Undergraduate / "My father's hospitalization" - short response, academic history [2]

hi! I need help editing this especially for grammar! Thank you

If there is something you think would be beneficial for the Admissions Committee to know as we review your academic history, please take this opportunity to explain.

Difficulties in the past year during second semester, in which my dad was in the hospital for a sudden, life- threatening disease, Steven Johnson's Syndrome, impaired my efforts for optimal grades. The doctor warned us of the criticality of his state, with his sloughing skin, swollen eyes and, external and internal bleeding; that the risk of fatality was high. My mom and I therefore visited him every night for a month when he was in the Intensive Care Unit. We would watch over him late afternoon until the hospital closed and then arrive home at midnight. It was difficult to suddenly see my dad in such a state without warning. It was just as difficult to see my mom, the strongest person I know, restless, weak, and drained of hope. I felt that if my mom, whom I have looked up to all my life, had no hope left, need I? Late nights and distracted days at school took a toll on my junior year GPA. It was difficult accepting my grades at the end of the year because I knew they did not reflect what I could have achieved. However, as I look back today, I would never exchange one minute I had spent looking after my dad and mom for anything. Simply lying next to my dad and whispering in his ear to be strong, day after day until he finally recovered in the summer, was what I consider a greater achievement than my GPA.

Undergraduate / "be open-minded" - CommApp Essay Diversity "Should I say Hi" [4]

A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix. Given your personal background, describe an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you.

I am going to say Hi. I have too. I walk pass him all the time.

On the streets with all their baggage, both physical and emotional, they are hard to ignore yet they are ignored most of their lives. They are the homeless. Pressured by society's label of them, the homeless are often seen as the result of laziness and dropping out of high school. The day I met Francis, society's label had been proven wrong. Since then, in my eyes, the homeless were misinterpreted people and yet somehow invincible. Francis was a widowed woman in her late forties who had once lived in Penshawkin, a nice residential area in Jersey. She was a learned assistant teacher at the school where her three daughters attended. Disaster struck and she was later abandoned by her family. She has been homeless for twenty years. Her scanty creased body and faded, oversized clothes did not reflect her past comfortable lifestyle at all. I asked her to share with me her greatest fear. Staring deep into her exhausted brown eyes she leaned in and quietly whispered words that shocked me with their simplicity. It was not that she could be raped or beaten up in the dark of the night. It was love. That she would not find anyone that would love her. My thoughts stopped, at a halt for I had to digest what she had just said. Our worlds that seemed so different when I first met her ran had a tangent. The homeless expressed as being nothing like us, was a delusion.

It came to me that she did not communicate with people who were of Asian descent frequently. After an engaging talk, she said heatedly, "I don't understand those people who discriminate against others of a different color, they are actually good people." I had changed her view about Asian people, just as she changed mine about all people. It hit me why diversity is so crucial. Since then I made it a point to talk to different people not only to gain specific knowledge about their culture but also to understand myself better. Diversity is important so I can be able to understand why Muslims wear a shawl or where each person comes from and in turn be able to resolve conflicts and be sensitive to other's situations. Without diversity I would be make assumptions of people based solely on media and stereotype. I should not limit myself to talk to only those who are similar to me. But rather be open-minded and the community will therefore become an engaging unity of minds. Saying Hi is to say bye to ignorance.

You mentioned diversity too many times in the last paragraph. You need to add more. What you have here is a good stepping stone into something that could be great.

This my Common App Personal Statement. Much help is needed to edit! And especially tell me if it is confusing, plain out dumb, and how well it answers the prompt. Is there any way I can "show" it more than "tell". Thanks! Please be harsh.