2025哈佛大学录取文书公布，被哈佛招生官怒赞的满分文书长啥样？

今年哈佛大学再度公开了多篇成功叩开录取大门的优质文书，让我们透过这些鲜活的文字，解码哈佛招生官的录取倾向。

01、Claire's Essay

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.

招生官点评：

有些文书会告诉你一个人是怎样的人。Claire的文书则展现了她是如何成为那样的人。

让《出水之鱼》脱颖而出的不仅仅是“鱼和新生”的比喻，也不仅仅是她将移民和生物这两个招生官员经常遇到的主题联系起来的故事，而是她如何让这些熟悉的想法融入到个人生活中。

在于她如何轻松地描述不适，以及如何真诚地捕捉语言障碍带来的尴尬和孤独感。

一个不够深思熟虑的作者可能会简单地说：“学英语很难。”然而，Claire向我们展示了她如何运用富有创意的幽默自嘲，同时通过海绵宝宝的重播、文字游戏和对标注图表的迷恋，展现她独特的技能、缺点和优势。

这正是招生官想要看到的：一种成熟的反思方式，能够将故事生动地展现在屏幕之外。

她不只是谈论韧性——她还向我们展示了韧性的来源，以及艺术和科学如何成为理解事物的一种方式。

她的文笔生动活泼，却不浮夸。像“language feels slippery like fish on my tongue”这样的隐喻感觉很真实，因为它们来自生活经验。

最后，当她写到“You’ll find your water”时，这句话落到了实处。这不仅仅是一个简洁的结局——这是一个提醒，安静而慷慨，成长不必喧嚣，才是真实的。

02、Alexander's Essay

The mouthwatering scent of beef broth brought back a flood of childhood memories as it wafted around me. After a 12-hour drive from Florida to Texas, the familiar smell meant I was in ""bep cua bà"", or ""grandma's kitchen"" in Vietnamese. Every summer when my family visited my grandparents' house, my grandma always had a steaming pot of pho ready for us when we arrived, and this time was no exception. For my family, pho was more than a Vietnamese delicacy: it symbolized bringing us together over a warm, hearty meal. This specific visit, however, came with a change of perspective; as a young adult who was now conscious of his cultural roots, I wanted to learn more about my heritage by learning how to cook pho from my grandma.

As she boiled the water, my grandma stressed to me, ""Every bowl of pho needs a strong foundation: the broth."" Without a good broth, she explained, none of the other ingredients mattered. As I stood over the boiling pot, I thought about my own foundation: my family. My parents immigrated to America after the Vietnam War with nothing and had to work tirelessly to accomplish the celebrated ""American Dream"". From taking me to a 7 am student government fundraiser or a 10 pm baseball game in a city five hours away, I would not have been able to participate in these activities, which I consider an integral part of my identity, without their support. Being fortunate enough to have a strong foundation in my life has allowed me to be a strong foundation for others. For example, as an upperclassman on my varsity baseball team, I strive to be available for my teammates. Last season, when a younger teammate was struggling in a few games, I stayed back after practice to work with him on his fielding before driving him home, even though he lived almost an hour away. This small gesture was a reflection of my attempt to build a strong foundation for others.

As I watched the broth simmer in a giant pot that my grandma had continuously stirred for two days, she imparted another bit of wisdom onto me: making a great bowl of pho was also all about balance. Simply taking a great broth and indiscriminately adding to it would not suffice; each of the ingredients had to be in perfect balance with each other. Balance was never really something I considered until recently, when I experienced the struggle that can come from its absence. When I suffered a stress fracture in my lower back a few years ago that left me unable to play baseball for the foreseeable future, I felt as if suddenly a major part of my identity had been stripped away. I struggled with this new reality for a while until I realized I could fill this temporary void by acting as a mentor for my younger teammates. Additionally, with my newfound spare time, I was able to further develop my interest in Mu Alpha Theta, which gave me a new, enriching opportunity to compete in mathematics competitions. By the time I was finally cleared to play, I had developed a fresh appreciation for the importance of maintaining a balance among all the activities I did, as I had experienced firsthand the empty feeling of having this balance stripped away.

While putting the finishing scallions in the bowl, I reflected on the delectable meal I helped create and realized that what had started out as me simply wanting to learn more about my heritage became something more poignant: an introspection. Although there may not be a single perfect recipe for pho, by applying my grandma's cooking principles in my everyday life, whether it be in baseball, my volunteer lab experience, or my service trip to Guatemala, I hope to be able to make a ""bowl of pho"" that is perfect for me.

招生官点评：

Alexander的这篇文书是一篇充满思考、情感深刻的自我反思之作，围绕身份、家庭与个人成长展开。通过以越南牛肉粉(pho)的烹饪过程作为核心隐喻，他巧妙地将自己的越南文化背景与更广泛的主题——根基、平衡和韧性——联系在一起。“bếp của bà(外婆的厨房)”这一意象温暖而具体，使整个叙述深深扎根于有意义的文化语境中。

最令人印象深刻的是，Alexander能将个人经历升华为具有普遍意义的洞察。他面对逆境的反应——在运动受伤后辅导队友、重新燃起对数学的热爱——展现了低调的领导力与适应力。这些瞬间真实可信，充分体现了他的价值观在现实中的体现。

文章的结构从熬汤讲到追求平衡，再转向内省，整体主题清晰、内容丰富。不过，部分段落之间的衔接仍可更流畅，个别语句略显重复或抽象。结尾虽然情感真挚，但如果能以一个更具体的个人画面收尾，而不是停留在“完美的一碗粉”的隐喻上，可能会留下更深刻的印象。

总体而言，这是一篇真诚且吸引人的个人陈述，展现了作者的深度与人格魅力。若在语言清晰度和节奏感方面稍作润色，这篇文书将具备强大的招生说服力。

03、Barry's Essay

I woke up one morning to the usual noise in the kitchen. “That plate of porridge is mine,” my brother yelled outrageously at my sister, “leave it or else I will beat you up.” Food scrambles and fights were order of the day in the family I was raised. The size of one’s meal would be determined by one’s age. You had to fight for food at times, or else hunger would eat you alive. Living with ten siblings in a polygamous family is not the definition of tranquility. However, I have learned more from this revolving door than I could have been taught in solitary silence. Beyond chaos, there is a whisper that teaches the benefits of unselfish concern.

My mother was a teacher, but her salary could not sustain the big family. Almost every day, she would wake up early in the morning before work and go to the fields. My parents were shadowy figures whose voices I heard vaguely in the morning when sleep was shallow, and whom I glimpsed with irresistibly heavy eye-lids as they trudged wearily into the house at night. We sat together as a whole family on special occasions. After a bumper harvest, my parents would sell their crops in the neighborhood. I vividly remember my mother counting proceeds from the crop sale, her dark face grim, and I think now, beautiful. Not with the hollow beauty of well-simulated features, but with a strong radiance of one who has suffered and never yielded. “This is for your school fees arrears,” she would murmur making a little pile. “This is for the groceries that we borrowed from Mr Kibe’s store,” and so on. The list was endless. We would survive at least for the present.

My father instilled in me the importance of education. I would see the value of education every time I shook hands with him; the scratches and calluses from the field in his hands were enough motivation. After every award I received, he would firmly shake my hands as a sign of profound pride. My tacit prayer was to ease his pain one day. Unfortunately this was never to come true, he died on 5 February 2016 in a car accident, only a week before I received my IGCSE O LEVEL results and I had attained 14 straight A grades, standing out to be one of the top performers in the country. After my father’s death, his brothers took everything that he had acquired.

Inevitably, circumstances forced me to take a break from school in January 2017 and bear my share of the eternal burden at home. I had to take care of my mother whose health was deteriorating. I would spend the day doing household chores, and the nights were times of intensive study. It was on my mother’s deathbed when I was fully convinced that she was a seasoned fighter. “Barry,” she called me, “I am not going to die till you finish school.” In order not to disillusion that extraordinary faith in her voice, I assured her that she was going to live. Unfortunately, she succumbed to death on the 15th of March 2017. I “died” with her. My belief in the God she had ardently prayed to till the time of her demise was shaken.

Already laid waste by poverty and pain, I went back to school through the generosity of strangers. School became a battleground for victory. I came back to life determined than ever before. I out-performed the country boys who mocked my struggle. I went on to win accolades in the National and Regional Mathematics Olympiads and was awarded the Higher Life Foundation Scholarship that was going to pay my fees throughout high school.

Today, I am an epitome of a black, double-orphaned, African boy who lost everything he ever valued, but refused to give up on his dream.

招生官点评：

Barry写的那篇关于在十几口人的非洲大家庭里成长的文书，乍一看，可能会让人觉得写得一般。

确实，文书里有一些像未完成稿的瑕疵：有些句式不太地道，比如他说“我弟弟怒吼着(yelled outrageously)”，其实更自然的表达是“愤怒地吼叫(yelled in outrage)”;

还有，谷歌文档在“我回到生活中，比以往任何时候都更加坚定”这句话下面标了条醒目的蓝色波浪线，提示语法可能有误，于是Barry就补充了更多内容。

不过，这些小问题可掩盖不了这篇文书的闪光点。它洞察力敏锐，情感细腻，作者用词也很能打动人心。

很多作者写到类似经历时，可能早早收尾，简单概括一下主题，比如“我在这个忙碌的家庭里学到的东西，比独处时多得多”。

但Barry不一样，他知道，真正有说服力的文章，就是在清晰表达的基础上，搭建起能深深触动读者的框架，这是简单的陈述做不到的。

读到他写的一个装饰句“Beyond chaos, there is a whisper that teaches the benefits of unselfish concern.”(在混乱之外，有一种低语，诉说着无私关怀的益处)，我一下子就被吸引住了。

我甚至怀疑，Barry从混乱家庭生活中领悟到的这些智慧，可能就是他自己的心声。

让人高兴的是，文书剩下的部分，至少和开头一样精彩。不管是描述父亲去世时，他用一种比最悲痛的葬礼哀号更内敛、却更有力的语气，还是写母亲在平凡地计算家庭开支时，他停下来欣赏母亲美丽的容颜，读的时候，我们都能走进Barry的内心，一直感受到他的存在——哪怕隔着屏幕，他的智慧也清晰可感。

04、Claire's Essay

Of the memorable moments in my life when I have discovered one of my passions, almost all of them involve my bright yellow Crocs. Buying rubber shoes in such a conspicuous color was not a spontaneous decision; it took me two months to choose. I had been stalking crocs.com, clicking between the color options, and asking for the unsatisfying opinions of friends before what felt like my rom-com “meet cute” moment: a girl wearing a black tracksuit walked past me in Crocs the brightest shade of yellow I had ever seen. That very week, I opened my laptop and decisively purchased a size 8 pair of “Lemon” Crocs. Ten business days (and two months to build up the courage to wear my eye-catching kicks out in public) later, my self-discovery began.

I was wearing my Crocs when I recognized the importance of activism in young communities. This revelation came on a Saturday in March 2018. I took a 25-minute train ride down to Washington D.C. to participate in the March for Our Lives rally—my first protest. For all 25 anxiety-inducing minutes, my heart raced and my muscles tightened as I tried to ignore the probing stares from strangers wondering why I decided to pair yellow shoes with a green coat.

But my fears (both Croc and non-Croc related) quickly dissolved as I stood alongside activists that were my age; in front of a stage dominated by leaders that were my age; making me realize that the only thing stopping me from being a student activist, at my age, was effort. The young voices calling for change inspired me to step into my responsibility to use my voice to help those whose voices are being suppressed. I stood there for one hour, but what I saw was enough to encourage me to actualize my vision for a world where students are driven to engender social change through service. So, five months later, I co-founded The Virago Project (TVP), a student-led organization focused on building a community of activists like the ones I stood alongside in March. A “virago” is a woman displaying exemplary qualities, but the term has been twisted to demean assertive women. From its name to its activities, TVP is about redefining leadership.

After my day in D.C., I wore my Crocs to every student meeting TVP held. I wore them as we sold 150 handmade bracelets to raise funds for a local children’s home and again when we posted colorful cards with encouraging messages all over my high school. Walking into rooms full of ambitious student leaders using TVP as a jumping-off point for their own service projects, I beamed as their gaze met my sunny shoes and then shot up to my equally cheery smile.

“Dunni, why do you wear such noticeable shoes when you lead these meetings?” asked one of our activists.

Pleasantly dumbfounded, I could only respond with a curious smile—it’s not often that frivolous items lead to unintentionally philosophical inquiries. So, I held my tongue until the answer struck on a late-night in November 2019.

I wear such noticeable shoes when I stand in front of other student leaders because I want to model the kind of leadership that is as smile-inducing, deliberate, and visible as my Crocs. TVP has trained me to be, above all, altruistic, and I love that I get to learn and model this with a generation of world changers. It took me two months to decide I wanted a pair of sun-colored shoes but only two seconds and a model to realize that I desired the option I’d once overlooked. Now, I realize that, to curious strangers, I am the girl walking past in Crocs the brightest shade of yellow they have ever seen. And I am delighted with the thought that I could be the one to break someone’s cycle of indecision and social apathy.

招生官点评：

这篇申请文书堪称典范，完美融合了叙事真实性以及明确的叙事意图——这两大特质正是顶尖大学申请文书中最吸引人的地方。

作者以自信且亲切的口吻，巧妙地借助亮黄色洞洞鞋(Crocs)这一出人意料的意象，逐步引出身份认同、领导力以及社会影响力等更为深刻的主题。那些看似轻松有趣的日常小事，最终升华为对可见性、发声以及个人目标的深度思考。

这篇文书的独特之处在于，它能够自然流畅地将个人经历与政治、社会议题相结合，既不显得生硬，也不落俗套。作者不仅分享了自己的行动主义实践，还深入剖析了这些经历如何塑造了她充满喜悦、包容与自我认知的领导理念。

“Virago 项目”并非一份刻意堆砌的履历，而是作者生活经历的真实写照，通过丰富的想象和深刻的自我反思，赋予了文字鲜活的生命力。

要知道，招生官们每天可能要审阅几十篇甚至上百篇申请文书。他们真正渴望看到的，是那些内容新颖、具体且充满情感共鸣的文书。

这篇文书之所以能够脱颖而出，是因为它从一开始就紧紧抓住了读者的注意力，凭借引人入胜的节奏和恰到好处的幽默感，始终保持着读者的兴趣。同时，它还巧妙地融入了精英特质，如主动性、社会责任感以及高情商。

在 Momentum College Counseling，我们一直强调，学生无需刻意追求宏大的、改变世界的壮举来撰写令人难忘的文书。他们真正需要的，是清晰的思路、深刻的自省以及引人入胜的视角。

而这篇文书恰好具备了这三点要素。它既展现了作者的脆弱一面，却又不显得做作;既彰显了雄心壮志，又不过于浮夸。最重要的是，它捕捉到了一个学生敢于真实展现自我的勇气，无论他是穿着黄色的洞洞鞋，还是其他任何鞋子——这种自信且富有原创性的特质，正是哈佛等名校招生官们所极为看重的。

05

Isabelle's Essay

Isabelle's Essay

Breakfast after church is a Sunday staple in my family. We’re not allowed to eat beforehand, so right after Mass ends, my sister and I race to the bagel shop only to inevitably wait in a long line. Often when we reached the cashier, we’d find they were out of plain bagels. It was a perennially difficult decision: pick from an assortment of non-plain bagels, or wait another 20 minutes for new plain bagels.

People’s bagel choices tell you everything about them, and I was a plain bagel girl through and through. Even when faced with 20 extra minutes of hunger, I decided to leave the sweet bagels for the adventurous, the savory for the straightforward, and the “everything” for the indecisive. I came for plain bagels, and I would get them, no matter the wait.

After a long wait, the warmth of the freshly-baked plain bagels radiating through the paper bag assured me my patience was worth it. Being a plain bagel girl means knowing exactly what you want—no more, no less. It means that I’m in control of my decision-making and always end up satisfied.

In senior year, my teacher graciously brought bagels to our class. Upon approaching the bag, however, I found there were no plain bagels left. Instinctively, I retreated. But my teacher stopped me and advised that I break from my comfort zone. Reluctantly, I chose an egg bagel, preferring its odd yellow shade to the surrounding sweeter variety (who wants a french toast bagel anyway?). My first bite introduced me to a new world: this sweet and savory egg bagel flawlessly balanced the worlds of the adventurous and the straightforward.

My willingness to try an egg bagel didn’t lead to a phase of food experimentation, but it did make me see that I could be more spontaneous than my plain bagel self might allow.

Before high school, you could never spot me on a dance floor; I much preferred to watch from the audience. But in my freshman year, I joined the dance department of my school’s annual production of S!NG on a whim.

As soon as I tried the first move, I knew the decision was worth it. I enjoyed diligently practicing routines and adding my own flair, satisfying my tendency to prepare thoroughly while also fulfilling my desire to explore the realm of dance. Eventually, I excelled so much that the directors chose me as their successor—a position that has strengthened me as a dancer, leader, and person. Though I relished my newfound sense of spontaneity, my plain bagel girl roots helped me to effectively manage others’ dancing. I tirelessly choreographed and re-choreographed each step and count of a routine, no matter how long the detailed revisions took. During practices, I analyzed the dancers' movements and refined them to what could only be described as plain bagel perfection.

Sometimes the moments when I thought I needed to be in control to be successful were when I needed to be more spontaneous. In my first year being director, I was unfamiliar with managing a multitude of variously skilled dancers. Shedding my fear of being an inexperienced leader was difficult, but I soon learned to open myself to others’ advice about describing moves and maintaining the beat. Together, through sometimes spontaneous practice sessions and spurts of inspiration, we worked to adapt the choreography to accomodate all dancers.

I revel in the contradiction that is my simultaneous meticulousness and spontaneity: my egg bagel epiphany. I can count on myself to prepare thoroughly to optimize my potential, no matter how long it takes. But I can also trust myself to make the most of the unknown and stay true to myself while doing so. It’s what makes me multidimensional; it makes me a young woman no longer defined by her bagel choices but rather by her versatility and what she can do with it.

招生官点评：

一篇出色的个人陈述(personal statements)，应当巧妙融合别出心裁的创意与深刻的自我洞察。

Isabelle的文书就用一句话精准诠释了这一要点：“从人们对贝果(bagel)的口味偏好，就能看出他们的个性全貌，而我，就是那个钟情于原味贝果的女孩。”

她以贝果口味偏好来趣味性地映射性格，让读者轻松理解她对稳定感和掌控力的渴望。直到有一天，一个完美鸡蛋贝果的出现，挑战了她“原味贝果女孩”的固有标签，促使她重新审视是否要舍弃一直坚守的稳定，转而拥抱随性自在的生活态度。

她一时兴起加入了学校的舞蹈团，并从中找到了许多令人惊喜的新方式，学会适应并打破常规。后来，当她被任命为项目总监时，她运用从原味贝果中获得的顿悟，在追求完美主义的倾向与领导力所必需的适应性之间找到了平衡。

Isabelle的故事生动展现了她自我认知的不断深化，这无疑将极大地助力她实现自己的抱负。她以满腔热情书写，在平凡的事物中挖掘出深刻内涵。

“我愿把甜味贝果留给那些热爱冒险的人，咸味贝果留给性格直爽的人，而‘什锦味’贝果，就留给那些犹豫不决的人吧。” 她对这些意义的独特解读，让人感受到强烈的个人色彩，也为她的申请者形象增添了丰富的维度，这种魅力绝非成绩、考试分数和课外活动所能完全展现的。

以上便是整理的部分哈佛大学录取文书，完整版领取可+V：useful02