“亲友或家人的离世”是ESSAY里面一种比较常见的话题写作，因为这样更容易展现作者丰富的个人情感，但缺点是太满而不能自拔。不管作者引用的事件是多么感人、重要也罢，对于招生官而言，无法从悲伤的情绪中捕捉不到“个人”是徒劳的。
这篇ESSAY不但大胆的挑战而且处理的非常好，作者将好友的离去转化为对医学研究这个很多人都梦寐以求的职业中的强大动力。利用个人陈述将作者自身与跟她有类似经历和想法的人瞬间区分开来，并且加大了行文的力度。
ESSAY以“死亡”为主题是很衙役的，但作者的聪明在于她仅仅把这部分作为一个背景材料。通过作者和好友并肩与死神抗衡，她终于明白医学是核心。
作者没有大篇幅的描写好友的性格或经历，而是重点描写自己的心路历程。文章最后作者成熟的表达了自己的人生目标。在文章末尾对科学的阐述一方面流露出了小女生的多愁善感，一方面展示了作者成熟的一面和学术的热情；二者兼顾。但是，行文语气瞬间转换是有一定风险的，需要有一个自然的又略带恐怖的过渡，逐渐佳境。
从简短的背景介绍到长篇作者对生物学热爱解释，不管是从文章内容还是写作方式有如行云流水般自然。唯一的缺憾就是文章内容较长，但鉴于文章逐字逐句都和深刻，所以篇幅并没有影响整体。但还是要警惕：ESSAY篇幅不宜过长，因为招生官的时间很有限。
—Anita Hofschneider
以上是招生官对该篇ESSAY的整体评价，全文译文见下文：
两个8岁女孩儿的世界是缤纷多彩的。记得童年时期常玩的游戏——过家家（House），游戏规则至少需要2名家庭成员。当1名女孩儿周末去马厩旅游时，总是会带着生命中最重要的东西同行。Michelle和我就是两个生长在同一壳里的2个豆豆。
得知Michelle得病的噩耗，我的条件反射就是带着我们的欢乐时光与她共同分享，就当做是在医院里给她的特别奖励了。仅凭3年级的彼此，现有的词汇量能够取代“sick”这种代表着普通感冒发烧的词汇已经不能进一步说明Michelle的病情了，要用一个新词“leu-ke-mi-a”（白血病）。当我意识到“白血病”与一般的疾病不同的时候，我们的游戏很快就玩完了。“House”里的我们常常要面对的是Michelle经常性的流鼻血，随后她就被送往斯坦福儿童医院进行治疗。但那时已经太晚了。
每一次我去看她，她的变化都很大。物理化疗使得她的身体越来越虚弱，最不忍心看的就是她那缠着干净发带用来做掩饰的头。曾经这么一位快乐的小天使，曾经那个让我一度以为是从童话世界里走出来的小公主，而如今竟然如此的陌生。我很困惑。心里有无数的疑问：为什么药物不能杀死潜藏在她血液内的病毒？为什么生病的不是我？为什么医生不能救活我最好的朋友？
甚至在我最后一次去探望她的时候，我还是不敢相信眼前发生的事实。似乎死亡只会刊登在我们每日必看的报纸头条上，让人觉得悲伤罢了。我还记得小时候我们对未来的规划：进同一所高中读书，将来有一天在同一个地段买房子。我还对她发誓，如果有一天她的头发重新长出来，我要跟她留一样的发型。但，我知道永远没有实现承诺的一天了。
Michelle很快就走了，但我和她之间的友谊让我更明白了时间的价值。高中阶段，我不断的提醒自己要参与各种体育锻炼，好好读书以及参与一些其它的娱乐活动，如：跳舞。尽管课余生活已经很丰富了，但我还是用有限的时间创造更多的机会，作出更多可能的事情。还记得到最后的阶段，我每次去看她都要承受着内心的种种煎熬：她不会好了。但她的笑容永远留在我的心中，而这也影响着我未来的人生以及面对生活道路的态度。
我明白我会碰到很多和Michelle处于同一境况的人们。我希望我的大学经历是为长远的以后做准备。除了扮演女友的角色，我要努力钻研生物科学打破现代医学的瓶颈。随着当今奇形怪状的疾病越来越多，科学的创新时代还远远未来。虽然现在还没有一种有效的根治Michelle病情的方法，但我们之间的友谊使我明白了在疾病面前心存希望并有效的缓解病痛的折磨一定有无数的方法。
送别Michelle那天，我的眼睛干干的，像丢了魂一样的站在她的亲朋好友面前念颂文。直到那一刻我还是很难接受这个残酷的事实。死亡以及其背后的谜团让我觉得毛骨悚然。在这以前，8岁的我觉得医院是个无比神奇的地方，所有病毒都会消失的无影无踪，但现在我知道医生不是万能的。在其背后，面对人们嘴里的“大病”“重病” 而言，医院唯一能做的就是在有限的时间里架起一座病人与亲友之间的桥梁。Michelle有我的陪伴但还是无法延长她的生命。而我明白唯一有效的办法就是启动身体自身的各个机能，这就是促使我对生物学感兴趣的原因所在：潜藏在生命现象中的各个机能。与Michelle并肩作战的我现在又有了新的角色扮演。社会上的爱心职业很多：医学、研究、新闻媒体，而我希望可以将自己的毕生倾注于生物学世界，拯救更多和Michelle一样的病人。
ESSAY原文赏析
(45)LISA YAO—“UNTITLED”
Eight-year-old girls are made in pairs. In a childhood game of “House,” it takes the bare minimum of two to script out a family. When one girl earns a weekend trip to the barn, she finds a way to bring her counterpart along. Michelle and I were two peas in a pod.
When Michelle got “sick,” my natural solution was to bring our playdates to her—even to the sterile confines of a hospital ward. In my third-grade vocabulary, “sick” encompassed anything from a cough to fevers to now the four-syllable condition, “leu-ke-mi-a.” As I soon discovered, however, leukemia did not follow the usual course of illnesses, and our games soon lost their boisterous appeal. “House” was reduced to board games when her nosebleeds became too frequent, and later to garden strolls on the roof of Stanford’s Children’s Hospital. But even those had to end.
Michelle changed with my every visit. Physically, chemotherapy depleted her body, and all I saw was the void on her head that had once been covered with neat braids. The happy girl who once drew me into a pretend world of princesses and royalty took on an unfamiliar lethargy. That confused me. How come medicine couldn’t kill the germs in her blood disease? Why wasn’t I getting sick? And why didn’t the doctors make my best friend better?
Even during my last visits, death still seemed like a sad story meant to exist only in the headlines of my morning newspaper. Our eyes were on the future as we made plans to go to the same high school and to one day buy houses on the same block. I vowed that when her hair grew back, we would even get matching haircuts. But I never had a chance to carry out my promise.
Michelle left much too soon, but my friendship with her shaped my view of time. I constantly remind myself of the transience of my high-school hours spent celebrating victorious sports games, studying for tests, and dancing to music. And yet, although ephemeral, my limited time still provides many opportunities to make enduring contributions. Ultimately, my visits to Michelle bore no healing power, but her fleeting smiles, forever preserved in my memories, were enough to influence the path that I would set for myself and the attitude with which I would face life.
I know that I will cross paths with many people in situations like Michelle’s; I look to my experience in college as a way to prepare for these greater responsibilities. Instead of playing the role of a girlfriend, I will strive to combat the limitations of modern medicine by delving into the biological sciences. With the complexity of today’s changing illnesses, the innovations in science cannot come fast enough. A cure may not yet exist for Michelle’s affliction, but my friendship with her has taught me that there are infinitely many ways to bring hope to the critically ill and to ease their suffering.
I remember standing stoic and dry-eyed as I delivered Michelle’s eulogy to somber pews of friends and relatives, unable to absorb the reality of losing a best friend. The thought of death and unsolvable mysteries still scares me. To an eight-year-old, hospitals seemed like a magical place where germs disappeared, but I now understand that doctors do not have all the solutions. Behind the scenes, hospitals are merely a joint effort by compassionate citizens using the means of the time to conquer big-worded diseases. Michelle found comfort in my companionship, but even that failed to prolong her body clock. The only way to keep a clock going is through an understanding of its function, and that is one thing that intrigues me about biology: the way it illuminates the underlying functions of life’s phenomena. Whereas I was bound to the sidelines during Michelle’s fight, there is a role I can play now. The opportunities to lend a hand are many, but whether through a career in medicine, research, or journalism, I hope to leave my fingerprint in the biological world and in the lives of the people I encounter.
COMMENTARY
The death of a friend or family member is a tempting subject for a personal statement, as it is an obvious source of rich emotion for a writer, but it can be difficult to pull off for these purposes. No matter how meaningful the event is to the applicant, admissions officers—who use the personal statements to learn more about the individual—may not be able to glean any more from grief-ridden essays than that emotion.
This essay takes this challenge and handles it well, turning a story about the passing of a dear childhood friend into a way to explain the applicant’s motivation for studying medicine, a career path to which many applicants aspire. Using the personal statement to differentiate herself from others with similar academic and career goals is wise, especially given that the essay is effective.
The essay’s subject of death is compelling, and it works best because it serves only as a backdrop to the story of the applicant herself—the applicant’s struggle with death and her discovery of medicine as a life ambition is the central message that is conveyed.
The writer does not spend too much time describing her friend’s personality or experiences, instead focusing on her own experiences, struggles, and growth, and the conclusions she draws indicate an admirable level of maturity and commitment to her goals. The discussion of science in the latter part of the essay also helps balance the sentimentality of a child’s grief, and it helps achieve a detachment that further indicates maturity and gives important insight into the applicant’s academic passions. However, there is always a danger in changing tone too drastically, and the applicant toes the line between a smooth and an awkward transition.
From the short introduction that aptly sets the scene, to the long conclusion that explains the applicant’s love for biology, the essay has a smooth flow that comes from its consistency of content and writing style. One criticism might be that the essay runs a little long, but because each sentence is thoughtful and thought-provoking, the length does not detract too much from the whole. That said, adhering to word limits is important, as admissions officers have limited time.
—Anita Hofschneider
参考资料：
50 Successful Harvard Application Essays third Edition
