Financial Reasons; Why I took up Gap year

Hi.
I'm new to this forum, but I was wondering if you could help me with my essay.
My college told me to explain why I took a gap year so I wrote this essay.
I would hugely appreciate any feedback on the grammar or the overall composition.
Thanks!

Taking a gap year is a somewhat foreign subject to many of my high-school friends. My friends, who are now freshmen in college, often ask me what it feels like to take a gap year and how I benefit from it. In these situations, I can confidentially tell them that taking a gap year was a great decision for me. My gap year has provided me with incredible opportunities that helped me rethink my direction in life and clarify the goals I want to achieve.

The reason I decided to take a gap year was mainly because of financial reasons. When I realized the financial position of my family on funding my college education, I decided that taking a gap year was the best choice.

I spent the gap year doing what I've always wanted to do as a student: studying the history and philosophy of Christianity at a deeper level. The one year of free time I gained from the gap year allowed me to pursue this passion of mine. I enrolled in a Bible institution located in Michigan in the August of 2012. The time I've been having at the institution has not only provided me with a chance to study a subject of my interest, but it has also allowed me to evaluate my future career plans and discover the vast sea of opportunities that I could possibly be involved with in the future.

When I am done with this semester, I plan to get a job and study programming languages as I wait for what lies next. I am glad to say that the time I've had so far has challenged in many ways and developed my character greatly from the unconfident high-school senior I was last year. I plan to take advantage of the time I've had in my gap year and hopefully use the lessons I've learned from it to pursue my passions and fulfill my goals.

Good essay.

Below are the corrections.

"I am glad to say that the time I've had so far has challenged in many wayshas challenged and developed my character greatly from the unconfident high-school senior I was last year."

Don't hesitate to help me with my essays due Jan 16th. Thanks in advance.

Look at how many times the phrase "gap year" appears in the first paragraph alone.

This is a grammar problem and a word-economy problem.

I wanted to also say that there's some pretty compelling data starting to emerge about students who take Gap Years that you can refer to. Obviously you'd want to avoid having this turn you into a statistic because ultimately the power of a Gap Year is very much so the human character elements, but the data is there and ought to be used.

americangap.org/data-benefits.php

Out of curiosity, what's the school you're applying for? Some schools have more familiarity with Gap Year students and the case is easier - others you really need to start from ground zero and explain that it wasn't a vacation nor just a job at your local DQ :-)