Undergraduate / 'I received the unfortunate news' admission essay explaining prior academic dismissal [6]

The essay question asks to explain fully if you have been academically dismissed by any university.

Following the spring semester of 2008 I was academically dismissed from Pennsylvania State University as a result of my poor academic performance. I accept full responsibility for my actions throughout this year and the grades I produced that caused this outcome. I now recognize that I was provided with an excellent opportunity to obtain an education at a highly esteemed school but due to my ignorance and indiscipline that chance was unfortunately lost. Since then, I have overcome my personal obstacles and grown as both a person and a student. I do not wish to make excuses for my poor academic outcome but I will do my best to explain the circumstances surrounding this drop in performance.

Coming from a family of no college graduates I had very little support in terms of continuing education and was encouraged to pursue a career before focusing on an education. With little prior working experience I was terrified at the thought of jumping right into a career. I had many friends that applied and were accepted to Pennsylvania State University and without giving any thought as to whether this university in particular fit me as a person; I followed the crowd and applied to the Berks campus.

Shortly after my high school graduation, I gathered some roommates and got my first apartment. I was terribly unprepared to take on such responsibility at such a young age and I quickly fell behind on rent and bills. I hadn't prepared financially to pay for my expenses through school and was afraid to show my family my failure.

A few days prior to the first day of classes I received the unfortunate news that a very close friend of mine had passed away. The funeral was scheduled for the first day of the fall semester and therefore I fell behind before I even had the opportunity to allow myself to get ahead. Shortly after, I slowly began retracting myself from society and the people I loved. As the semester progressed I found it extremely difficult to even get out of bed in the morning let alone concentrate on my studies. My attendance began to drop significantly and consequently so did my grades. I felt like a failure and hid my depression from my family. In addition, I was too embarrassed to reach out to my professors to ask for help or guidance. During this time, I gained a significant amount of weight, began losing contact with my close friends and had little to no interest in any sort of self improvement.

During the winter break prior to the spring 2008 semester proved to be mentally challenging in many ways. After a 23 years together my parents decided to end their marriage. At this point I felt completely alone with no one to turn to. The home I had known for 18 years was now broken, my father was now living in another town and my mother fell into severe depression.

From the very beginning, I was in over my head. It was about halfway into the spring semester that I realized I had emmerse myself into something I was utterly unprepared for. After I received the letter of my academic dismissal it really hit home with me. I was in no way mature enough to handle my own apartment let alone my own academic responsibility. It was at this point that I realized I had done everything wrong. My reasoning for applying to college was wrong and my priorities were not straight.

This is what I have so far but I am unsure how to end it. I don't want to blame all of my problems on other circumstances, but I want to express the reasoning. Grammer help would also be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance!