去哈佛还是去耶鲁？这样的“烦恼”，没几个孩子有机会面对。
这几天，17岁的华裔女孩萧靖彤(Cassandra Hsiao)却面临着非常艰难的抉择：哈佛大学、耶鲁大学、普林斯顿大学、哥伦比亚大学、宾夕法尼亚大学、布朗大学、康奈尔大学、达特茅斯学院共8所美国常青藤盟校，全部向她抛出橄榄枝！斯坦福大学、阿默斯特学院、约翰·霍普金斯大学、西北大学、南加州大学、纽约大学和2所加州大学系统(UC)的美国名校，也一起向她发出入学邀请！
这位华裔姑娘共申请了16所大学的写作或新闻类相关专业，百发百中，目前全部都被录取，很多学校更出奖学金“抢人”。真有种我们中国高考“状元”的既视感，哈哈！要知道，今年8所藤校的平均录取率只有8.05%，另外8所名校的竞争也都超级激烈。
要说妹子到底是有多优秀才能让这么多名校都争着要她啊？ >>>如何提升自己的软硬实力
萧靖彤(Cassandra Hsiao)是出生于马来西亚的华裔，她的“申请作文”(common app essay)以“移民家庭”学英语的生动故事打动了评委。她的父亲来自台湾，母亲则来自马来西亚，从小在美国生活学习英文发生了许多趣事，但也有不足对外人道的酸楚，她的经历让许多移民家庭感同身受。萧靖彤认为语言并非破碎的，而是带有一种情感，就像她与家人相濡以沫，彼此熟悉的口音一般。
让人惊喜的是，萧靖彤大方公开了自己的文书全文，快马上收藏学习吧！
Common App Essay By Cassandra Hsiao
In our house, English is not English. Not in the phonetic sense, like short a is for apple, but rather in the pronunciation – in our house, snake is snack. Words do not roll off our tongues correctly – yet I, who was pulled out of class to meet with language specialists, and my mother from Malaysia, who pronounces film as flim, understand each other perfectly.
In our house, there is no difference between cast and cash, which was why at a church retreat, people made fun of me for “cashing out demons.” I did not realize the glaring difference between the two Englishes until my teacher corrected my pronunciations of hammock, ladle, and siphon. Classmates laughed because I pronounce accept as except, success as sussess. I was in the Creative Writing conservatory, and yet words failed me when I needed them most.
Suddenly, understanding flower is flour wasn’t enough. I rejected the English that had never seemed broken before, a language that had raised me and taught me everything I knew. Everybody else’s parents spoke with accents smarting of Ph.D.s and university teaching positions. So why couldn’t mine?
My mother spread her sunbaked hands and said, “This is where I came from,” spinning a tale with the English she had taught herself.
When my mother moved from her village to a town in Malaysia, she had to learn a brand new language in middle school: English. In a time when humiliation was encouraged, my mother was defenseless against the cruel words spewing from the teacher, who criticized her paper in front of the class. When she began to cry, the class president stood up and said, “That’s enough.”
“Be like that class president,” my mother said with tears in her eyes. The class president took her under her wing and patiently mended my mother’s strands of language. “She stood up for the weak and used her words to fight back.”
We were both crying now. My mother asked me to teach her proper English so old white ladies at Target wouldn’t laugh at her pronunciation. It has not been easy. There is a measure of guilt when I sew her letters together. Long vowels, double consonants — I am still learning myself. Sometimes I let the brokenness slide to spare her pride but perhaps I have hurt her more to spare mine.
As my mother’s vocabulary began to grow, I mended my own English. Through performing poetry in front of 3000 at my school’s Season Finale event, interviewing people from all walks of life, and writing stories for the stage, I stand against ignorance and become a voice for the homeless, the refugees, the ignored. With my words I fight against jeers pelted at an old Asian street performer on a New York subway. My mother’s eyes are reflected in underprivileged ESL children who have so many stories to tell but do not know how. I fill them with words as they take needle and thread to make a tapestry.
In our house, there is beauty in the way we speak to each other. In our house, language is not broken but rather bursting with emotion. We have built a house out of words. There are friendly snakes in the cupboard and snacks in the tank. It is a crooked house. It is a little messy. But this is where we have made our home.
若你以为萧靖彤只是只靠着申请作文打动评委这么简单，那可就错了。 作为一名超级学霸，她的GPA高达4.67，新SAT考试也取得了1540(1600满分)的好成绩，平日保持学习热情才是她获得大学青睐的主因。
萧靖彤会尽可能的在课堂上或利用零碎时间完成作业，而多出的时间就能让自己做更多有兴趣或有意义的事情。她说：“无论是在课间休息或等公车的时候，我们手上的时间，都比自己相信的要多出很多。”如果我们不太在意自己花在生活中这每一天的时间，那么时间就会悄悄的从我们身边溜走。
除了精彩的文书，突出的学术成绩之外，妹子丰富而优秀的课外活动经历是她最大的亮点。想知道如何提升你的软实力吗?戳这里→线上首发！2017『新通留学新产品』来袭，起底名校录取大法！
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