I need help with Admissions Essay!!!

I want to start off saying that if you're thinking of taking a "break" from school FORGET ABOUT IT. It sucks. It sucks to keep your mind active and it sucks to get back in. One semester turns into two years. And no matter how much money you save something terrible will happen and snatch it all away. (Can someone say car accident without medical insurance?)

now that I got that out of the way, I just wanted to give some backround on this. I was going to have a more creative essay and have this (or some version thereof) be my cover letter. In an effort to reduce the work they have to do (and not play with fire), I decided to make this my essay... I'm not completely done revising it but I like the way it's going. I just want some imput. I really don't like how it ends, it's rather weak. erg. i'll just post.

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This application package contains a variety of information on my qualifications. My grades, activities, hopes and dreams are typed and fit neatly into boxes. It categorizes my accomplishments clearly as academic or extracurricular. My first journey through this process, I believed it was more; that filling out the application gave away my life. But something is missing. If I was the person displayed in this application I would not have grown a day since February of 2003.

Being waitlisted from Northeastern was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I realize that sounds strange. Honestly, I can see now that I was not ready for college immediately after High School. I had experienced two years of it already, taking classes at Kent State University while still attending Marlington. Half way through my senior year, I rebelled. It was one of the worst things I could do, but it allowed me to reach an important point in my life. I was in no way appreciative and had no real understanding of the world beyond high school. Financial responsibility, full time work and living away from home were all foreign concepts to me.

In the last two years, I have worked consistently, saved less consistently, taught myself a number of things and traveled as much as my budget would allow. Unfortunately the real noteworthy accomplishments cannot be found neatly outlined on paper. Things people before me have discovered, but unique within me. Now I understand and appreciate a bit more about the world, from a number of different angles.

I want to go to Northeastern. I have read about New England, about Boston, and nearly everything I could find about the university. It is not just typing criteria in a search engine to find a “matching” school. I feel I would make a connection with Northeastern that I could not make with another college. It has the real world experience I was missing two years ago. Northeastern’s Co-Op Program has a unique apeal to me, more now that I have experienced a bit of the job market. Realizing ability in a chosen field without waiting four years to get a degree is an incredible opportunity that I would take advantage of fully. I have a lot in common with Northeastern, because education with experience is worth much more than education without experience.


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that's butchered at 405 words.

(Oh, by the way, I was wait-listed at NEU because I applied the day of the deadline without even proofing my essay. When I called they told me that I applied late and that's why I was waitlisted and had a "good chance" of getting called back).

HELP!

Also I completed a resume and that might go a ways in "explaining" myself for the last year and a half.