I am writing to apply for the MSc Accounting & Finance with the aim of specializing in corporate finance management and development strategy analysis based on financial accounting.
My interest in pursuing a specialization in accounting and finance stemmed from the special business operations experience in my childhood. My uncle is a self-employed businessman who used to own a small grocery. He always involved me in his business operations when I was left home while my parents had to go out for work. I was therefore exposed to the estimation of purchasing amount, revenue and profit calculation, sales promotion design, etc. much earlier than many of my peers did. The small grocery had been closed down shortly afterwards due to poor financial management, which deeply impressed me with the importance of financial management no matter whether in an international corporate or even in a small local grocery.
PS 要简洁,避免和教授拉家常。例如我爸妈有无工作,我在什么情况下去 uncle 店里帮忙这些旁枝末节就不需要了,直接说 I often help out at the grocery 就可以,爸妈有无工作教授才不想知道,这对了解你的能力又没帮助。
问题2:副词多得发虚
deeply impressed me 究竟有多 deep,是怎样 deep 法; the importance of financial management 究竟有多 important,是怎样 important 法;我是如何认识这个 deep 的,我是如何理解这个 importance 的,这些才是体现我的独特之处的关键点。
我是怎么从 a small local grocery 联系到 an international corporate 的?以小见大是可以狠加分、狠体现深度的点,但关键要讲清楚这联系是如何建立的。教授看了会觉得,我自己也知道这两者其实是一个道理,但问题是你要跟我说你是怎样以小见到大的,也就是里面的逻辑推理,里面的argument,才能体现出你的实力。
When a beam of light spent its rays on the stage with humorist costume and exaggerated acting, the drama of the Ugly Duckling was on show. I succeeded in my efforts to deliver the sense of desperation and hopelessness of the ugly duckling, the one that lacked respect and was pushed aside by others. I was able to “act” the part because I profoundly understand how a real ugly duckling survives in the real world. Today I can readily find the trace of ugly duckling in the migrant workers from country villages who have undergone an identity crisis in a metropolitan city,
My grasp in xx skills in my bachelor phase reinforces my desire for more specialized skills and insights in financial sectors.
My bachelor study in CPA at xx university involved me in taking a myriad of subjects from Finance Principles, Mathematics and Statistics to Investment, Economy and Law. In brief, my undergraduate studies resembled the rigorous Asian-style professional education, albeit with a more comprehensive focus on the global economic and financial topics.
I even had the opportunity to expand upon my academic interests by writing a research paper on the management-accounting Informationization of Internet-dependent Enterprises in the “Internet Plus” Era.
The diversified modules gave me a sound understanding of essential financial concepts that continue to shape economic, social, political and technological phenomena throughout the world.
这段是主人公在分享自己的求学经历。
主人公罗列了自己的专业内上的核心课程、强调自己接受的是 Asian-style 和 global focus 结合、写了一篇名儿长长牛逼哄哄的论文。
然后总结说自己获得了 a sound understanding of essential financial concepts。
然而,机械地罗列课程和论文并只能让教授“麻木不仁”。教授会问:“好了,我知道你学了这些,让然后呢?你的 a sound understanding 究竟有是什么具体论点?是有多 sound?泛泛而谈的结果就是只让人看到些 global economic & financial、Investment 等大词,但他们是脱节的毫无生气的......
其实教授们真正想要看到的是你学了这些课、写了这论文后具体有什么深邃思考和观点!
接下来我们再来看个范例,来自一位硅谷大牛 —— Peter Thiel,前 Paypal 的创始人,斯坦福毕业。我们来看这样一位在美国精英体制里被教育出来的科技界大佬是怎样讲故事的,正是剑指名校的同学所要借鉴学习的。
这篇文章叫,自由主义者的教育(The Education of a Libertarian),作者结合个人经历讲述对自由主义的理解 —— 其实可以作为一篇申请文书的完美范例。
I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good. I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. For all these reasons, I still call myself “libertarian.
” 开门见山、直接点题——我是一枚 libertarian,伴以细节支撑:坚决反对 confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and 个人的死亡,有血有肉的具体。接下来开始讲述个人故事来引出“我”的具体理解。
But I must confess that over the last two decades, I have changed radically on the question of how to achieve these goals. Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible. By tracing out the development of my thinking, I hope to frame some of the challenges faced by all classical liberals today.
As a Stanford undergraduate studying philosophy in the late 1980s, I naturally was drawn to the give-and-take of debate and the desire to bring about freedom through political means. I started a student newspaper to challenge the prevailing campus orthodoxies; we scored some limited victories, most notably in undoing speech codes instituted by the university. But in a broader sense we did not achieve all that much for all the effort expended…
As a young lawyer and trader in Manhattan in the 1990s, I began to understand why so many become disillusioned after college. The world appears too big a place. Rather than fight the relentless indifference of the universe, many of my saner peers retreated to tending their small gardens. The higher one’s IQ, the more pessimistic one became about free-market politics — capitalism simply is not that popular with the crowd. Among the smartest conservatives, this pessimism often manifested in heroic drinking; the smartest libertarians, by contrast, had fewer hang-ups about positive law and escaped not only to alcohol but beyond it.
As one fast-forwards to 2009, the prospects for a libertarian politics appear grim indeed. Exhibit A is a financial crisis caused by too much debt and leverage, facilitated by a government that insured against all sorts of moral hazards — and we know that the response to this crisis involves way more debt and leverage, and way more government. Those who have argued for free markets have been screaming into a hurricane. The events of recent months shatter any remaining hopes of politically minded libertarians. For those of us who are libertarian in 2009, our education culminates with the knowledge that the broader education of the body politic has become a fool’s errand.
Indeed, even more pessimistically, the trend has been going the wrong way for a long time. To return to finance, the last economic depression in the United States that did not result in massive government intervention was the collapse of 1920–21. It was sharp but short, and entailed the sort of Schumpeterian “creative destruction” that could lead to a real boom. The decade that followed — the roaring 1920s — was so strong that historians have forgotten the depression that started it. The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics…
回顾历史,展示作者在该领域深厚的积累和深邃的思考。
In the face of these realities, one would despair if one limited one’s horizon to the world of politics. I do not despair because I no longer believe that politics encompasses all possible futures of our world. In our time, the great task for libertarians is to find an escape from politics in all its forms — from the totalitarian and fundamentalist catastrophes to the unthinking demos that guides so-called “social democracy.”
The critical question then becomes one of means, of how to escape not via politics but beyond it. Because there are no truly free places left in our world, I suspect that the mode for escape must involve some sort of new and hitherto untried process that leads us to some undiscovered country; and for this reason I have focused my efforts on new technologies that may create a new space for freedom. Let me briefly speak to three such technological frontiers:
例子1:I was very fortunate to have an opportunity to intern at xxx. By involving myself in cases such as security offerings by Chinese corporate issuers and US security class actions against China-based companies listed on US stock exchanges, I became more aware of how a practicing lawyer gets involved in international trades… It was the first time that I felt like I was making a contribution to society as a lawyer.
例子2:I sought for other internship opportunities… At xxx local court, I learned the trial procedures in the Chinese court. Through drafting, imputing and proofreading legal documents, I have become more familiarized with the writing process and became more able to write with greater accuracy.
例子3:The internship at xxx Law Firm brought my overall abilities into full practice. From filing a marriage case, collecting evidence, putting it on trial to settling it, I participated in the whole process.
以上内容基本就是简单罗列和编织自己的各种实践经历:我在 xxx 实习我干了什么内容。这样泛泛而谈、严重缺乏细节支撑,只会让招生委员会的教授们觉得:ok,我知道了你有很多大大小小的实习经历,但你究竟从中获得了什么?有啥具体体会?加深了对法学哪块领域的理解?具体来说,以例子 3 为例,我经手的究竟是一个怎样的 marriage case,collect 了咋样的 evidences?从中它是否揭示了国家现行婚姻制度的什么特点?优势或弊端?我参与其中有啥分析和判断?
此外,要尽量避免一些空虚、没有实质内容的随意感叹,例如 It was the first time that I felt like I was making a contribution to society as lawyer。
这样的申请材料是无法与其他竞争者拉开距离的。经过反复讨论,谭同学决定将律所处理过的一个房屋买卖纠纷 case 作为重点挖掘对象(当时谭同学家里也在买房,他个人也在研究国家住房制度和房地产宏观调控政策等)。谭同学在律所处理了这单房屋买卖纠纷 case,从中了解了我国关于房屋租赁和买卖的条例和法律、当前住房制度、以及房地产宏观调控政策等。他意识到房地产事关国计民生,而住房制度则是一国之重器。有什么样的制度和政策,就有什么样的市场运行结果。
接下来,他顺藤摸瓜进一步深入研究中国的住房制度:从以商业贷款为主、公积金贷款为辅的住房金融制度、到招拍挂为主的土地供应制度,再到重交易轻保有的税收制度等,包括揭示由政策和制度设计不当造成的一系列资源错配,例如当下一线和部分热点二线城市房价高、三四线库存高等现象。
如此“深扒式”的研究——讲一个事例就狠狠地把它讲透,从基层的法律施行和运用、到宏观政策和国家制度,以小见大,详略得当,避免了当初的夸夸其谈、没有实质内容的简单罗列。
凭借在这方面的深厚积累,小 J 同学最后获得了伦敦中央圣马丁学院 Central Saint Martins 和纽约普瑞特艺术学院 Pratt Institute 的 offer。作者: Laterlink雷特霖 时间: 2019-4-18 22:50:43
本帖最后由 Laterlink雷特霖 于 2019-8-23 16:01 编辑
13楼 法学专业的三下乡作留学申请重点例子?
Ten 同学是某大学法学专业学生,大二暑假有一段三下乡经历,地点是广州郊区的一个村。Ten同学对村里面的一座清末祠堂非常感兴趣,他的三下乡研究课题---从近代南方农村的宗法制度探讨中国现代公民社会的可能形态。
首先是挖掘广州郊区那个村的大祠堂的历史、来龙去脉、包括该大姓在近两百年来兴旺起源和兴衰变化,然后集中抽取里面关于宗族治理的规章制度和相关事件,从中得出结论:近代中国的农村社会治理是依靠族长(有名望的老人家)来主导决定重大公共事件的决策和重大问题的解决,从乡村公学、到奖励考取功名的读书人的公田制度的设立等等。紧接着, Ten 同学把这种“贤人政治”制度与现代西方多方主体的公民社会形态作比较(每个公民、自由个体都能为社会公共问题发声、行动),从中推导出中国现代公民社会的一种可能路径——由有名望的人士主导带领普通民众处理公共事务。
Zenith 同学以人类学田野考察的研究方式,把各种垃圾拍照、整理、编码、归类,然后运用阿尔君·阿帕杜莱 Arjun Appadurai 的物的社会生命史 Social Life of Things 来解读,揭示这些垃圾所代表的物(城市文化)对村民生活观念的影响。Zenith 同学细心认真、心思缜密、推理谨慎,在充分总结前人研究的基础上得出自己的结论和发现。
通过这样一个别出心裁的研究视角及其由此得出的一系列发现,Zenith 把它作为重点例子放进个人陈述里,同时也交上一份 writing sample 作为补充材料。最后她成功申请到了华盛顿大学 University of Washington 的人类学研究生。 作者: 小强要留学 时间: 2019-7-26 16:16:56
Attending an interesting and informative lecture on Accounting confirmed my desire to do a degree in this field. I was under the impression that accountancy purely involved dealing with figures, but I learned that they are advisors who help businesses maximize profits whilst minimizing liabilities to ensure they comply with regulations. I have also learnt that accountants are always in demand in the economy as they play an important part in any business.
I have always expressed an interest for Maths. From the age of 7, I attended a school maths class, which helped me develop my mental arithmetic skills and apply them to harder and more complex problems. My passion has grown throughout secondary school, but I have become especially interested and aware of topics throughout my studies at A-Level. Studying Maths and Further Maths has provided me with the opportunity to learn different aspects of mathematics in-depth and about the different theories and how they were derived. Furthermore, I feel it has given me an insight into working out statistical problems and relating these to real-life situations. My genuine interest and passion for maths has been demonstrated through and enhanced by, events such as the Intermediate Mathematics Challenge, for which I achieved a silver award this year. I am participating in the MTUK Senior Mathematics Challenge and hoping to achieve high results.
这一段分享了我和数学自小开始的亲密故事,但基本都是流水账式的摆经历。develop my mental arithmetic skills 是怎样 develop?apply them to harder and more complex problems 是怎样 apply?learn different aspects of mathematics in-depth 是如何 in-depth?relating these to real-life situations 是怎样的情景运用?harder、complex、in-depth 虚无缥缈的修饰词一大堆,但没有任何有效细节,没有任何具体的点,只能让人读来无感。
Since I was just a kid. I have shown a great admiration to those who carved out from scratch because I think that is the life I expected for with vigor and challenge. However, many of them failed at last mainly because of thefinancial accounting. It is very difficult for a company to change the resource into money without professional financial management and abundant financial professional knowledge.
As the “batch product of the school", I desire to become the "class A product" with abundant professional knowledge and good quality after two years of study on the campus.
第二段透露我意识到 accounting 的重要性,这里表达了要申请这个项目来深造的心迹,并强调要努力学学出好成绩 Class A。
Although I knew that the "investment risk” was ineluctable, I believe the future investment yield will be huge in the future. On the choice of an investment project, I certainly chose my favorite accounting in the financial field and sincerely hope that the further study can present me with a solid foundation and full preparations for the future work in the company financing.
Unlike most of the people start their interests through achievements, my interest in accounting started with the failure of the ERP competition. When the Ill-planned budget caused the capital strand breaks, all of our strategies failed to work and the different part of the team which supposes to be one fall apart. That's the moment I realized the accounting and controllership system is the soul of a company and began to take every chance to learn about it.
这个开头是通过一个失败经历 failure of the ERP competition 来说明我对 accounting 的兴趣以及意识到它的重要性。但问题就在于缺乏细节支撑,于是读起来就很平庸了。capital strand breaks 是具体如何导致的? strategies failed to work 是如何 fail 的,与当时具体我们的 accounting and controllership system 有啥关联?我们是如何操作的?
I am writing to apply for the MSc Finance with the aim of specializing in corporate finance management and development strategy analysis based on financial accounting.
开头直接说明我要申请具体专业,简单明了扼要,不错。
My interest in pursuing a specialization in accounting and finance stemmed from the special business operations experience in my childhood. My uncle is a self-employed businessman who used to own a small grocery. He always involved me in his business operations when I was left home while my parents had to go out for work. I was therefore exposed to the estimation of purchasing amount, revenue and profit calculation, sales promotion design, etc. much earlier than many of my peers did. The small grocery had been closed down shortly afterward due to poor financial management, which deeply impressed me with the importance of financial management no matter whether in an international corporate or even in a small local grocery.
20楼 在 PS 中如何正确地分享小故事?(二)用 Business Analytics 专业来说...
I am writing to apply for MSc Business Analytics in xxx university. I would like to enhance my practical academic experience and get trained all around to keep pace with globalization for today’s business world.
开头同样是开门见山,说明来意,配上一句强调 enhance my practical academic experience 和 keep pace with globalization 既是联系目标专业(该同学申请的学校项目本身就强调扎实基本功的修炼),也是表面大致兴趣规划,其实下文内容也是围绕这一句话展开,所以也是概括句。
I have been sensitive to numbers & data since childhood. As a kid, I was always amazed at the overwhelming power of those ugly and crumpled paper, so-called “money”. With different amount of money, I could exchange for my favorite stuff, candies, toys, picture books, and even the exciting firecrackers during the spring festivals. It seemed to me then money can buy everything. I enjoyed observing adults making deals in farmers’ markets, in malls and etc. as I thought spending money was naturally a way of communication with the outside world. Only after grown up have I learned the ideas like purchasing power and economic statistics. And gradually I became interested in dealing with numbers and data.
接着开始讲起小故事作为引子,是一个有具体细节支撑的例子,从我小时候以小孩儿的视角来看“money”的种种有趣想法,从能交换各种玩具,到把它当做一种与外部世界的交流方式 a way of communication with the outside world,再到长大后从学科专业角度看,很独特、有趣也很值得玩味。 作者: Laterlink雷特霖 时间: 2019-9-7 23:37:14
21楼 跨专业申请怎么整 之 数据分析 Data Analytics
我自小就爱看 NBA,詹姆斯是我的超级偶像。大学选了广告专业,大一时出于好奇开始研究 NBA 的全球推广策略:包括对比 NBA 不同时期广告宣传语:从 80 年代的 slogan:It"s fantastic!到 2007 - 2012 年的口号: Where amazing happens!再到现在的 Why do we play;包括 NBA 如何运作中国赛;如何让球星拍农历新年祝福广告 ——一堆堆黑人球星大哥们穿着中国传统长衫马褂跟大家伙拜年;如何与 ESPN、腾讯等媒体推广转播,持续搞事情,把自己弄成了全球影响力最大的体育赛事之一。
渐渐地,我发觉 NBA 是个大宝藏:它有完善的运作机制,代表了最先进的转播技术等,但最最最让我震撼的是其详细而纷繁、有趣又好玩儿的的数据统计:比赛直播期间能随时弹出某个球员的得分情况,例如连续 N 场比赛得分 30+、篮板 X 个、助攻 Y 个…… 他们强大到可以发明如此多的排行榜、并且总能在恰当的时候立即生成。正是这些数据和排行榜给球迷多维度视觉去看一场比赛、一支球队以及一个球员。
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