My first motivation letter

I just wrote a first draft, and both I and the university have certain special cirumstances to apply that shall become clear. Half the guides I read stress formality and the other half stress originality to the point of conflicting with the former; so I would really appreciate some guidance. I also read one should wait a day or two before they edit their first drafts, so in the meantime I shall drop this here for guidance. I removed the name of the college to avoid google search issues but I do believe it will become quite apparent. All help is appreciated! UK English. I did not lie.

Dear Sir or Madam,

In accordance with my ambition to pursue a deep and academic understanding of what can be aptly described as, in layman’s terms, “what is going on in this world”, I am writing this letter of motivation to your esteemed and prestigious institute. Indeed, ------- is the leading academy in Continental Europe for the study of social sciences and always more than merely “within scope” in the global scale. Following are the reasons that lead me to believe I more-than-deserve a chance to study in the grand school that has produced almost the entirety of the French Government.
In perhaps quite an unorthodox manner; I shall not be using this chance to redundantly reiterate what had been said in my rather humble Curriculum Vitae, but instead I will defend the aforementioned résumé. Although I may indeed bore you with some excerpts from my childhood, I promise to keep it brief and purposeful. Growing up, I was the child who asked his parents the Big Existential Question (“Why do we exist? How did it all start?”) at age 4. I was the child who wrote a short philosophical treatise on the nature of non-existence at age 7. (It is a shame I can’t actually find the MSWord file of that, it was in Turkish and yet I believe I could translate it as to not cast that statement into doubt.) I was the child who wanted to learn everything he could for the sake of learning, not just for the utility thereof in everyday life. And I suppose I am indeed guilty of speaking in a pointlessly verbose fashion even on mundane internet chatrooms as well as everyday life since the age of 13. But I digress. Furthermore, I perceive that you receive this kind of student who has an academically inclined mind with only a handful extracurricular activities to his name (though you must admit that mine are rather distinguished) to place him apart quite often.
I shall be addressing that point quite soon, after I present the even more baffling piece of this application form. Why does the student who lays claim to a passion for learning unrivalled have high school grades that are decent, when not subpar(except this year where I have been doing quite well)? The answer to that can be derived from the subject I chose for that first philosophical essay of mine (death). As is the plot of too many children’s lives these days, I was the object of incessant bullying for years. I say that not to endear myself, but to precede my confession to having suffered the most horrid disease I have yet to endure. Clinical depression, a term that is loosely thrown around by too many adolescents these days… Few seem to recall the actual disease has had such lovely results as one Mr. Van Gogh famously relieving himself of his ears. This vile perversion of the mind, if you will excuse my grandiosity, did not manifest that terribly in me. What it did was cast a shadow hanging over my early teenage years. Later on I stumbled upon a book on cognitive studies based on the well-known mishap of Phineas Gage that illuminated the relation between my mental state and my underachievement. “Descartes’ Error” by Antonio Damasio, I believe.
And yet I beat my demons; and today stands before you a man who has studied enough philosophy and history to write a few books, or perhaps hold a lovely dinner conversation on whether the Reform actually had any merits in the intellectual development of Europe. And not at all have I just lost all those years. It forced me to establish a clear sense of what to actually expect from people, what motivates them to do or to not do what, much better than the plethora of students who have presided over three school projects to learn leadership skills. This combined with my… condition gave me a crude understanding of the mind and of society, upon which I only immediately capitalised by reading on psychology and sociology. I developed an ear for good music and an eye for good literature. I did not do much in the sports department, for I was never well-suited to such; I suffer from an impaired hand-eye coordination that prevents me from participating in any sports involving the throwing around of round objects, and my exploits in the other kinds of sports (such as skiing) are nothing to boast. It created a cynical, witty sense of humour which predictably led to my initial interest in politics.
And herein lies the reason I apply: Your school offers its international applicants a chance to prove themselves in an interview should they pass this process of elimination. I uphold that my CV is passable enough on its own to provide me with that privilege; but if you shall deem it fit to give me this one hour, I guarantee that it shall prove to have been the right decision.
In closing I should like to mention why I have chosen the campuses that I have: I chose Reims because I wish to observe where the field of political theory has gotten to in our modern days. The regions focused on in the Reims campus illustrate, in layman’s terms once more, “where we have gotten to”; it is from there onwards that we advance. As for my second choice of Le Havre; while the language of instruction being the one I am most proficient in (as with Reims) has indeed helped, the Far East has a most interesting history and a separate, intriguing tradition to further that choice. My primary interest has always been academics; as opposed to what field would make me the most in money or fame, or what regions are trying to catch up (as a Turkish citizen, I have experience in that issue).

I thank you for your interest and look forward to the interview.