Tell us about who you are - My growth as a person

I would appreciate feedback on my essay answering the prompt:

Tell us about who you are.

How would your family, friends, and/or members of your community describe you?
If possible, please include something about yourself that you are most proud of and why. (maximum 1500 characters)

"Dedication is something I have always struggled with. As a child, I had all of the tools necessary to succeed in life but no determination to carry out any of my dreams. As my senior years of high school approached I started to struggle with the fact I have not accomplished much in my life. I had a lot of time to reflect and made the decision to put more effort into becoming something more.

Over the past couple of years, I have invested a lot of time into my academic career and my community. My friends and family noticed my dedication paying off as they saw my grades increase and would now confidently describe me as self-motivated and ambitious. On top of that, I wanted to push myself even more by taking on independent projects and to put myself into leadership roles. Through my new endeavors such as being an active member of the Royal Canadian Air Cadets, a part time employee at a retail pharmacy chain, and a volunteer for my city, I get credited as a leader and active contributor to my community. I am most proud of my growth as a person and specifically how I have changed my outlook on life and became someone that others see as a hardworking and inspiring individual. "

I've heard from a couple people that UBC likes it when you talk about something besides your grades so would it be ok if I briefly mentioned it in my essay in the context of my growth?

The essay is written from your point of view of yourself based on the scenarios provided. The discussion presented is what you believe are your best traits that the reviewer should take notice of. You totally missed out on the correct point of view consideration for this essay which is:


This means you have to disengage yourself from the writing. Use the third person point of view. If possible ask these people to write a short character description of who you are and what they believe are your best traits as a son, friend, and community member. Do not observe yourself and write about yourself. By finding out what these people like the most about you and how they describe you, a character based personification of who you are can be provided through what you are most proud of.

These common app prompts are meant to get to know the student beyond grades and academic accomplishments. So it would be best not to mention the grades because the transcript of grades should represent that aspect of your academic strengths and weaknesses. However, if your grades as so horrible that you feel there is a valid explanation for it, then you can try to explain that through the open topic prompt. Although, I would not advise it, again, because their main consideration for the grades will be the records you submit rather than the explanation you will provide.

@Holt
I don't really understand what you mean by disengaging from my writing and to use the third person point of view. I've seen other people's essays and they do something similar where they write about how they think their friends, family, and community would describe them. For the third person part, do you mean I literally should write in the third person? Or as in I should look at the prompt from a third person POV? I'm not too sure but I, personally, believe that my response answers the prompt, so how can I improve it?