel in a moving elevator, to the chemical reactions that cause the plastic stars in my room to glow, science is a field that permeates every single aspect of life. I know my curiosity to understand the world around me nurtures my love for science.

“折紙并不是大學論文的典型主題，但除此之外，她向我們展示的是她制作物品的過程，而不是告訴我們她制作的物品并不總是如她所期望或想要的那樣。盡管如此，她還是繼續努力。這有助于我們把她看作一個愿意在我們的校園里接受新體驗的人。”

同樣引人注目的是她用來表達觀點的意象——我能想象出地板上那些皺巴巴的紙，以及她感到的沮喪。最終，她能夠將折紙創作過程與自己的學術興趣聯系起來，”Richardson在一封電子郵件中寫道。

當涉及到寫一篇大學入學申請論文時——無論是個人的還是補充的——專家們建議學生們遵循同樣的規則：找到他們的聲音，寫一個對他們來說重要的話題，分享他們的個性，表達自己，廣泛校對。關于后一點，專家建議學生們在提交論文之前，先和熟悉自己的人分享。

老師、朋友和父母都可以幫助校對，但專家指出，學生的聲音應該保持完整。

“這篇論文真的需要成為學生的作品。我鼓勵學生讓身邊的人讀這篇文章，并問“你知道這篇文章是關于我的嗎?”如果答案是否定的，那么是時候修改文章了。但要確保這仍然是你的聲音，”理查森說。

Inzer還鼓勵學生不要在論文上過于強調，把不必要的重量放在申請大學的過程中。雖然一篇優秀的文章可能會在競爭激烈的領域提升申請者的水平，但她表示，這并不會決定一份申請能否成功。

“單憑這一點，他們是不能夠被錄取的；這是他們的成績，努力工作和許多其他的事情共同決定的。但這可能會讓他們得到額外的關注，尤其是在一個有很多優秀候選人的高度選擇性的地方，”Inzer說。