Pharmacy undergrad application essay - "someone who has influenced you"

Hey, I couldn't fit the entire prompt into the title, so I just summarized it. Here's the entire thing:
Tell us about an individual (other than your parents) who has influenced you to a great extent, and what impact their influence had on your life.

I chose to write about a high school teacher (I know that it's fairly typical) but it is someone who I feel that strongly meets the prompt in question, considering that I can't write about my parents. Also, the "essay" isn't actually an essay: it should be more of a personal statement. My writing should reveal much about me and focus on my qualities, rather than my teachers. (It's all part of the guidelines they tell). My personal statement needs to be about 500 words, and I think i come in at 497.

Also I'm handing this in electronically (it has to be done this way), and the thing with doing that is that all paragraphs indents etc etc can not be added...

Here it is:

As Mr. John Fister had instructed, the entire class stood up from their seats. After quickly checking that all the students had done so, he told all the Chinese students to sit down. Then, he ordered all the East Indian students to sit down. He continued in this fashion, asking students to sit down according to their ethnicities, until the entire class was once again seated. Mr. Fister used this simple and quick exercise to introduce and partly convey an incredibly profound and memorable lesson on the racism that stems from ethnic self-perception.

I was fortunate enough to be taught by Mr. Fister in his Social Studies 11 and Law 12 classes for my two senior years in high school; Mr. Fister played a very large role in greatly influencing me to become the person I am today. Although my true passion lies in the sciences, I had been required to take Social Studies 11 and Law 12 in order to complete my graduation requirements.

I was lucky enough to attend a very ethnically diverse high school, in which over 30 different languages are spoken. However, I often had difficulties working with others due to the wide range of individuals with varying backgrounds and points of view. My difficulties were amplified in my senior years when my teachers began to expect cohesion and teamwork between all students. Mr. Fister's enlightening lessons, group activities, and advice enabled me to respect and see eye to eye with other students, something I still carry with me to this day.

Mr. Fister was incredibly dedicated to teaching and his students. He often went above and beyond the call of duty and spent long hours afterschool providing advice and tutoring to students, often being me, who needed extra help. His hard work ethics and dedication, along with his sense of humour , inspired me to work hard in order to meet his high standards. Furthermore, despite being his top student in both his classes, Mr. Fister consistently expected my best work, accepting nothing less, and pushed me to my limits in order to bring out the best in me. Mr. Fister taught me that in order to achieve great heights of success, I must be focused, dedicated, and hard-working.

Throughout the years that I had known him in high school, Mr. Fister always greatly advocated for the participation of extracurricular activities. He sponsored several clubs and sports, including debate club and girls basketball. He firmly believed that community participation, such as volunteer work, was rewarding (i.e. built strong character traits such as empathy) and helped create strong community bonds, eventually leading to becoming an upstanding member of society. Through his words of encouragement and his own acts of generosity and commitment to the community serving as a model for me, I pushed myself to commit much of my time to getting involved in the community. Presently, I continue to volunteer within my community, focusing my time on the German Canadian Care Home.

The first sentence is too long, and thus not give a positive characteristic of your teacher if that's what you intended. You could start expressing a more vivid example of how you teacher has influenced your life. In addition, you should include personal feelings and immpressions give more examples that clarify his influence and his dedication. Another point you might want to add is a personal decision he help you to make or how he has influenced you to change some aspect of your life.

Low

"class---> stood up from their" does not work. It violates a rule called "number agreement."
How about this:
As Mr. John Fister had instructed, the entire class of students stood up from their seats. --- this seems a little better, though it actually makes the same mistake in a less obvious way. you could even write:

As Mr. John Fister had instructed, the entire class stood up from their seats. and ______ (did something?)

above and beyond the call of duty--- whenever you use a cliche like this, try to revise it so that you work it in a unique way. Can you come up with a creative way to express the same thing?

Look for ways to say stuff in fewer words, so your essay is not all fat and full of phrases:
Throughout the years that I had known him in Throughout my high school years, Mr. Fister ...

And kill those adverbs. Adverbs weaken writing most of the time:
...always greatly advocated for the participation of extracurricular activities.
you can say he advocated for them by ____ (doing what?). It is better to show through example rather than tell with an adverb.
Anyway, those are all minor, no big deal! You write very well.

Thanks for the help! I did adjust accordingly, but the committee stated that my personal statement must reveal much about me.

So my question is, does my personal statement help reveal much about me? After reading it do you feel a sense of knowing what kind of person (hopefully a good person) I am?

Not much! No, this gives me a sense of the environment, of mr. fister... but not much is about you. This part shows a little about you, because of what you observe:

His hard work ethics and dedication, along with his sense of humour , inspired me to work hard in order to meet his high standards. Furthermore, despite being his top student in both his classes, Mr. Fister consistently expected my best work, accepting nothing less, and pushed me to my limits in order to bring out the best in me. Mr. Fister taught me that in order to achieve great heights of success, I must be focused, dedicated, and hard-working.

I have a suggestion. The conclusion sentence of each body paragraph should have some "reflection" or evaluation of your own idea. So, you can change the conclusion sentences of some paragraphs so that they become sentences about your opinions and preferences, how you look at the topic you are writing about in the paragraph.

Not just in the conclusion sentences of paragraphs, but anywhere you can, you should express your ideas -- about Mr. Fister's teaching style, about the environment, about the qualities he demonstrated and their significance in life. You id a little of that in the last paragraph, but you can let more of your personality show if you talk more about your own unique thinking process when thinking about the topics covered in the essay.

:-)

Thanks for all the help! I did make several changes and additions in accordance to your advice, however I couldn't add everything that I wanted to, considering that I'm already VERY close to my word limit...

Your help is much appreciated!