My desire for success made a significant impact to my grade

This is for the personal profile for UBC application. I need help on editing my essay

Explain how you responded to a significant challenge that you have encountered and what you learned (Max 200 words)

My biggest challenge was imposed upon me during the last two years, that was to maintain my school grades in preparation for post secondary and at the same time to find the path of my future. The stress became more apparent starting from grade twelve. I did not know what I was going to do after secondary, nor which universities and programs I should apply for. I knew that I must commit plenty of time and thoughts to face this challenge.

I ran into my first major issue right when the school year began. This was my grade average seemed to be insufficient, specifically my English grade due to my inability to write well. There were times where I could not even finish timed exams. Soon I realized this was critical and I must take action. I spent numerous afternoons with my teacher to improve my writing. My desire for success made a significant impact to my grade. Eventually over time I started to get ideas of what I wanted to do, and with the grade issue solved I had gained confidence towards my application for university. I have learned the importance of determination and its contribution to being successful.

The other topic was Tell us about an experience that caused you to rethink or change your perspective. What impact has this had on you? (200 words)

I was stuck on this question, can someone give me some ideas?
Thanks in advance for any help.

You have presented two under developed ideas in your essay. Neither of which truly poses a significant challenge to you personally but can be spun in such a manner. You can do this by concentrating on only one instead of two situations. I would like to suggest that you concentrate on your problem with English instead of the choice of universities and not really having a college major in mind yet. The reason I suggest the English scenario is because you spent most of the essay discussing how it affected you, the way you overcame it, and how you learned lessons from the challenge. Those are the key points that you needed to answer in the essay and you successfully provided those in the English challenge scenario. All you have to do now is revise the first part to instead reflect the development of the challenge that English posed before you in school.

As for the second essay prompt, some theme ideas you can consider include racial discrimination, religious questions, bullying, gender issues, racial profiling, and the like. Try to discuss something for that essay in a separate thread so we can let you know if you are on the right track with it :-) Maybe we can offer better ideas for your theme after that as well.

Should I get rid of that topic completely? and what did you mean by revising the first part to reflect development?
Thank you for the advice! I will edit it and re-post it :)

Yes. Remove all discussion and reference to not knowing where you would be attending college and the like. Concentrate instead on developing the story about the challenge you faced in terms of grades. That is a big challenge for you because you felt pressure to maintain a certain grade point average in order to even consider attending college. Develop the introduction to your essay by explaining the challenge to keep up your grades and how you felt like you failed to do that when you got your English grades, since this was the lowest grade on your report card. Draw us into the turmoil you felt and the process that helped you recover from the failure instead of wallowing in it. Create the scenario that allows us to join you on this adventure of learning and discovery that led you to this vastly improved version of yourself as a student and person.