"the best summer vacations" - UF experience in my life and how it will affect

Hey guys, thanks for commenting on my first part of the UF essay! Im open to any suggestions!
Prompt: In the space provided, please write a concise narrative in which you describe a meaningful event, experience or accomplishment in your life and how it will affect your college experience or your contribution to the UF campus community. You may want to reflect on your ideas about student responsibility, academic integrity, campus citizenship or a call to service.

Out of all of the members of the Class of 2012 in my high school, I can safely say that I have experienced the best summer vacations. Did I experience a private getaway with daytime room service and gourmet cuisine by demand? I sure didn't, but during the past three summers, if you were a hospital patient at St. Petersburg General Hospital, I made it my mantra that you received all of these fine benefits! As I get an opportunity to share my summertime Junior Volunteering experience, I curiously reminisce how just three summers ago, I was a petrified "needle-phobic" who couldn't go ten feet in front of a doctor's office without experiencing full-body sweating and what felt like heart palpitations! Three summers later, I am leading a tour for new Junior Volunteers around my beloved summertime sanctuary, giving these bright and talented individuals proper instructions on how to serve patients their breakfast trays and how to gently knock on a closed door before entering a patient's room. These menial tasks may seem small compared to the size of a General Hospital, however from my own experience as a young shoulder surgery patient, I know firsthand that patients love being taken care of, no matter what their internal or external dilemmas may be, in a loved and timely fashion.

nice essay.
"Out of all of the members of the Class
of 2012 in my high school, I can safely
say that I have experienced the best
summer vacations".. how can you "safely say?" I think this intro is very weak and should be redone.

"I sure didn't ,"[!]

I suggest you ease up with exclamation marks.

finally, I don't think you answered the prompt fully. how would the experience affect your life in college?

Whenever you write anything, leave out the unnecessary details:

Out of all of the members of the Class of 2012, in my high school, I can safely say that I have experienced the best summer vacations.---When you trim away the unnecessary, it's like a boxer improving her ratio of punches thrown to punches landed. It's like a comedian who does not take too long to get to the punchline of the joke. You streamline by saying the same stuff in fewer words. The trick is to let the reader figure out some of it on her own. Readers love to figure things out on their own.

I sure didn't, but during the past three summers, if you were a hospital patient at St. Petersburg General Hospital, I made it my mantra that you received all of these fine benefits! ---I like this part. Well said... very cool. However, mantra is some word or phrase that you repeat over and over, so I think maybe you should reword this sentence so that you are suing mantra correctly.

...experiencing full-body sweating and what felt like heart palpitations! ---again, less is more. Brevity is more important than clarity.

These menial tasks may seem small relative to the...

This is not the way to use "however"...
... size of a General Hospital, however but from my own experience as a young shoulder surgery patient I know firsthand that patients love being taken care of, no matter what their internal or external dilemmas may be, in a loved loving and timely fashion.

:-)