"My father: a tenacious strength and resilience" - obstacle or bump

This is sort of a rough draft, but it's in the general direction I'd like to be going.

These are the prompts.
We ask that you respond to two of the topics below. Your personal statement should be no longer than 250 words each or a total of 500 words for both statements. The best personal statements are not necessarily the longest ones.

1. If there has been some obstacle or bump in the road in your academic or personal life, please explain the circumstances.
2. How has your family history, culture, or environment influenced who you are?
3. Why did you choose to apply to UCF?
4. What qualities or unique characteristics do you possess that will allow you to contribute to the UCF community?

Any tips/suggestions/ideas you have, please feel free to give me any sort of criticism.

I sort of combined two prompts, but I could limit it to only one, I suppose. It just seemed right including the two.

If there has been some obstacle or bump in the road in your academic or personal life, please explain the circumstances/How has your family history, culture, or environment influenced who you are?

At age 16, I was told that the man that I had called father my entire life may not actually be my biological father. I remember it vividly. My mother ambling into the room. Her cheeks, splotchy and red. I could tell that she had been crying. She lamented to me how she had kept this secret for so long, sobbing over words and explaining how she had run it through her head, over and over, trying to picture how she could present this situation to me. I was unsure. I remember being numb to the situation, but I never really felt any form of sorrow or grief. As I grew older, we never really discussed it.

I think the reason we never discussed it, and the reason I have never felt any reason to bring it up, is because I love my family. I have never faced a crucible or trial that I could not overcome with the support of my family. My mother has bestowed upon me humility and a nurturing love, my father has given me a tenacious strength and resilience, and my brother has shown me the power of youth and pride. They have instilled these attributes in me, shaping and carving me into the respectable man I am today.

I know that I will carry these attributes and gifts presented to me over to UCF, where I can not only continue to make my family proud, but also my peers, professors, and other new faces I may meet along the way. I want people to be able to say, after I've finished my work at UCF, that they're proud to recognize me amongst their alumni. I believe I can do great things, and I want to be able to say that UCF gave me the education to make it possible.

What qualities or unique characteristics do you possess that will allow you to contribute to the UCF community?
The qualities I stated above are really an excellent description of what I try to exhibit in my endeavors. Through humility, perseverance, tenacity, and compassion, I know that I will be a beacon of ambition for the UCF community. One of the things I noticed, as I was proofreading this essay, is that I had used the term "I hope" a few times. I've removed all forms of hope, and replaced them with the term "I know". I did this because I know that if I am given the opportunity to study at UCF, there is no doubt in my mind that I will go on to accomplish my goals and achieve my aspirations. I know that this essay has given you a sense of my will and determination, and I know that I will be working hard towards my eventual Master's at UCF come Spring.

In both your essays, you do a lot more 'telling' than 'showing'. I suggest that you SHOW the readers the unique qualities that you possess as an individual and how your family influenced you. You can say that you are a humble individual but how are you humble? Perhaps you can expand on how your mother influenced the person that you are today? Honestly, I still don't quite understand how your family instilled those qualities in you because you don't clearly express or show how your mother showed you "humility" or how your father gave you "tenacious strength".

I suggest that you brainstorm a few more personal examples for your first essay. If you can't think of any more examples then you may consider choosing another prompt instead.

I appreciate your response, and what you said really makes a lot of sense.

I suppose I'll have to look for ways to present these qualities rather than just tell about them, but I had difficulty in being succinct and concise with only ~300 words.

I made some slight revisions to that middle paragraph, in order to facilitate the showing as opposed to telling.

Again, I am limited to what I can add in, so I'm trying to edit and rearrange to give it a better flow.

Let me know how you feel about this, as opposed to the initial version.

I think the reason we never discussed it, and the reason I have never felt any reason to bring it up, is because I love the family that I have. I have never faced a crucible or trial that I could not overcome with the support of my family. My mother, through her undying love and humility, has presented me with an ability to forgive and understand. My father, through his tenacity and strength in looking after and loving a child he knows is not biologically his, has presented me with resilience and an adherence to my own moral code. My brother, through his perseverance during the discovery of our relationship only being through our mother, has given me a newfound appreciation for the bonds that I have and the ones that I will create.

Any criticism is greatly appreciated. :)

Nice job with this sentence... very eloquent.

Stay consistent with that verb tense:
I think the reason we never discussed it, and the reason I have never felt any reason to bring it up, is because was that I love the family that I have.------Well, if they had just let you know about it while you were growing up, maybe it would not have been so shocking! It seems like "never discussing" important issues might not always be the best approach. It's great that you have such a loving, positive attitude about the situation!

I don't like those sentences at the end. It seems redundant to go through what each of them has taught you, because you already did that.

I think you should end the essay by discussing how this became a bump in the road and how you overcame it with a vision of achieving particular goals through your education. Bring it back to the reason you are applying for this school. :-)