“老師，我考試成績出來了，GPA也出來了，怎樣能最后提升一下?”“用文書做補充提升。”“老師，我的硬成績不理想，但是已經(jīng)定型了，怎么辦?”“用文書做補救性的展現(xiàn)。”到了申請季，文書仿佛成了萬金油、大還丹。那么如何寫出一封真正的好文書呢?
Personal Statement
Motivation
My friends were shocked, when they learned I was determined to give up the high-paid, decent job as a Chief Instructor in New Oriental (a New York Stock listed company) and as the Shanghai Branch Manager of the ETS TOEFL Junior China Management Center to pursue graduate study in public policy in the US. But to me, this decision has been a hard-earned, long-cherished answer in my heart. Should I continue my teaching career, I could enlighten hundreds of students per year, helping them master the English language skills and secure a promising future. However, when I guided the high school students in China on their SAT and TOEFL preparation, I was thinking maybe one day they could receive the best education here in China; when I visited and raised books for children in the most impoverished counties in rural China, the earnest for knowledge I read from the local children’s eyes drove me to seek more educational resources and effective and equitable educational policies. With five-year working experience as an educator, I gradually find my inner voice: a meaningful purpose of my life is to make a difference of the educational system in China, structurally and revolutionarily, to increase the educational quality and equity here.
Background
At the initial stage of the implementation of China’s reform and opening-up policy, I was born into a family where many generations have been senior Chinese intellectuals and actively involved in the educational arena. The most noteworthy and most influential on my growth is my grandfather, who is an old-generation Chinese mathematician and have been teaching mathematics for decades. Therefore, on the one hand, I have been witnessing China’s rapid economic growth and social progress coupled with its asymmetric political and educational system reform; on the other hand, I had the opportunity to be greatly inspired and motivated by my parents and grandparents, all of whom have been involved in teaching for decades and have trained hundreds of students to become the elite of many professionals.
Experience
Under familial influence and out of my passion for English, upon graduation from college in 2007, I started my career as an English teacher in Only Education and later in New Oriental Group. My previous working experience and outstanding performance in the most influential educational organizations in China, focusing on English training to high school and college students, earned me the opportunity to stand out and speak loud. Rather than following the spoon-feed pedagogy, I introduced innovative approaches to inspire students to think, learn, and apply. I brought forward the suggestions that experienced foreign teachers should be invited to teach students social study, literature and history to make up for students’ common weakness in humanistic disciplines and to make them more rounded. I also came up with many new ideas to improve students’ learning ability, such as the measure of combining study sessions and psychological counseling sessions together. My teaching capacity, English language proficiency and strong communication skills allowed me to help 50,000 students by far make significant progress in English learning. The intensive teaching practice, in the meantime, exposes me to the deplorable fact: Chinese students had been trained mechanically who might get a top score but possess little practical ability, caused by the historical and long-entrenched test-oriented system. It drove me to dedicate my life-long career to improve this situation and contribute to the formulating process of China’s education policy and reform.
This aspiration is reinforced as I witnessed the prevalent educational inequity between rural and urban areas in China. In early 2011, noticing that there were many talented kids were cheated out of education opportunities by poverty in rural areas in Hunan Province, I initiated the “Passing Thoughts”, a book-raising campaign aimed to provide teaching support for the local primary schools. The needs for books, stationeries, teaching facilities, are huge and could not be met by individual efforts. I need to seek more positive influence from the society and help more poor children. Realizing the importance of reaching out, I shared my idea and teamed up with my friends, some of whom are famous educators in China and even the world. We leveraged our social network and sought external supports from educational training organizations, publishing companies, NPOs, and enterprises both home and abroad. In addition to the direct approach, I started threads through influential social networking service web sites such as facebook, tweeter, renren.com, etc. I also liaised with the local media to expand this event and successfully bring in significant social attention. Out of our multifold endeavors, we managed to secure 1,800+ books, 30+ chairs, 2 Ping-Pong tables, and a great number of stationeries for two local schools within two months. Now we’re trying to extend the influence of this campaign to more rural areas in West China, striving for more education opportunities for the underprivileged kids.
Goals
Reflecting on President Kennedy’s exhortation that 'Ask not what your country can do for you –ask what you can do for your country', I find it imperative for me to plunge into a career of advancing the education policy for my country. My professional goal is to work in governmental sectors as an education policy maker in China. I aspire to make positive social changes in the realm of education, ameliorating the educational system reform and facilitating the educational equity of the nation.
To achieve my goal, the analytic framework and practical skills in public service are indispensable. I therefore aspire to pursue the Master of Public Policy (MPP) program at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), through which I will gain systematic knowledge and real-world insights on public policy analysis and policy making process. I plan to concentrate on the Social and Urban Policy and probe into the study of educational policy. I will also take advantage of the experiential learning in the Policy Analysis Exercise and research opportunity at HKS. I believe the rewarding study in the MPP program at HKS will provide me the most ideal platform to become a public leader and reshape the education system in China in the future.
《留學》雜志明星顧問胡元平老師點評
首先，這是一篇非常完整的申請文書，包涵了學校希望申請者在personal statement(個人陳述)里提供的幾大要素：申請的項目及具體方向，相關(guān)背景和經(jīng)歷以及職業(yè)規(guī)劃。其次，申請者本身在教育行業(yè)的工作經(jīng)歷和想要申請項目有合理的邏輯和比較強的關(guān)聯(lián)度，這是申請者背景中一個很大的優(yōu)勢。這一優(yōu)勢在文書中得到了充分的體現(xiàn)，整體的素材都是圍繞著Education(教育)這一個主旨展開，結(jié)構(gòu)清晰明了，可以讓招生官迅速準確地抓住最關(guān)鍵的信息。美國的研究生項目通常需要學生在一個大框架下選擇一個方向，所以明確地表達自己的專業(yè)興趣是招生官非常愿意看到的文書內(nèi)容，也是很多MPA和MPP院校明確要求申請者在文書中陳述的。再次，申請者作為一名資深的TOEFL老師，語言上自然是沒得說。讀起來順暢自然，也很有節(jié)奏感。尤其值得一提的是多樣化的句式和地道的用詞。敘述和描寫相結(jié)合，在效果上遠遠優(yōu)于通篇都是I開頭的文書。當然，這篇PS也還有一些可以改進的地方。第一，最好不用小標題的格式，而是重新安排段落或者增加過渡句來自然體現(xiàn)行文的邏輯。第二，最后一段可以再詳細寫一下為什么想要申請Harvard。美國學校的申請作為一個雙向選擇的過程，招生官也是非常看重申請者對于項目的了解和期待。
《留學》雜志明星顧問陳永江老師點評
整片文章由于篇幅較長，有1000words(單詞)，為了保證文章的可讀性，我們采用了分標題的方式，使得讀者可以非?？焖俚孬@得相應的信息。文章的鋪陳方式是非常直接、樸實、坦誠的。申請者把自己的工作、家庭背景、教育相關(guān)的經(jīng)歷有機地鋪陳開來，通過這些經(jīng)歷，反映申請者對教育公平性這一社會問題的思考以及所做出的努力。此外，除了介紹自己的教學方面的工作經(jīng)歷，申請者還把自己建立非營利組織為山里的孩子籌集書籍的經(jīng)歷進行詳細地闡述，充分體現(xiàn)了她身上有public leader(社會領袖)所具備的潛質(zhì)，最終被哈佛大學肯尼迪政府學院的公共政策專業(yè)(碩士)錄取。
《留學》雜志明星顧問柴麗盎老師點評
本篇個人陳述從最重要的申請理由、背景、經(jīng)歷和申請目標四個方面展開了一系列的詳細闡述。四個部分銜接性很好，整篇文章連貫性很強，給人以一種比較強的整體感。第一段著重介紹了個人申請的理由。開頭引人入勝，突出了自己出國留學的決定并且用后面讓步和轉(zhuǎn)折性的兩句話從側(cè)面佐證了決定的合理性。接著，作者結(jié)合了自己的實際工作經(jīng)驗，從比較大的立意角度詳細說明了個人留學申請的原因。第二段主要描述了個人的家庭背景，出生在教育世家使得作者從小耳濡目染，為下面和教育相關(guān)的工作經(jīng)歷做了很好的鋪墊。如果這部分再加上個人詳細的學術(shù)背景，可能效果會更好，因為在留學的個人陳述中學術(shù)背景是學校評估學生的一個重要環(huán)節(jié)。第三段分兩部分詳細說明了個人的工作經(jīng)歷，這也是申請學校時最有說服力和展現(xiàn)出自己閃光點的地方。
第一部分按照遞進的方式對工作經(jīng)歷進行了介紹并指出了當前中國教育存在的問題。首先介紹了自己擁有一個較高的工作平臺，并且在教育領域有著出色的工作能力和突出表現(xiàn)。然后，指出了在工作過程中發(fā)現(xiàn)中國當前教育體制存在的一些缺陷和不足—應試教育導致許多高分低能的學生。第二部分指出了中國教育存在的另外一個明顯缺陷—教育資源分布不均。同時，也詳細介紹了作者對此所做出的實際努力和表現(xiàn)。這就使得自己的申請理由更加充分，申請陳述對學校來說有了更加切實的說服力。此段兩個部分最后都暗示了作者肩負的責任感和發(fā)展方向。最后一部分講了留學的目標。開頭就引用了美國前總統(tǒng)肯尼迪的名言，豐富了語言和文章內(nèi)容，也合理引出了自己所要努力的目標—為中國的教育體制改革做出應有的努力和貢獻。提出目標后，作者緊接著又描述了自己將要在美國所學的具體的實踐性課程，然后用這些課程所學到的知識為本段開頭所提出的具體目標服務。整篇文章結(jié)構(gòu)非常嚴謹，各個段落間連貫性很強，重點突出且相互關(guān)聯(lián)，承接自然。語言比較生動，用詞準確，多使用正式的書面語詞匯，如ameliorate, exhortation等。作者還運用了定語從句、狀語從句、分詞短語等一系列句式結(jié)構(gòu)，用詞準確，句式多樣，行文流暢，表達地道?？傮w來說，這是一篇文字優(yōu)美，內(nèi)容充實，思路清晰，結(jié)構(gòu)嚴謹且極具說服力的個人陳述。
《留學》非盈利推薦
胡元平
本科畢業(yè)于浙江大學新聞系，研究生畢業(yè)于美國密歇根州立大學公共關(guān)系專業(yè)。加入北京新東方前途以來，一直擔任美研二部咨詢顧問一職，積累了豐富的文書和網(wǎng)申經(jīng)驗。“幫助每一個學生認識自己，了解自己并且成就自己，是我的責任，也是我工作中滿足感的來源。”
陳永江
金東方留學文書部經(jīng)理，金牌文書寫作專家，專業(yè)從事美國、英國、加拿大、香港等大學的留學和訪學文書寫作達5年，幫助數(shù)百位客戶成功申請到理想的院校，包括哈佛大學、哥倫比亞大學、牛津大學、華盛頓大學圣路易斯、康奈爾大學、喬治城大學、威廉瑪麗學院等世界級名校。專注于美國本科和研究生高端文書寫作，曾幫助多名學生拿下哈佛大學、斯坦福大學、普林斯頓大學等Top10綜合類大學及安默斯特學院、明德學院等多所頂級文理學院的本科新生或轉(zhuǎn)學錄取錄取通知。創(chuàng)下的成績包括幫助無GRE成績、雅思6.5的一所工科學校英語系學生拿到南加州大學的錄取;GPA沒上2.9、排名較靠后的三本院校學生拿到了商學院排名37的德州大學達拉斯校區(qū)商學院的錄取通知等等。
柴麗盎
環(huán)球北美考試院北美考試院銷售部課程顧問。麻辣爽快的85后北京妞，擅于為學生制定詳細的備考和申請時間規(guī)劃，迅速在學員和家長心目中積累起良好口碑。在問及客戶為何如此信任她的秘訣時，她說，其實很簡單，時刻保持一顆同理心，“我總在思考，如果我是客戶，我有什么需求。”