50 Harvard Essays

Essays are for reference only. Do NOT copy or imitate anything! 
Plagiarism is severely punished! 
Instead, Kirchhoff tells the admissions committee about the Russia he has come to 
know on his early-morning jogs. We learn that he is a disciplined runner, a 
perceptive observer of human nature, a willing learner of the Russian language. 
Bright Nike running tights, his Time Ironman, and the rhythmic swooshing of his 
running shoes are details that his audience will remember. They also provide the 
perfect segue into the more substantive issues Kirchhoff wants to address in his 
essay – the conversations he has had with Russians his age. The reader gets to 
know Kirchhoff before we get to know his views on such weightier subjects as 
diplomacy and the American role in international relations. 
While his supposedly verbatim thoughts after waving to the young sailor sound 
stilted, Kirchhoff’s understated and personal approach throughout the majority of 
his essay makes up for his waxing a bit too eloquent at times. Ideally, it would have 
been nice to hear just as much detail about his conversations with Sasha as we do 
about St. Petersburg at 6 A.M. The essay loses the details when it matters most. 
Also in terms of detail, Kirchhoff makes a slight error in his statement that “the 
Potemkin began the second Russian Revolution by training its guns on the Winter 
Palace.” It was in fact that Aurora that fired mostly blank rounds on the palace – the 
battleship Potemkin was the scene of a 1905 revolt by sailors in Odessa. These 
mistakes are rather minor since the essay is not particularly centered on the ship. 
However, let this serve as a valuable lesson: it is important to extensively check all 
facts used in your essay. 
Still, Kirchhoff’s essay works. 
“Salade Olivier” 
“Salade Olivier” 
By Svetlana Rukhelman
For as long as I can remember, there was always the salade Olivier. It consisted of 
boiled potatoes, carrots, eggs, bologna and pickles diced into tiny cubes and mixed 
into a giant enamel pot together with canned peas and mayonnaise. It was 
considered a delicacy, and prepared only on special occasions such as birthday and 
dinner parties. But it was also a ritual, the only component of the first course which 
was never absent from a dinner table, no matter which of our relatives or friends 
was throwing the feast. 
Ironically, the salade Olivier was never my favorite food, though the attitude of my 
taste buds to the dish did evolve through the years. In my earliest childhood, I 
favored the compliant potatoes, then began to lean toward the pickles and bologna 
– that sweet-and-sour, crunchy-and=soft combination that never loses its appeal – 
and next passed a phase in which the green peas appeared so abhorrent that I 
would spend twenty minutes picking every pea I could find out of my serving. Only 
recently did I resign myself to the fact that all the ingredients must be consumed 
simultaneously for maximum enjoyment as well as for the sake of expediency. 

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