解析【纽约时报】推出的大学申请文书

究竟要怎样才能写出富有深度且深受招生官喜爱的优秀文书呢？这篇文章将结合今年《纽约时报》挑选并刊登的4篇关于工作、金钱和阶级的美国大学优秀申请文书，每篇文章都有深入分析和建议。

希望这篇文章可以给大家的美本申请一些新的准备思路和角度。

作者： Jonathan Ababiy

高中： Blaine High School

目标院校: The University of Minnesota

原文（中英对照）

At age 6, I remember the light fille openness of the house, how the whir of my mother’s vacuum floate from room to room. At 9, I remember how I use to lounge on the couch an watch Disney cartoons on the sieways refrigerator of a TV implante in a small cave in the wall. At 12, I remember family photographs of the Spanish countrysie hanging in every room. At 14, I remember vacuuming each foot of carpet in the massive house an foling pastel shirts fresh out of the ryer.

在我六岁的时候，我记得光洒满了整间屋子，也记得那时母亲那吸尘器的呼呼声是怎样在所有房间之间回荡。在我九岁时，我记得我经常懒洋洋的躺在睡椅上，看迪士尼卡通片，电视机有过道内的冰柜那么大，放在墙上的一个山洞大小的内嵌空间里。我还记得，12岁时，每一个房间都挂满了西班牙乡村度假的家庭照片。我也记得，14岁时，我在偌大的房子里一点点地给地毯除尘，折叠刚刚烘干的色彩柔和的衬衫。

I love the house. I love the way the winows soake the house with light, a sort of bleach against any gloom. I love how I coul always fin a book or magazine on any flat surface.

我爱这栋房子。我喜欢阳光透过窗户倾洒进来的样子，仿佛可以扫清所有愁云。我喜欢自己总是可以在任何一个平面上找到一本书或杂志。

But the vacuum my mother use wasn’t ours. We never pai for cable. The photographs weren’t of my family. The carpet I vacuume I only saw once a week, an the pastel shirts I fole I never wore. The house wasn’t mine. My mother was only the cleaning lay, an I helpe.

但是母亲用的那台吸尘器并不是我们的。我们也从来没有付过有线电视费。照片拍的也不是我们家。我一周只能见到一次自己清理的地毯，我从未穿过自己折叠的色彩柔和的衬衫。那栋房子不是我们的。我母亲只是清洁工，而我时不时会帮忙。

My mother an father ha come as refugees almost twenty years ago from the country of Molova. My mother worke numerous o jobs, but once I was born she ecie she neee to o something ifferent. She put an a in the paper avertising house cleaning, an a couple, both professors, answere. They became her first client, an their house became the berock of our sustenance. Economic recessions came an went, but my mother returne every Monay, Friay an occasional Sunay.

在大约20年前，我父母以难民的身份从家乡摩尔多瓦来到美国。我母亲做着大量的零工，但是我一出生，她认为自己需要做些不一样的工作。她在报纸上刊登了一份提供房屋保洁服务的广告，然后一对教授夫妻联系了我们。他们是母亲的第一个客户，他们的房子也成为了我们生存来源的基础。经济衰退来了又去，但我母亲每逢周一和周五都要回到那里，有时周日也过去。

She spens her ays in teal latex gloves, guiing a blue Hoover vacuum over what seems like miles of carpet. All the mirrors she’s cleane coul probably stack up to be a minor Philip Johnson skyscraper. This isn’t new for her. The vacuums an the gloves might be, but the work isn’t. In Molova, her family grew gherkins an tomatoes. She spent countless hours kneeling in the irt, growing her vegetables with the care that professors avise their protégés, with kinness an proactivity. Toay, the fruits of her labor have been replace with the suction of her vacuum.

她整日戴着天青色的乳胶手套，操着蓝色的胡佛(Hoover)吸尘器，给仿佛有几英里长的地毯除尘。她擦过的所有镜子没准可以堆叠成那种由菲利普·约翰逊(Philip Johnson)打造的亮闪闪的摩天大楼。对她来说这并不新鲜。吸尘器和手套对她来说或许很新奇，但这份工作却绝非如此。在摩尔多瓦，她的家族种植黄瓜和西红柿。她花无数个小时跪在泥土里，以教授指导学生的用心程度、以仁慈和积极主动的态度侍弄她的蔬菜。现在，她劳作的蔬果被吸尘器取而代之。

The professors’ home was a telescope to how the other (more affluent) half live. They were rarely ever home, so I saw their remnants: the lightly crinkle New York Times sprawle on the kitchen table, the overturne, half-opene books in their overflowing personal library, the TV consistently left on the National Geographic channel. I took these remnants as a celebrity-enorse path to prosperity. I began to check out books from the school library an starte reaing the news religiously.

教授的房子是我窥视这个社会中另一部分人是如何生活的窗口。 他们几乎不在家，所以我能看见他们生活的痕迹：厨房餐桌上摊着略微皱起的纽约时报，在他们满当当的私人图书馆里覆在地面上半合半开的书籍，一直停留在国家地理频道的电视机。我把这些痕迹当做有名人代言的通往富足之路。我开始从学校图书馆翻阅书籍，也开始虔诚的收看新闻。

点评

从一开始，Jonathan的写作风格就会让你提出更多的问题：起初，他似乎在形象地描述自己的家。当你意识到他是在谈论他母亲为生计而打扫的房子时，这种叙述的转变会非常有力: 它会挑战你作为一名读者的设想。

更重要的是，这并不是一个简单的白手起家或者战胜逆境的故事: 作为一个移民的儿子，他设法应对困难的情况，对阶级差异作出了更大的评论。 他对语言的运用，以及他对自身阶级地位的哲学性反思，将这篇文章的立意从“我很贫穷” 提高到了 “我与众不同的经历成就了现在的我”。 他通过展示他如何受益于在这些教授家中的经历而进一步加强了这层联系。

不过，应该说Jonathan的文章很棘手。找到一篇可怜的孩子在父母的刻苦努力下克服困难的文章很容易；除了他追随他努力工作的母亲，这篇文章主要的缺点是他并没有展示出很多他自己的个性。他可以通过更多地提及他所描述的经历对他作为一个人的影响，对他行为的改变，而不是仅仅描述他从中获得的灵感来进一步改善他的文章。

作者： Caitlin McCormick

高中： The Gregory School

目标院校: Barnar College

原文（中英对照）

When it comes to service workers, as a society we completely isregar the manners instille in us as tolers.

当我们提到服务人员的时候，作为一个社会人，我们完全抛弃了年幼时被灌输的礼仪。

For seventeen years, I have awoken to those workers, to clinking silverware rolle in cloth an porcelain plates remove from the oven in preparation for breakfast service. I memorize the geometry of place mats sli on metal trays, coffee cups turne ownwar, irtie cloth napkins ispose on ining tables.

17年来，我一醒来就会注意到这样的服务人员，注意到准备供应早餐期间裹在餐布里的叮当作响的餐具，以及从烤箱中取出的瓷盘。我会记得餐具垫被放在金属托盘里的形状、咖啡杯被倒扣以及弄脏了的布餐巾被撂在餐桌上的样子。

I knew never to wear pajamas outsie in the public courtyar, an years of shushing from my mother informe me not to speak louly in front of a guest room winow. I grew up in the swale cacophony of morning chatter between tourists, professors, an vieographers. I grew up conitione in excessive politeness, fitte for making small talk with strangers.

我知道永远不要穿着睡衣走到外边的公共庭院里；我母亲年复一年发出的嘘声让我明白，不能在客房的窗前大声说话。我成长于游客、教授和摄像师晨间压低声音闲聊的嘈杂声中。在长大成人的过程中，我习惯了那种适用于与陌生人寒暄的过度礼貌。

I grew up in a be an breakfast, in the sticky thickness of the hospitality inustry. An for a very long time I hate it.

我是在一个提供住宿和早餐的客栈里，在有着厚重的酒店业氛围的环境里长大的。有很长一段时间我对此颇为憎恶。

I was late to my own fifth birthay party in the park because a guest arrive five hours late without apology. Following a weeklong stay in which someone specially requeste her room be cleane twice a ay, not once i she leave a tip for housekeeping. Small-business scammers came for a stop at the inn several times. Guests staine sheets, clogge toilets, locke themselves out of their rooms, an then emane a iscount.

就因为一位客人不怀歉意地迟到了5个小时，我参加自己在花园举办的15岁生日派对也晚到了。某个人住店一周，专门要求其房间每天打扫两次，却没有留过一次整理房间的小费。诈骗小企业的人光顾过几回。客人把床单弄脏，把厕所弄堵，把自己锁在房间外，然后要求打折。

There exists between service workers an their customers an inherent imbalance of power: We meet sneers with apologies. At the en of their meal, or stay, or rink, we let patrons etermine how much effort their server put into their job.

服务业从业者和客人之间存在天然的权力失衡： 我们用道歉应对冷嘲热讽。我们让顾客在他们吃喝住宿之后自行决定，服务人员在提供服务上有多用心。

For most of my life I believe my parents were intense masochists for evoting their existences to the least thankful business I know: the very business that taught me how to iscern imbalances of power. Soon I recognize this stem of injustice in all sorts of everyay interactions. I came to unerstan how latent racism, sexism, classism an ableism structure our society — how tipping was only a synonym for “microaggression.”

在生命的大部分时间里，我都觉得我父母是极端的受虐狂，他们把自己的一生献给了我所知的最不讨好的行当：即教会我如何辨别权力失衡的行当。很快，我就在各种日常交往中注意到这种不公平。我开始明白，潜在的种族主义、性别歧视、阶级歧视和残障歧视如何充斥我们的社会——给小费如何只是“微歧视”的一个同义词。

I became passionate. Sometimes enrage. I stumble upon nonprofits, founations, an political campaigns. I canvasse for Senate caniates, phone-banke for grass-roots action groups, serve as a boar member for the Women’s Founation of Southern Arizona, reviewe grant applications for nonprofits an organize events for the nearby chilren’s hospital.

我变得狂热起来。 有时还很愤怒。因为偶然的机缘，我加入了非营利组织、基金会和政治运动。我给参议员候选人拉票，给草根行动团体接听电话，担任南亚利桑那州女性基金会(Women’s Founation of Southern Arizona)的董事会成员，审核非营利组织的经费申请，还为附近的儿童医院组织活动。

I evote my time to the raw grit of helping people, an in the process I fell irrevocably in love with a new type of service: public service. At the same time, I worke minight Black Friay retail shifts an scrape vomit off linoleum. When I brought home my first W-2, I ha never seen my parents so prou.

我把自己的时间投入到帮助别人的历练之中，在这个过程中，我义无反顾地爱上了一种新型的服务：公共服务。与此同时，我也做着黑色星期五的夜班零售工作，清理油毡毯上的呕吐物。当我把自己的第一份工资单拿回家时，从没见父母那么自豪过。

The truth, I recently learne, was that not all service is create equal. Seeing guests scream at my parents over a late airport taxi still sickens me even as I spen hours a week as a volunteer. But I was taught all work is noble, especially the work we o for others.Slowly, my mother’s gingham apron began to look more like metal armor.I learne how to worship my parents’ gift for attentive listening, easily hearing the things guests were incapable of asking for — not sugar with their tea, but someboy to talk with while they waite for a conference call. I envie their ability to wear the role of self-assure host like a secon skin, capable of tolerating any type of cruelty with a smile.

我最近发现的事实是，并非所有的服务都是天生平等的。 看到客人因为接机出租车迟到而对我的父母大叫大嚷，仍然让我感到厌恶，尽管我每周也会花数小时时间做志愿者。但我从中学到的是，所有的工作都是高贵的，尤其是我们为他人做的工作。慢慢地，我母亲的格子布围裙看起来也更像金属盔甲了。我知道了如何欣赏父母细心倾听的天赋，他们很容易就能明白客人没有准确提出的要求——不是给他们的茶里加糖，而是在他们等待一个电话会议时能有人跟他们聊天。我羡慕他们能那么自然地扮演胸有成竹的东道主角色，能带着微笑忍受各种恶言。

Most of all, I amire my parents’ continuous trust in humanity to not abuse their help. I realize that learning to serve people looks a lot like learning to trust them.

最重要的是，我钦佩父母一直相信人性，相信人们不会对不起他们提供的帮助。我意识到，学习给人们提供服务和学会相信他们极其相似。

点评

在Caitlin的文章中，她通过敏感的细节描写叙述了她在酒店服务客人时所遇到的困难，以及她的父母有时不得不忍受的虐待，从而将她自己置于故事的中心。她强调 “工作是高尚的” 的主题，并且使用她母亲的围裙变成盔甲的隐喻来进一步强调她的观点。

我认为她文章真正成功的地方在于她对体系中的不平等、种族歧视、性别歧视和其他社会问题的描述和认识。 她不仅展现出她对这些问题做了功课，而且还把这些问题与自己的生活联系起来，接着描述了她是如何成为一名志愿者、公共服务人员和积极分子来反抗这些问题的。虽然目前这些话题颇为盛行，但是她做得很好，非常有说服力。

矛盾的是，我认为这篇文章成也萧何，败也萧何： 她过于强调她父母在业务成长过程中所遇到的负面经历，似乎每一个他们遇到的客人都是糟糕的。 诚然，这似乎是一个她为了凸显她后来提出的不平等问题而精心编制的亮点。但是，将她圣贤像的父母和一群糟糕的人放在一起对比似乎有些不和谐。我通常建议学生不要过多地提及他们的父母，因为那样的文章通常会变成一个关于父母的故事，而不是一个关于学生的故事。

以上就是本期金吉列留学南京美国部老师为大家整理的内容，希望可以帮到大家，如有任何问题欢迎大家和我咨询哦~