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如果你有足够的能力讲好一个故事，并成功触到招生官 G 点，那么无论是谈内衣还是谈第一次和女生牵手，最后你都能获得梦寐以求的结果。
在成功就读哈佛大学后，申请者的这篇文书被收进了 2017 年《哈佛成功申请文 50 篇》中。申请者当时所选的文书题目是："Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family."
" 讨论你的一个成就或事件，正式或非正式的，这一成就或事件可以作为在你生活的文化、社区或家庭中，见证你从童年走向成人的标志。"
当然，在认真回顾了一下自己的那些 " 光辉岁月 " 后，申请者选了一条不同寻常之路，谈一本杂志——《美国新闻杂志》 ( Newsweek ) 对自己产生的影响。一起来看看这篇为杂志 " 代言 " 的文书范文。
I was in 9th grade the first time I stumbled upon a copy of Newsweek. What caught my eye was its trademark title: white type, red highlight, a connotation that stories of great consequence lay beneath. Such bold lettering gave me a moment ’ s pause, and I was prompted to leaf through its glossy pages.
To my surprise, I was instantly hooked.
A new world unfolded before me. Biting social commentary. World conflicts that weren ’ t dumbed-down. Piquant reviews of best-selling books, controversial expos é s of political figures, tantalizing tidbits on pop culture, full-page spreads of Technicolor photographs.
And the prose was elegant, sharp, mesmerizing. It radiated sophistication and IQ. As I scanned the credentials of the authors, my only thought was, wow. The articles were written by worldly, ambitious people who were experts in their fields, people with PhDs and MBAs from world-class institutions, people who could write brilliantly, who got paid to give their opinions, who walked with a purpose and ran in the direction of their dreams. People I knew- then and there- I ’ d like to one day become.
This is what education looks like, I told myself. I was young, I was impressionable. Like a child standing on the outside of a candy store, nose pressed against the glass, I hungered to be a part of that cerebral adult world. So I read that magazine from cover to cover. Twice. And with each turn of the page I felt my small-town naivet é break into smaller and smaller pieces.
I remember that day as an incredibly humbling experience. I had an awkward, self-conscious epiphany: that I actually knew next to nothing about the world. There I was, cream of the crop of my middle school, fourteen years of ‘ smart ’ outwitted by a thin volume of paper. I was used to feeling gifted, to getting gold stickers and good grades, to acing every elementary examination placed in front of my cocky #2 pencil.
I wasn ’ t used to feeling like I ’ d been living in the Dark Ages.
At the same time, however, I struggled with another realization, one that was difficult for me to define. I felt … liberated. I felt as though I had taken a breath of fresh air and found it to be bracing and delicious, like it was the first breath I ’ d ever taken and I ’ d never known that air was so sweet.
Talk about a paradigm-shift: somehow, reading Newsweek had rekindled my natural intellectual curiosity; it had, briefly, filled a hole in my soul that I didn ’ t know existed.
It had also sparked something within me- a hint of defiance, a refusal to accept complacency. One taste of forbidden fruit and I knew I could never go back.
Although reading a news magazine seemed like a non-event at the time, in retrospect it was one of the defining moments of my adolescence. That seemingly unextraordinary day set a lot of subsequent days in motion- days when I would push my limitations, jump a little higher, venture out of my comfort zone and into unfamiliar territory, days when I would fail over and over again only to succeed when I least expected it, days when I would build my dreams from scratch, watch them fall down, then build them back up again, and before I knew it the days bled into years and this was my life.
At 14, I ’ d caught a glimpse of where the bar was set. It always seemed astronomically high … until it became just out of my grasp.
Sadly, Newsweek Magazine went out of print on January 1, 2013. Odd as it may sound, I ’ ll always be indebted to an out-of-print magazine for helping me become the person I am today.
全文从申请者九年级时阅读到的一本杂志 Newsweek 入题，申请者通篇只谈了阅读这本杂志给自己带来的思维冲击——不仅是打开了新世界大门，像一个小孩一样站在糖果店玻璃橱窗外，渴望汲取全新的知识 ; 并且这本杂志带给了申请者自由感，点燃了申请者天生的好奇心。
在 14 岁的年纪，这本杂志给申请者带来的触动如此巨大，着眼虽小，可就申请者个人而言是有极其重要的意义。文书很好地解读了哈佛大学给出的题目，全文只谈杂志给自己思维和性格上带来的影响，信息量不大，然而叙述却引人入胜、感染力强，足见申请者迥异他人的思考力、洞察力，以及深厚的文字功底，这大概就是哈佛大学招生官所看重的学生的品质吧。
