在不同的時間點上，你會長得不一樣、會跟不同人要好、忙於不同事物、做不同的夢、採不同的待人處事之道。然而，能夠點出自己在不同時間的不同之處，即是敘述自己的成長之路，正是各大學想見的，成熟的同學所擁有的「自知之明」。
If you were to gather snapshots of yourself at different points in time, no snapshot would be the same. You might be hanging out with different people. You would be preoccupied with a different set of concerns. You might be dreaming different daydreams. Just two cross-sections of yourself at different times are enough to make the backbone of an essay.
When faced with applicants of otherwise equal qualifications, colleges use personal statements—which showcase your values, insight, emotional maturity—as a tiebreaker. Your essays will tell admissions officers what matters to you, why they matter to you, and what kind of friend you would be to a fellow classmate.
當招生官看到學術背景與條件相仿的同學，他們會以你自傳中所表達的價值觀、洞察力、成熟度來做出決選。也就是說，你必須好好思考並表達：什麼事物對你來說是最重要的？為什麼重要？你想給你未來的同學當個什麼樣的朋友呢？
When faced with applicants of otherwise equal qualifications, colleges use personal statements—which showcase your values, insight, emotional maturity—as a tiebreaker. Your essays will tell admissions officers what matters to you, why they matter to you, and what kind of friend you would be to a fellow classmate.
When I decided to major in Cognitive Systems at University of British Columbia, I was baffled by how this intensely multidisciplinary program could encompass seemingly disparate fields from computer science to psychology to linguistics. It was only in my fifth year that I was able to start drawing pathways connecting these nodes which I had thought were wildly different. Like filling in a blank map, I realized that with every experience, good and bad, I was coming to a greater understanding of my mind and my soul—I was charting the atlas of my heart…
Everyone obsesses over college rankings, and they’re the reason I ended up transferring from UC Irvine to UCLA. After I transferred, however, I realized that I had left something precious behind, something even more important than number rankings, something that I had first discovered when I was at Irvine and would never be able to find again anywhere else even if I started freshman year all over again…
If you look at the Wiki page for Edward Blum (pronounced bloom), you will see that next to his name is the word “litigant” in parentheses, indicating that his defining trait is that he participates in a lot of lawsuits.
Winning is everything. Maybe that sounds egocentric, but is wanting your team to be able to celebrate a victory really all that selfish?
How many minorities does it take to achieve school diversity?
With affirmative action likely to be obliterated next summer, emotions are running pretty high, with some celebrating the end of what seemed like an unfairly discriminatory measure that punished certain people (Asians) for their success and others lamenting that the loss of diversity would be a devastating blow to students of all races.
Everyone obsesses over college rankings, and they’re the reason I ended up transferring from UC Irvine to UCLA. After I transferred, however, I realized that I had left something precious behind, something even more important than number rankings, something that I had first discovered when I was at Irvine and would never be able to find again anywhere else even if I started freshman year all over again…
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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence: this is Hanlon’s razor. Add this to your inventory. Level it up. Master it.
You don’t need to shave to understand how a good shave and a good social life ain’t so different. Both are all about “saving face”, each requiring both steady nerves and a clear view or reflection of the situation. College is full of “situations”...