在每年名校本科申请的过程中，Common Application的Personal Essay可能是最重要的一篇文书。因为这篇文书会被发到你通过Common Application系统申请的所有学校 (90%左右的名校都接受学生通过这个系统递交申请)，并且这篇文书自由度较高，所以有非常大的发挥空间。
所以在讨论文书的时候，很多同学和家长就会提问，什么样的Common Application Personal Essay算是优秀呢？这个问题比较难解答，因为文书本身就是一个很主观的问题。我们也收到过一些请求，希望能够分享我们之前成功被名校录取的同学的文书，但是由于我们隐私第一的原则，没有办法分享给大家。于是我们就找到了这篇最近被纽约时报刊载的上一个申请季的申请文书分享给大家，并且加上我们的评论，希望能够让大家了解优秀的Personal Essay究竟是什么样。
在开始之前提醒大家：学习借鉴文书的大忌是直接模仿
因为每个人都有自己的故事，有自己的申请主题，所以就算不考虑版权问题你可以使用这篇文书也会是牛头不对马嘴。我们学习的应该是别人的思维方式，并且努力通过这个方式挖掘自己的故事。
这篇Personal Essay的作者是：Alison Hess – 她来自Illinois州的Bushnell
今年秋季她将入学Universityof Chicago – 芝加哥大学
I always assumed my father wished I had been born a boy.
Now, please don’t assume that my father is some rampant rural sexist. The fact is, when you live in an area and have a career where success is largely determined by your ability to provide and maintain nearly insurmountable feats of physical labor, you typically prefer a person with a bigger frame.
When I was younger, I liked green tractors better than red tractors because that was what my father drove, and I preferred black and white cows over brown ones because those were the kind he raised. I wore coveralls inthe winter and wore holes in my mud boots in weeks. With my still fragile masculinity, I crossed my arms over my chest when I talked to new people, and I filled my toy box exclusively with miniature farm implements. In third grade, Icut my hair very short, and my father smiled and rubbed my head.
I never strove to roll smoother pie crusts or iron exquisitely stiff collars. Instead, I idolized my father’s patient hands. On a cow’s neck, trying to find the right vein to stick a needle in. In the strength of the grip it took to hold down an injured heifer. In the finesse with which they habitually spun the steering wheel as he backed up to the livestock trailer.
And I grew to do those things myself. When on my 10th birthday I received my first show cow, a rite of passage in the Hess family, I named her Missy. As I spoke to her in an unnaturally low voice, I failed to realize one thing: Missy did not care that I was a girl. She did not think I was acting especially boyish or notice when I adamantly refused to wear pink clothing (she was color blind anyway). And she did not blink an eyelash at her new caretaker’s slightly smaller frame. All she cared about was her balanced daily feed of cotton seed and ground corn and that she got an extra pat on the head. As I sat next to her polishing her white leather show halter, she appreciated my meticulous diligence and not my sex.
When Missy and I won Best of Show a few months later, my father’s heart nearly exploded. I learned to stick my chest out whenever I felt proud. While I then associated my conquests with “being a better boy,” I now realize what I was really working toward was becoming a better farmer. I learned I could do everything my father could do, and in some tasks, such as the taxing chore of feeding newborn calves or the herculean task of halter-breakinga heifer, I surpassed him. It has taken me four years to realize this: I proved a better farmer than he in those moments, not despite my sex, but despite myinvalid and ignorant assumption that the best farmer was the one with the mosttestosterone.
My freshman year, I left the farm for boarding school, where I was surrounded by the better-off and the better-educated — the vast majorityof whom had heard the word ‘feminism’ before. I began to pick up just what the word meant from my antagonizing English teacher and my incisive friends’ furrowed brows when I described my hometown. Four years of education and weekly argumentative essays taught me the academic jargon. I learned the Latin roots of the word “feminism,” its cognates and its historical consequences.
But the more I read about it in books, and the more I usedit in my essays, the more I realized I already knew what it meant. I had already embodied the reality of feminism on the farm. I had lived it. My cowhad taught it to me.
Word Count: 630
51UStudy Comments
1. 首先这篇文书非常引人入胜，这可能是PersonalEssay最重要的一个素质。不论你写的是什么样的内容，你一定要保证你的读者愿意读完你的故事。从选材，结构，到具体文字的实施，再到一些小细节都体现了申请人非常强的文字功底。
2. 这篇文书虽然没有尝试任何煽情的手法，但是读完却给人感觉感情丰富，很容易被作者的经历和思考所打动。很多申请人想要在申请文书中打动到录取委员会，因此一直在一些看似严肃的话题(生死/困境/离别) 上做文章，殊不知这样的矫揉造作完全进步了录取委员会的法眼，甚至会让整个申请落入俗套。
3. 这篇文书作者谈到了一个非常流行，或者对于申请文书来说过于流行的话题，女权主义。但是因为作者非常特别的经历和自身感受，让这个有点运用过度的话题焕发了光彩。所以，Personal Essay的主旨和话题并不是Brainstorm时候的先决条件，考虑好自己的故事和背景才是正确方法。另外，这因为作者有这样的经历才有可能写出这样的文章，盲目的模仿肯定是不可行的。
4. 整篇文章的跨度非常大，从作者出生到现在的时点。这种跨度的文章想在650字内达到满意的效果是非常困难的，需要非常好的语言文字执行力，否则非常容易让人觉得言之无物。所以，使用这种方法一定要慎之又慎。另外，即使是在跨度如此之大的文章当中，最吸引人的部分还是一个细节，就是作者和十岁的时候和自己的牛Missy的互动，而文章最后点到Missy更加是画龙点睛。因此，细节对于Personal Essay的重要性还是得到了非常充分的证明。
5. 最后不得不提到这篇文章非常能够体现出作者的气质，你可以感受到她是一个自信，勇敢，愿意追求，有个性，甚至有一些Tough的女生。这样的气质体现是Personal Essay最高境界之一。最后是这位作者的照片，你能看出这些气质吗？是不是文如其人呢？
2017-18美本申请季更多阅读：
耶鲁，斯坦福，宾大，康奈尔，西北……从2017年的录取展望新一年的美国本科申请
51UStudy – 名校申请权威
截至目前，我们的同学已经获得以下大学的录取:
· Yale University – 耶鲁大学（点击阅读故事）
· University of Chicago – 芝加哥大学（点击阅读故事）
· Stanford University – 斯坦福大学（点击阅读故事）
· Duke University – 杜克大学（点击阅读故事）
· University of Pennsylvania – 宾夕法尼亚大学 (Upcoming up)
· Johns Hopkins University – 约翰霍普金斯大学
· Northwestern University –西北大学（点击阅读故事）
· Brown University – 布朗大学
· Cornell University – 布朗大学
· University of Notre Dame –圣母大学（点击阅读故事）
· Vanderbilt University – 范德堡大学 (点击阅读故事）
· Washington University in St. Louis – 华盛顿大学圣路易斯分校
· Emory University – 埃默里大学（点击阅读故事）
· University of California – Berkeley 加州大学伯克利分校
· University of California – Los Angeles 加州大学洛杉矶分校（点击阅读故事）
· University of Southern California 南加州大学
· University of Michigan 密歇根大学（点击阅读故事）
· New York University 纽约大学（点击阅读故事）
· Oxford University 牛津大学
· LSE (London School of Economics and Political Science) 伦敦政治经济学院 （点击阅读故事）
· LBS (London Business School) 伦敦商学院 （点击阅读故事）
….
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