College Essay 係列 (二十八)：Hardly Essay (4) 麻工WL文書

白人女生MIT的WL文書

Prompt: Topic Engaging

Digging my needle into her knee, I carve out three distinct dimples. Armed with a repurposed dental tool, I create a long dent down her thigh revealing powerfully flexed muscles. This six-inch-tall clay gymnast lays sprawled out in front of me, her torso and legs detached. I look at the clock: 12:30 AM. Perfect. I can still work a while longer. Taking a small volume of clay, I squeeze it between my fingers into a tiny triangular wedge — the beginnings of a foot.

Removing my own foot from the warmth of its slipper, I point my toes. Muscles Hexed, bones bulging, I study its contours. Turning back to the clay wedge. I slice a little bit off one edge. I tum again to my own foot and observe for a while, tum back to the clay, back to my foot, and so on, little by little carving away the distinct features of my flesh.

It is an anatomy lesson as well as a sculpting session. I cannot simply grind out the rest of my project; each step requires careful planning and consideration. Leonardo Da Vinci spent hours studying cadavers to understand their structure prior to attempting to draw them. In my hand now rests a tiny, athletic, pointed-toe foot.

I look at the clock again: 2:15 AM. Already? Pushing back my chair, I reach my arms behind me and throw my head backwards in a long stretch. My back is sore in the best way possible.

Walking into Physics the next day, I keep visualizing my sculpture. My end goal is to have six gymnasts on a balance beam, each frozen in an instant of dramatic motion: jumping, spinning. flipping. Looking at the mechanics equation sheet in front of me, I know that physics will play an integral role in the success — or failure — of my sculpture. Each girl has to be precisely balanced, or else she will topple over.

My sister walks by and laughs. "What the heck? Why are you watching so much gymnastics?"

I click the link to Simone Bile's beam routine at the 2016 Olympics, continuing my research. As she winds up her arms for a front-flip, I switch to quarter-speed. Even slowed down, her movements are powerful. Muscles tightening like a spring, her legs recoil into her chest. I play the clip again, and again, studying the contours of her muscular frame. Her hair whips around, pointed straight outward from her head due to the centripetal force of her spin.

That's it! The key to my sculpture: her straight hair. For weeks I have been wracking my brain to figure out how to create a gymnast frozen in the middle of a front flip. She can't just float in mid-air, but how can I attach her to a surrounding figure Without the final product looking crowded and clunky? The solution: her straight hair frozen in the middle of

her flip provides the ideal concealment for a piece of sturdy wire to be fed from her body, through her head, and into the outstretched arm of the adjacent figure without ever revealing itself.

Whenever I make a new sculpture I approach it from both an artistic and scientific, engineering mindset. Before making an indent, I seek to understand the fundamentals of what I am making, just as I seek to understand the Universe in any physics or math class. It is through this blending of art and science that I can succeed in making the final product visually captivating yet structurally sound. The artistic and scientific process of materializing a sculpture from a mental blueprint never ceases to excite me.

= = = 我的評論 = = =

慣例，還是先說好話。

這篇文書讀完，我覺得是驚豔。作者把一個雕塑設計過程，描述得讓讀者有觀摩達芬奇創作的質感了。六位動感的美國國家體操隊員，被作者雕塑成一件凝固的作品，怎麽展現呢？當然要熟知動作的特色，又要保證飛在空中的人體的支點和平衡。如果是一般的雕塑者，一定會想到在人體內加一個硬體支架，然後用人體在外麵包裹起來就好了。

但是作者沒有，她隻用clay。並且要給每一個動體找一個自身最平衡的支撐點。最後，對於Simone Bile，2016年裏約奧運會五塊金牌得主，作者創造性地用頭發（空中甩出的馬尾辮）做支撐。有趣啊。有趣！

詞匯能力更是不肖多言。Dimple, torso, slip, hex, bulge, topple, wind, clip, coil, clunky, cease，豐富的象聲詞匯。還有個 anatomy lesson – sculpting session 這樣的 rhyming juxtaposition。這位作者真是個好筆頭。

把藝術和科學結合，這是個非常好的價值點。這篇文書故事就是作的創造性的絕佳表現。

我真的沒有什麽可以說壞話的地方。但是，MIT給了作者一個WL。

麻工大神們是真的看不出這個作者的價值嗎？不是。記得我以前討論麻工文書價值的那篇講過，麻省理工不需要好文章。他們讀了好文章，就會想到你是哈佛的菜。那就不敢錄你了，特別是當你也確實符合H的profile時。

事實也是如此。這篇作者，真的在被MIT小氣地WL之後，接連收到Y、P、S錄取了。可惜的是，H拒了本文作者。這也不能奇怪。2021-22年度的RD階段，可憐的哈佛AO們也沒什麽時間讀過所有的好文書。這篇就被錯過了。

這篇，要是REA階段申請H，就一定會錄取的。可是她為什麽沒有申H-REA呢？因為作者是個STEMer，她在EA階段申了 CalTech (Accepted) 和 U-Chicago (Defer），就不可以再申Harvard的REA了啦。多數的牛娃在早申階段都是很保守的，降半級申請。有EA但又挑剔的的CalTech和UChi，就很少給出offer來。而這位牛娃，拿到CalTech的EA是運氣好罷了。芝大不就給她Defer啦。

文書，要寫到恰到好處，既是技術，也靠運氣。