Experience That Helpmed Me Learn What Was Important - CommonApp Emotional Essay

This is my main commonapp essay. I'm a borderline applicant and I need this to be really good. However, writing isn't really my forte. Please be harsh and critique it as much as possible :)

Does anyone think I need to completely rewrite it on a different topic?
Sometimes I feel like I should.

USC's speaker series "What Matters to Me and Why" asks faculty and staff to reflect on their values, beliefs, and motivations. Presenters talk about choices they have made, difficulties encountered, and commitments solidified. Write an essay about an event or experience that helped you learn what is important to you and why it is important.

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As she took a seat across from me, the disposition of her weathered face conveyed an existence that could transgress the limits of any ordinary imagination. With pen and notepad in hand, I looked at the wrinkled visage of my grandmother. At age twelve, I had been given an assignment to document my ancestry, an assignment which would become exponentially more significant than I realized at the time.

conveyed an existence that could transgress the limits of any ordinary imagination. I don't think transgress is the right word, try surpassed.

Some of the words in here seem like they were just grabbed out of a thesaurus, make sure you know the proper usage.

A destiny to do something valuble with your existence? I'm not sure about using the word destiny, it implies that you are fated to do something of worth, rather than given the opportunity to do so.

Okay I will definitely work on that. How do you think it is besides that?

Anyone else?

Should I trash it and rewrite?

Beautiful. I think you write better than you think you do.

All of her memories have now vanished like the somber leaves of a somber tree preparing itself for a harsh winter.----great sentence.

I like your username!

...the evil from which my family had attempted to shelter me by immigrating to this distant land.

The way to make it better is to incorporate your clearly established goals, your specific intentions for the college years. That will make them feel an urgent sense of the importance of accepting you