Undergraduate / Transfer Admission Essay - a thoughtful commentary on your academic goals [6]

Hello everyone,

I am a junior applying for transfer admission into UConn. Here is the prompt they supplied on the website:

Transfer essay that is a thoughtful commentary on your academic goals and explains your reasons for leaving your present/most recently attended institution to attend the University of Connecticut

The essay below is my first draft that I started yesterday morning. I think it's a bit too organized, and I'm not too sure of the grammar. Is it too short? Too long? Wordy and uninformative? Juvenile?

Thanks in advance!! :)

After being a below average student in high school, I was determined to attain better grades in my college career. I got off on the right foot by turning my 2.10 high school GPA into a 3.30 in my freshman year at St. John's University. This greatly motivated me, because I realized that I truly could do whatever I set my mind to do. That moment was also the first step out of the self-doubting girl I was in high school and the first into a self-confident woman who is determined to accomplish her goals.

Riding on the high of my personal success, I immersed myself in my communications major, business minor, and became actively involved in community service opportunities on campus. I joined the Communications Club, Advertising Club, Management Society, Academic Service Learning (ASL), and Team RV. Through the Management Society, I strengthened my interpersonal skills and gained networking experience through numerous seminars focused on preparing members for the business world. In both the Communications and Advertising clubs, I honed my public relations skills by collaborating with other communications and advertising majors to create posters for school events, and posters that made the student body aware of current issues on campus. In ASL and Team RV, I worked closely with other student volunteers to serve food at homeless shelters, deliver bagged lunches to the homeless on the streets, and take active roles in other various community service activities. The concept of human solidarity expressed through ASL and Team RV are not foreign to me, because I regularly volunteer my time at St. Luke's Lifeworks and St. John's Episcopal Church in my home town (Stamford) during every school break. Not only did involvement in these programs allow me to become a more adept individual, they also provided me with the mental stability I needed to keep focus on my schoolwork.

Although my parents and I were pleased with my much improved academic progress, there was always the thought in the back of my mind about how my parents were going to continue to pay for my education. The tuition at St. John's is quite expensive, and the financial aid I received still left a sizable sum uncovered. Because of this, my parents and I had to cut corners where nobody should. There were times that my mother didn't pay the light bill or the water bill for weeks or months, just so I could stay in school. Together with whatever government grants I received and money my family could scrape together, I had to take out student loans to continue my education. Due to my status as a full-time unemployed student, my sister has been my cosigner since my freshman year. If she didn't help me up to this point, I would not have even made it to my junior year at St. John's. Unfortunately for us both, she filed for bankruptcy this year and will no longer be able to help me take out student loans to continue my education.

I am now in a position where I am very eager to pursue my dreams of succeeding despite the odds, but I have no means to achieve them. If I am given the chance to complete my degree at the University of Connecticut, I can take another step towards self-actualization. Quite frankly, I am fed up with all the obstacles that are standing in the way of my success. I have a burning desire to bury all shortcomings, and continue my journey to become a proficient individual. Though disappointing thoughts plague the back of my mind, I will never give them the chance to sink in. "Time thinking about what could be, instead of taking action, is time wasted." is a mantra that I repeat in my head. I have committed myself to moving forward, because the feeling of breaking down every internal and external barrier to achieve what I never believed I could is what drives me through this hardship.

Admission into UConn means I can achieve personal and scholastic excellence. It also relieves the financial burden on my family now and greatly reduces the one on me in the future. With financial alleviation comes mental alleviation. If I had both, I would do nothing else but succeed. I want to be the proud woman I see when I close my eyes to visualize the future, and I sincerely believe that UConn can take me there.