汇总！埃默里大学公布5篇新生优秀文书，并附招生官点评

埃默里大学表示之所以分享优秀文书，是想说明说明一篇优秀的个人陈述可以涉及各种主题，但最终展示了学生的品格、好奇心和独特声音。下面这几篇文书由现在就读于埃默里大学的学生撰写的，之所以被选中，有许多原因，我们请招生工作人员分享了每篇文书脱颖而出的原因。

埃默里大学表示每个学生都有一个招生团队负责审查并评估学生的潜力，包括学生的文书。今天这几篇文书点评，有力地反驳了坊间传闻“文书不重要，招生官都不看”的说法。

另外，还有申请者“总结经验”，某某大学喜欢什么样的申请者，揣摩“圣意”，事实上，从学生的文书来看，什么样的申请者都可能被录取，并没有明显的倾向性。

接下来一起来看下招生官都青睐什么样的申请者（注：题目为Commom主文书题目）。

1、运用修辞技巧引起读者兴趣

题目：Tell a story from your life, describing an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it.

正文：

“How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise!”

-Homer

“D’oh!”

-Homer Simpson

I’m not a philosopher; eloquence eludes me, the meaning of life is unquestioned, and thinking, beyond what is required to carry out a potential, is postponed to a more leisurely time. I’ve experienced doubt, and proceeded with caution; and in my experience, I’ve learned to discard unnecessary thought and conventional wisdom in favor of progress. Philosophy amounts to nothing unless it results in action.

“You’re kidding.” Scanning my schedule, my classmate shakes her head. “Why didn’t you take Dual Credit?” During Junior year, my high school began to incentivize Dual Credit courses with a GPA multiplier. Advertised to be less demanding than an AP class, Dual Credit was extolled as the wise man’s curriculum. So, mustering all the wisdom I had, I took 6 AP classes, and frankly, I enjoyed their depth. When it comes to education, I’m not cautious – and I’m prone to doubt. I just act. If I want chemistry, then I get chemistry; if I’m intrigued by psychology, then I pursue psychology. There is no point in pondering the inevitable; I am determined to take educational opportunities. I’ll judge the difficulty for myself after I complete it.

The practice of prioritizing action has proved useful in my pursuits. In ninth grade, I could have doubted my capability; instead I ran for office in the school’s health club and earned a position in the eleventh grade. That year, there was a debate amongst the members over meeting schedules: if the Technology Students Association meeting coincided with ours, how would we attract new members? As the club officers weighed the costs and benefits amongst themselves, I left the meeting and signed up for the technology club, discussed an agreement, and voted for the technology club to move its meetings to the second half of lunch before scheduling the Health club meetings for the first half. Did it require thinking? No. Eloquence? Hardly. Contrary to the anticipated speeches and club-based patriotism, it only took clear action and a request to solve the conflict. Attendance increased, and as a bonus, I enjoyed a continued membership with both organizations.

Beyond the sphere of public education, doubt-free determination facilitated my impact in the community. I am seventeen; I cannot vote in the upcoming elections. However, that does not mean I will hesitate to make a mark with my city. Small actions, from teaching addition to a church member’s kindergartener to tutoring three classmates for the SAT, matter in the long run. Can a teenage end world hunger? Doubtful; but by pulling weeds from the community garden, I can further progress one step at a time.

Not all actions end successfully. However, between cautious wisdom and failure, I choose action. I don’t fancy myself as wise; I’m not prone to doubt, nor am I perpetually cautious. I simply pursue my goal. As the wiser Homer has taught America, when torn between success and potential peril, one must simply “D’oh.”

招生官点评：

在阅读这篇个人陈述时，有一些关键主题凸显出来。首先，学习的方法是积极的、深思熟虑的，富有反思性。特别是在开篇部分，对课程材料的热爱明显表现出来，而不是对课程名称的关注。此外，在叙述中体现了对跨足多个学科的学习的开放态度。学习新的和不同的学科是通识教育体验的特色，作者在这方面表现得非常出色。

这篇文章的另一个主题是运用知识来推动变革。作者展示了一种个人意愿，也许是勇气，以有意义的方式改善社区。虽然可能被视为微小，但在社区中创造变革的能力对其演变至关重要。在整个叙述和申请的其余部分，成为一个积极参与社区的公民在这篇文章中得到了很好的体现。

最后，故事中贯穿着一种愿意冒险的精神，这让人兴奋不已。大胆地朝着新社区迈进意味着承担巨大的风险，显然作者已经准备好在Emory大学踏上这一征程。最终，作者敢于向前失败的信心是非常宝贵的，尤其是在进入大学的第一年时。总的来说，通过写作，我们对这位学生有了很多了解，也许最重要的是，他们的个人品质与Emory大学的使命和社区价值观完美契合。

2、展示你不可动摇的好奇心

题目：Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

正文：

Most airplanes are constructed with seats in rows of two or three. Mathematically, that means no matter the configuration, someone in my family of five has to sit by a stranger. Ever since I was little, I always asked to be that person. Perhaps it’s the optimistic middle child in me, but I always considered the greatest possibility was that I could meet someone remarkable, and that the conversation could be anything on the spectrum from slightly interesting to life-changing.

From the time I could speak, I began to realize that overcoming communication barriers was an integral key to unlocking the enormous potential in constructing meaningful relationships with others. My father is a successful scientist, but he has also been profoundly deaf since birth. My childhood was spent understanding his intelligence while still struggling at times to convey basic needs because I was choosing words that were too difficult to lipread and that I couldn’t yet write. As a kid, I learned how to continually recalibrate my own approach to overcome the challenge of constantly being misunderstood. My ability to build a relationship with my father was contingent on spending a lifetime navigating around the communication barriers that exist for someone who cannot hear. At the time I didn’t foresee I was developing an aptitude for communication skills that would be critical for succeeding in so many other important areas.

Since kindergarten, I have loved Chinese culture. My mom got tired of me requesting panda birthday cakes year after year and seeing me dressed as a panda each Halloween until I grew out of every costume. In second grade, I convinced the owner of a noodle house to give me two Chinese lanterns that still hang in my room today. In my junior year of high school, I earned a competitive scholarship from the U.S. State Department to study abroad for the summer learning Mandarin and immersing myself in eastern culture. Being dropped into Chengdu, China when you don’t speak the language fluently and being cut off from all communication back home was not all the cuddly pandas and Tai chi in the park that I had fantasized. Once again, I found myself a toddler, unable to communicate basic needs. I wondered, “Are humans really supposed to eat all the foods you’re giving me?” I quickly learned the Chinese education system is one of unparalleled expectations, not for the meek. With every grade a student receives, they can see their successes or failures broadcasted on a board in front of the class. Each new day tested my adaptability, my resilience, and my digestive system. I, for the first time, realized what it must feel like to be my father on the other side of the communication barrier, not just trying to express my needs, but trying to really understand what others are saying. At the end of the program I was told I had been unanimously voted by my school administration in China to represent the scholarship recipients and deliver a speech on their behalf to over 500 people… in Chinese. The flight was now descending after so many remarkable experiences and conversations with strangers.

Throughout my life, I have learned that the path to overcoming communication barriers is to will oneself through them. One must embrace it all and say “yes” to every new and uncomfortable experience. In the end, I returned home with a cultural awareness beyond expectation, possessing lifelong friendships with former strangers whom I now communicate with in their native language, and surprisingly loving the taste of rabbit eyeballs and cow intestines.

I am so grateful to have learned and confirmed in my life that stepping out of my comfort zone can, in fact, lead to experiences anywhere on the spectrum from slightly interesting to life-changing. On the flight home from China I, of course, chose to sit next to a stranger… and it didn’t disappoint.

招生官点评：

从我阅读这位学生的文章的开头几句起，我就知道他们将是埃默里大学的合适之选。他们重视对话，好奇心旺盛，思维开放。不多的人会坦言他们喜欢在飞机上与陌生人攀谈。然而，这位学生却乐此不疲，并积极拥抱这类偶然相遇，因为他们将其视为学习和成长的机会，这正是我们在埃默里大学寻找的品质。

在人们似乎更多地是在误传而非交流的时代，这位学生显然是一个理解言辞对他人影响的人，并专注于提升自己的沟通技巧，以与他人建立牢固的关系，尤其是与他的父亲。此外，这位学生实际上走出了自己的舒适区，前往中国生活了一年，在那里亲身经历了沟通障碍，寻找创造性的解决方案来消除这些障碍，并与同学建立联系。

关怀、同情和渴望产生积极改变的愿望在文章中流露出来。这位学生明显体现了埃默里大学利用知识服务人类的使命，我们迫不及待地期待着他与埃默里社区展开那些有影响力的对话。

3、描述一次你观点转变的经历

题目：Please describe the factors and challenges that have most shaped your personal life and aspirations. How have these factors helped you to grow?

正文：

When we are small, the world seems infinite. Personally, I believed that Germany was adjacent to Wisconsin until I was 8. But eventually, physical growth lends itself to a greater understanding of the world around us as we become exposed to truths of society. It was easy for me to justify my mom’s long work hours and our pocket-sized apartment filled with black mold when I did not know that everyone else had something “better”—and for me, it never felt like I was worse off, it just felt different. My friend had blue eyes and a house. I had brown eyes and I got free lunch. But as I learned more about the world, I found that those differences became difficult to overlook as people grew up and closed their minds in order to conform to their roles in society. My mom’s young age, financial status, and lack of a degree, as well as my lack of a second parent were all characteristics I saw in people who were portrayed to me as failures. It was a harsh reality to accept, because my mom was anything but a failure; she worked tirelessly, prioritizing my needs over hers and resigning herself to fast food jobs because she could not go to college while supporting a newborn. She grew up much faster than any 20-year-old should have to. And yet, for all her strength, we received looks of pity and degradation. But for all the vitriol, we steadfastly refused to let the judgments of other ruin us.

When my mother worked late, she left me with her oldest friends, Brian and Eric. They discussed everything—politics, philosophy, physics, beer; and for every question I had, they had insightful and honest responses, even when I demanded to know what was so special about Indiana Pale Ale when I was five. They inspired my passion for learning and taught me about the world while my mom worked to make sure we still had a home.

Brian was a chef. Most conversations happened while he sautéed mushrooms or julienned peppers. Years passed, and on the night he made risotto, I stood in the kitchen and asked about welfare. I knew my mom and I had it, but I failed to understand the negative connotation surrounding it. They explained that people often have misconstrued ideas about welfare; they become close-minded to the lifestyles and perspectives of others as they adhere to their own confining positions as members of society. This made sense, but it did not seem fair, particularly after school that day.

“Today a girl laughed at me because we have welfare,” I mumbled, shifting uncomfortably. “She said her mom said my mom shouldn’t be in the PTA if she can’t even come to meetings because she’s working.”

Brian and Eric exchanged heavy glances, but I rambled on, voice shaking as I realized at the same time as everyone else in the room that this incident had affected me more than I initially thought it had.

“My mom works really hard. For us. To keep us safe and fed and okay. They don’t get to say she isn’t doing enough when she’s trying her best.”

They hesitated the way adults do before having serious conversations.

“Kiddo—there are a lot of things about the world that aren’t fair. This is one of them,” Brian started. “That girl and her mom try to tear down people like you and your mom because they have no perception of how hard you two work to be where you are. They won’t try to understand because they don’t want to. And that’s not on you, that’s on them.”

And I understood. I knew that my mom and I worked hard. Welfare did not make me anyone’s inferior; instead, it taught me about perspective. People are quick to judge what they do not know or understand, because empathy is not indoctrinated in people as well as derision and hatred are. Empathy and morality are traits that I believe take priority over any other; I care about how people treat each other, because I have seen the damage that results when people become too self-involved to care about how their words affect others. The best way for me to inspire that empathy is through arts and humanities. Brian and Eric helped cultivate my passion for learning about people and for evoking emotion within them to form meaningful connections, and whether it is through art, literature, or human sciences, I want to be someone who can open people up to different perspectives, and I want to do it by learning as much as I can so that I have something to give back.

招生官点评：

在埃默里大学，我们大学文化的一个核心是社区。这篇文章展示了鼓励和社区是前进的灵感。在这个专业中，我们意识到学生面临着各种各样的挑战。这篇文章中人性化提醒读者，学生们来到大学时带着塑造他们的过去经历。大学是一个自我发现和定义个人声音的机会。

论文写作和课外参与使招生读者能够看到学生在大学社区中将如何展现自己。学生会参与吗？他们会支持他们的社区成员吗？学生会为改善大家的情况而挑战社区规范吗？这些问题对审查过程至关重要。在这篇文章中，我们看到这些问题变得具体而有生命力。我们知道这位学生可能在我们的大学社区中成为这些方面的典范，因为这已经在他们身上展现出来，并影响了他们的生活。

4、分析你改变的观点

题目：Tell a story from your life, describing an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it.

正文：

In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s, “Crime and Punishment”, the character Sonia is metaphorically linked to Christ. After prostituting herself to feed her family, she covers her head and face in shawls, before lying on her bed face down and sobbing– through this, she is linked to the death of Jesus. Her mother, Katarina, kisses her feet while she sobs, the same way people in the churches of that time wept and kissed at the feet of idols to Christ. In this situation, Dostoevsky is implying that even something such as prostitution that might be deemed a sin can instead be that which allows one to be a Saint.

As my mother choked up while I described the above anecdote, I was filled with confusion. What could lead her to be so upset over this philosophical question? I asked if there was something she wanted to talk about and to say there was would be an understatement. 

She described to me the process by which my Father, in pursuit of a sexual relationship with a young woman, had demolished our family’s house, and all of my Mom’s identifying documents, before successfully taking away both me and my brother. While my father wasn’t on my birth certificate for a Welfare bid, and my mother regained custody of me, my brother had to remain in the care of a man who put little emphasis on caring for his sons at that point in his life. My mother was left with no money, no place to live, and no friends who would lend their support. She turned to her sister for guidance and instead of love and compassion was met with cruelty, deceit, and greed.

My mother found a parallel between herself and Sonia. Both were faced with a problem the likes of which seems unsolvable and were thrust into a patriarchal system that far too often values little of women beyond the most primitive desires. Despite constant attempts to get herself onto a more admirable path, the system resisted her. She could not afford to purchase new identifying documents without missing rent, and I couldn’t handle being paraded through 105-degree weather. She was stuck. My dad came back and offered to continue their relationship after more than a year of abject poverty and lack of bodily autonomy. And she accepted the invitation into the man who had ruined her life for me. 

After going through a phase of alcoholism and an instance of domestic violence against my Father, I viewed my mother as immoral, or misguided at the least. I was wrong. Despite experiencing some of the worst things a human can experience, and being able to tell nobody about it, she remained in a household with a man who intentionally hurt her beyond belief, for my well being. If there is a God above us, he views Sonia and my Mother not as sinners, but as Saints, and in that conviction, I could not be more absolute.

招生官点评：

文学使人们能够在写作中看到自己。这篇文章生动地描述了他们的个人故事，同时引入了教育元素。作为招生专业人员，我们经常被学生问到是否应该谈论他们的个人挑战和经历。虽然我们对文章主题没有偏好，但我们强调学生应该写一篇能够突显他们自己的声音，而不是家庭和/或社区的声音的文章。

这篇文章巧妙地将文学、家庭和自我编织成一篇文章。老实说，有时候要完成这种性质的文章是很困难的。它需要明确的写作焦点、清晰度和简洁性。这篇文章的优势在于开篇段落，其中清晰地表达了主题的要点和意图。文章的写作使读者能够跟随故事线索。最后，比较带到了一个完整的结局。这篇文章的例子表明，无论主题是个人经历还是虚构，故事的流畅对于文章写作和所选择的主题一样重要。

5、以相等的比例呈现与叙述

题目：Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

正文：

The craft of storytelling, for me, is holy.

Looking back on my life, I don’t see one defining moment where I realized that my purpose is to study, compose, and teach story. It’s more like a collection of snapshots whipping by, each one yellowed with age and fingerprints. I remember reading The Empty Space by Peter Brook on theatre theory long into the night, encountering the line, “Drama was exposure, it was confrontation… it led to… an awakening of understanding.” These words were what led me to the discovery of how storytelling is an emotional confrontation between the author and the writing and between the writing and the audience. It’s collision. It’s catharsis.

Catharsis defines me as a playwright. The first play I wrote, The Rocket Man, adapted from a short story of the same name by Ray Bradbury, follows a teenage boy whose astronaut father spends much of his time in space. It’s uncanny – that’s my entire life. My own father travels from Denver to Los Angeles four days a week on business, and my family isn’t whole unless he’s with us. Drafting a scene of The Rocket Man, where the boy confronts his father before he leaves again, changed my life: Stay with me, the boy begged in the original scene I added. Please. I immediately began to cry, praying that my own father, a thousand miles away, was listening. 

I learned that day that catharsis is releasing my own story within a story. When the line between my soul and the soul of my story blurs, that’s when the real work happens. The construct of The Rocket Man was like a cathedral, with my own emotion as stained glass and my memories as arches, but I realized after sharing it with my cast and crew for the first time that a cathedral is nothing without people to experience it. My 18-year-old male lead, Pierce, cried when he first read the script. So did my light designer and sound designer. What I want is to recreate this experience for an audience as a playwright with the intention of establishing the theatre as a safe place. You can grieve here. You can be seen here. You can hope here. This goal starts not just with craft, but with overwhelming love for that audience.

At its core, storytelling is service. 

One of the defining challenges of my life presented itself as the opportunity to create and execute a free playwriting course for middle-school girls. When the pandemic hit, it forced me to reimagine my course for a virtual setting offered through the local school district; I realigned everything – my three-week curriculum, my downloadable course exercises, and my teaching strategies. Teaching playwriting to middle-school girls over Zoom meant listening to their struggle to make friends at school and their desire to participate in protest marches against the will of their parents. With each lesson, they experienced the transcendence of having their lives and emotions reflected through story, and they loved it. One student, Isabel, told me with ten exclamation points about how excited she was for class. She even filmed a one-woman version of a play she wrote, complete with costumes and accents. I came out of class every night feeling like I might burst from joy. Showing students how to release their own story within a story is the most purposeful thing I have ever done.

Sitting in a theatre as the overture starts, hearing a thousand conversations stop in the span of a single heartbeat. A hand over my mouth in awe as I watch the finale and wonder at how a two-hour show can contain all the nuances of life. That’s why I exist – to offer story. To teach it. That’s my mission and my ministry. 

招生官点评：

你有过真正优秀的老师吗？根据我的个人经验，出色的老师不仅教授知识，还传授他们对知识的热爱。这位学生向我展示了他们对讲故事的热爱以及他们如何与社区分享这种热爱。这让我思考为什么我喜欢某些故事或为什么我能自然地与某些叙述产生联系。好的老师和好的作家总是能够让你思考和反思。

我个人很喜欢她受到《火箭人》的启发。雷·布拉德伯里是高中学生可以轻松接触的作家，但大多数人只熟悉《华氏451度》。我得承认，451度也是我首次接触布拉德伯里的作品，享受经典文学并不会让人感到羞耻。对于一篇讲述讲故事重要性的文章，451度似乎是一个显而易见的灵感来源。《华氏451度》涉及烧书的情节，当然强调了保留故事和保存思想的重要性。两者之间存在明显的联系。然而，这位作者却受到了一篇关于一个忙碌而缺席的父亲的短篇小说的启发。个人对材料的连接远远超过了短篇小说或书的总体主题。再次强调，优秀的老师传授他们对知识的热爱。

在一个可能让人感到非人性化的过程中，这篇文章让人感到真实。真实的学生写这些文章，真实的人类阅读它们。这听起来很明显，但我认为双方都可能忽视了这个简单的事实。我对有志成为作家的建议是找到你擅长和了解的东西。这并不意味着“你对什么充满激情。”我已经大学毕业了，我并不知道我对什么充满激情。这意味着，你何时感到成功？你何时感到动力满满？你何时感到与材料产生联系？这位学生认为，他们最好的作品来自于写作赋予他们的情感联系和宣泄。在阅读了这篇文章后，我相信这一点。

以上就是埃默里大学公布的5篇优秀文书及招生官点评，希望给正在积极准备RD阶段的同学一些灵感。

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