Help!!!!

Hello everyone:
I wrote an essay for my college application, can anyone please check it and tell me if there is something that I might have to change? I won't feel offended or anything like that because English is my second language and I usually make a lot of mistakes.

Here are the instructions: Write an autobiography and a statement of your plans for the future, especially what you expect to gain from college in general and Chapman University in particular.

Here goes my essay:

My name is Daniela Diaz. I was born in Madrid, Spain on October 29, 1985. My mother’s name is Alejandra Perez, and my father’s name was Jaime Diaz. He passed away when I was 14 years old. My great grandfather, from my father’s side, was French, and my great, great grandfather from my mother’s side was Scottish. I have a younger brother named Jorge Andres, and an older sister named Natalia. I moved to the United States when I was 15 years old, and six months later, I started to attend T.C. Williams High School.

Since I came to the United States, I have studied very hard to get the best grades I could possibly get. As a result I managed to obtain a GPA between 4.00 - 4.14 every year since the 10th grade. However, I have a total GPA of 3.89 because of the low grades that I brought from Chile. Despite the problem mentioned above, I have accomplished a lot these past 3 years. I took many hard classes, and managed to pass them with very good grades, which was not very easy. It took a lot of time and effort of my part. Sometimes, I slept from 3-5 hours in order to study for all my tests to get good grades. At the end, I think it was worth it because I graduated with an advanced diploma and a GPA above average. Also I received numerous awards during my attendance at T.C. Williams, including the President’s Education Award for Outstanding Academic Excellence during the 12th grade, some other awards for particular classes, and being placed on T.C. Williams High School’s honor roll for three consecutive years.

I have accomplished a lot things thanks to my family from whom I have learned many important values. My mother taught me to set goals for my future, and my father taught me to never give up my dreams. Now, my most important philosophy is that people should always set goals for their future, in order to give purpose to their lives. Otherwise life would be boring and monotonous. I like to focus on goals that are hard to reach, because most of the time, the easy things do not last long. Also, I think that anything can be possible when one works hard to get it. This means that even though we might find obstacles when we are trying to achieve our goals, if we work hard, we can overcome them and accomplish anything we fix our minds on doing. My dad used to say "there’s no worst diligence than the one you don’t do" and thanks to that I learned that taking risks sometimes is a good thing. Even though, some people are afraid to try new things, they should try them or otherwise they will never know what the result would have been if they haven’t tried them at all. School is one of the main things that I focus on because it’s the first step to make my dreams come true. I spent most of my time studying during high school (having good grades has always been a major priority to me). When I was in high school, one of the classes that I was best at was math. However it wasn’t my favorite subject. I preferred English because my teacher continuously assigned the class to read a book, which would entertain me for at least a pair of weeks. I love to read, but I never had time to do so during high school, unless it was a book for one of my classes. I enjoyed very much reading books for my English class because it gave me a reason to read. During my free time, I usually watch the latest movies that have come out on DVD or at the movie theater, in order to learn more about films. I have seen so many movies that most of the time I can recognize a good or a bad movie before I watch it. Also, I love to read screenplays to get accustomed to their format. Another thing that I like to do during my spare time is to develop ideas to write a good movie script. Because I have had a long vacation since I graduated from high school, I started working on my first screenplay, which I expect to finish before I go to college.

Now that I have graduated from high school and I have passed the SAT, my next goal is to get accepted at a university with a good school of film to get an education and someday become a film director. First of all, I decided that I want to go to a college in California because that is where the film industry is located. After doing some research, I found out that at Chapman University I would not have to wait until my junior year to start taking film classes as in some other universities such as the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Also, I read that there is a studio under construction, which will give the students at Chapman an advantage over the students of many other film universities, since they will have the opportunity to learn and make movies in a place that will more closely resemble their future working place. In fact, there are many things that I like about Chapman University. One of those things is that it is at about 30 minutes from Hollywood, which will enable me to get an internship in the film industry without any problem. Another thing is that the films that the students make do not become property of the university, but property of the students. This makes Chapman University unique, since I read that most film schools own their students’ work. All this features make Chapman the perfect place where I would like to study film, and I would be most honored if I were to be accepted there. What I expect from Chapman is to gain as much experience as I can to be ready to work in the film industry after I get a degree. Even if I do not get accepted at Chapman University, I will not give up and I will find a way to accomplish my dreams because I believe that when there is a will there’s always a way to reach one’s goals. My next goal is to study film to become one of the greatest female film directors of all times. I made a career portfolio last year for a my government class, in which I had to research a problem in the field that I wanted to study. My research was about why there is a scarce number of successful female directors compared to the number of successful male directors, and why so few of them get recognized for their work. After reading many articles, I learned that few female directors have been nominated for an Oscar, however, none of them has actually received one. My greatest goal for the future will be to one day receive an award for my work as a director.

Every experience in life has taught me something new, which has motivated me to realize my dreams and never give up. There has always been a good side, even to the bad experiences that I have lived. For example, the death of my father made me mature faster and become stronger. Thanks to that, and the values that my parents taught me, I have accomplished all my dreams up to this point, and I expect to continue that way. My next goal is to get accepted at a good university (my preference is Chapman University) and study film to become one of the best film directors of all times.