College Essay係列（五十六）：2025哈佛成功文書

2025哈佛成功文書（1）

 

最早從2017-18申請季，在每季結束的7-8月份，哈佛校報Crimson都會PO出十篇當年的成功文書，這個網頁的URL，https://www.thecrimson.com/topic/sponsored-successful-harvard-essays-20xx/ ，把年號換上即可訪問到這些網址。到了2025年，校報編輯部做了reorg了，《成功文書》劃在經營團隊Business Board版麵之下，網址換為https://www.business.thecrimson.com/10-successful-harvard-essays-2025。

Business Board？不了解的同學看這裏>>>

Business Board是哈佛校報的業務經營團隊，不是編輯內容團隊。這裏有14名Board Members，均為二年級以上的本科生。團隊以校報的“50萬美元年度預算”，“創新並經心”地“運營並生長著百萬美元業務”。可以看出，Crimson淨利潤達50萬美元以上，淨利潤率超過50%。這是一個經營水平超過絕大多數商業、營利性企業的非營利性機構。

 

書歸正題。

寫過《2023》和《2024》的二十篇成功哈佛文書，我們已經看出哈佛當前的招生心態，即公平價值觀。202324兩年選出的文書，文字質量比2022以前明顯走弱，但仍是頂級質量，值得一讀。每篇文書故事中都清晰可見equality和social justice痕跡。另外，我們也看出了Crimson的偷工減料。《2024成功文書》發出的時候隻有九篇，第十篇Michael則是過了一個月後才給加上的。《2023成功文書》首發的時候更少，隻有七篇，後三篇則是近兩個月後才補充進來的。說偷工減料並非冤枉，因為這個係列發布的Title從來都是“10 Successful”而不是9 Successful或 7 Successful。

現在，2025新文書又來了。Crimson這次不再偷工減料，滿額十篇。工作這是進步了，先給本屆的Business Board點讚。但內容質量如何呢？請大家跟著朽石君仔細品看。

2025的故事背景統計，2篇亞裔新移民，1篇東歐移民， 2篇正公社活，2篇領導力，1篇棄兒，1篇URM，隻有1篇沒有Hook的城市生活主題。Equality和Social Justice比例，似乎在趨同了2024和2023。不過，細看8篇Hook文書主題，Queerness主題含量繼續減少，而移民主題含量較2024年增加，領導力和社會活動主題大增並且內含Equality 和Social Justice的主題。這變化，很顯然與當前美國社會的主流意識形態和動態相吻合。

這些年裏哈佛招生的主訴價值就是Equality和Social Justice。大量申請都主訴著申請者的Equality和Social Justice價值觀，那麽被錄取的比例也就自然偏向它們。我見過的申請中，普遍都帶有這一價值觀。從客觀上看，申請中含有這一價值主文書（無論是否主訴該價值）的比例可能高於80%了。

品評2025的這十篇，我仍然采用去年的方法，拋開哈佛的主訴價值觀，僅僅對比同樣主題的2023/2024年的二十篇。這樣的比較品評，對今年申請人更加有好處。

第一篇，Claire的Waigong Basketball

In my vision I focus on a lone front tooth backdropped by a black abyss; thin lips dance around it in motions forming words, yet I can’t seem to hear them.

In the kitchen behind my grandfather sits his definition of luxury — a now stale and cold Filet-o-Fish from the Beijing McDonald’s. American basketball plays on the television across from where we’re sitting on the sofa; players’ shoes squeak and balls bounce louder in my ears than those words. In this moment, his Mandarin goes in one ear and out the other. I don’t listen the way I do when he’s screaming at my mother, a bitter, blind rage fueled by undercurrents of fear and “I miss you.”

My focus blurs, and the tooth disappears. Basketball fades to silence, and I’m on the airplane home to America. We’re separated once more by an ocean and three thousand unspoken miles. It’s a whirlwind; five years pass, and my few apathetic summers in China are over before I can blink twice.

The last clear memory I have is waking up on my thirteenth birthday to my dad handing me the landline kept for international phone calls: “Waigong has something he wants to read to you.”

 

It is a poem that he had written about me. Through the phone, I could do nothing but hear his voice, static worsening the Mandarin already slurred by missing teeth. The poem says everything he loved about his granddaughter, everything he saw in her, despite barely knowing her. It is a reflection of last dreams, visions, and hopes of his own.

He was gone not long after that, once more turned to forever.

It wasn’t until I found myself chancely entrenched in poetry because of a mandatory school competition that I began to think deeply about this disconnected relationship. Poetry Out Loud’s anthology introduced me to hundreds and hundreds of poems, and I felt like a hungry child at a buffet. When I discovered “Old Men Playing Basketball” by B.H. Fairchild, I saw tired arms and shaky hands as a pure geometry of curves, hobbling slippers as the adamant remains of that old soft shoe of desire. In words, I was safe to miss my grandfather for all the things that made him human. For the first time in my life, I began to realize that I might have a love for beautiful words that ran deep in my blood, a love that couldn’t be lost in translation.

On that makeshift podium in the school cafeteria my sophomore year, “Old Men Playing Basketball” becomes “Waigong Playing Basketball.” I’m taken back to that sofa in Beijing one more time, where he takes my small hand into his tremoring one covered by gray-brown patches of melasma, where he tells me, “You are a gift, a wonder. You are a hu die.” Butterfly: my Chinese name. Born to one day fly.

But it is no longer his voice I hear. It is my own— crisp and clear, raw and strong. The poem becomes the glass wand of autumn light breaking over the backboard, where boys rise up in old men. I see the whole scene this time, not just tooth and abyss. I hear every word.

Perhaps I will never be able to know my grandfather beyond his love of basketball and poetry, or hear his voice read me another poem. But when I am stirred by beautiful lines or liberated by my pen on paper, I know I am one of two same hearts, forever bound together by the permanence and power of language.

I am a vessel in flight, listening, writing, speaking to remember histories, to feel emotion, to carry forth dreams and visions and hopes of my own. My grandfather becomes an elegant mirage of a basketball player, carried by a quiet grace along my trail of spoken words floating upwards toward heaven.

 

這是一篇詩歌一般的文書，文字上乘。我的給分A。注意，這一篇的關於外公過的故事，結構和內容設計並非上乘，爺爺-籃球與Old Men Playing Basketball之間的關聯很mechanical，籃球和詩歌之間的關聯也不順滑，所以比不過Crassandra Hsiao的English in Our House的A+。

說這是詩一般文字，我有至少三個根據。第一，我讀的時候，口感流暢利落，情緒飽滿且波動。這是個人主觀感受，不一定這樣的感覺人人都有。

還有第二點。那就是這裏的很多句子，分開段就能成詩，無需雕琢。比如：

I am a vessel in flight,

listening, writing, speaking

to remember histories,

to feel emotion,

to carry forth dreams and visions and hopes of my own.

第二點如果你也不同意，那我還有第三點，那這就是這篇文字裏潛藏的很多rhyme之處。比如：開篇段的vision和emotion，abyss 和 words都是在遠距離和韻（雖然沒有詩一樣嚴格的位置），結尾句的seem和them則是在句內的近距離和韻，這種感覺與中文詩歌的平仄感相當。

我還有第四點、第五點，就不多說了。這篇雖好，但瑜不掩瑕。

對，我說的就是瑜不掩瑕。因為，這篇後麵跟出來的官方評論，是出自某顧問機構的評語（因為這是一個純屬廣告性的版麵）。該評語卻把這篇作者說成”Clara“，而文章內容說成《Fish Out of Water》。不要以為這是個簡單的筆誤。《Fish Out Of Water》是另一篇成功文書，它刊登在《2024 Successful》中，當時的作者名為”Michelle”，並且是由另一個顧問機構出具的評語。

看到這裏，聰明的讀者應該有三個疑問：

1. 這些Successful Essays作者，跟Harvard 當年錄取是什麽關係？被標記為2025的文書，是否真正出自2024-25申請季的申請中？這些文書被冠以20XX年度的合理性，是哈佛校報Crimson的內容原則所管轄的範疇。
2. 每篇Successful Essays作者是誰，哈佛校報都確定嗎？那個去年還叫Michelle的《Fish Out Of Water》作者，今年就改名叫Clara了。或許這是她的Middle Name?
3. Successful Essays作者，為他們出具評語的顧問機構，兩者之間有沒有過服務關係？這種服務關係又是否存續到他們獲得哈佛錄取的時刻？如果不是，由某機構來寫某篇評語再放在Crimson的網頁上，不會誤導讀者嗎？

去年七月，首發文書不足數、或者作者臨時換名，我都當是小瑕疵了。直到今年看到機構給這篇好文書出具的牛頭不對馬嘴、但牽出我三個疑問的評語。其實，問題提完，答案我就清楚了。

接下來，我帶上了“有色眼鏡”品讀剩下的九篇。

此處允許我做個廣告，學會歸化模型的五維閱讀，就能很自然地對文字信息中的inconsistence非常敏感，從而直接識別出選項中的錯誤邏輯，排除錯誤選項，得出答案，根本不用去讀原文。就像現在，我已經不用再拿到哈佛校報的解釋，就知道它是在純廣告運營，用一些並非當年的文書，請一些並非出處的顧問機構，寫幾篇盡善盡美的評語放在這個長得像本校出版物的版麵上，用哈佛品牌，做商業機構的廣告。

甚至，這些文書都不是“哈佛成功”的文書呢？不要多想，這裏的很多文書（盡管不是所有）也都算好文書的。我們接著品讀就是了。