<p>My honest opinion, and i'm not trying to be an jerk, i'm just trying to motivate you to fix it: It's awful.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>DO NOT go over the word limit. Showing you are unable to follow directions and/or are a rule breaker right off the bat is bad news. Why should you get 500 more words than everyone else?</p></li>
<li><p>Once you shorten it you'll find that you do not have enough space to restate the question in your intro, furthermore, you will not have enough time to talk about star wars or light saber battles on rainy days. Yes, it shows character, but everything in your essay should be related to a single re-occuring theme, I can't see how star wars or your favorite books relate to anything, no matter what your major is. If you decide you MUST talk about these things, show that you have a superior grasp of the material and relate it to your major.</p></li>
<li><p>The grammar is awful. Don't do things like "My favorite book, actually series, has to be Harry Potter". Don't interrupt yourself mid-thought like that, it's fine in conversation, but it does not translate well to a formal essay at all. Don't write this essay like you are having casual conversation, write it so we know you've taken time to nit-pick every single word so that it is intelligent and formal.</p></li>
<li><p>Don't even HINT at your failures as a person or student. They don't want to see where you screwed up, they can tell that from your GPA and transcript and whatnot. Instead, show them that you are an intelligent, determined, innovative person aside from your weaknesses. Don't mention a single weakness, I believe there's another section on the application for brief explanations like that (i wouldnt even put anything there if i were you).</p></li>
<li><p>You don't have a very good chance for admission with the low GPA, low ACT and poor essay. There's probably nothing you can do about the first two at this point, so fix the last one. You need help, if I were an admissions officer i'd have put the essay down after the first paragraph. Your essay needs to stand out and use EVERY word to help you towards your goal of admission. Also, make sure you include very important things first, there's no gurantee an admissions officer won't put you on the denied pile after just a paragraph or two, you need to captivate them! Since you have such a large amount of revising to do, I'd read testimonials on this site, as well as some sample essays and see if their guidance is right for you: <a href="http://www.essayedge.com%5B/url%5D">www.essayedge.com</a></p></li>
</ol>
<p>I could have done a full critique, but it's my opinion that you just need to start over completely. I know, it sounds like i'm being a real prick, but I want to see you get into U of I since everyone who comes to this board is very determined and deserves a shot. If I was nice about it and tip-toed around the real problems to be polite i don't think you'd do anything about it.</p>