Please give me tips on how to improve this

<p>Dear Financial Aid Office,
I am writing you because due to several circumstances I wasn’t able to meet the minimum requirements for GPA for this past semester. Although this past semester was a rough one I thoroughly intend to make up for it this semester. As a young adult coming out of high school I was not aware of how big the jump was. When it came time for college I was unprepared and I had a problem with being aware of how low my grades were.<br>
Regrettably my reasons for not meeting the minimum requirements could be considered less than satisfactory. No I did not have a serious illness or a death of an immediate family member but I was going through several huge changes in my life such as: graduating high school, losing contact with all of my friends, moving out of my adoptive mother’s house and in with my biological mom due to personal reasons, and starting college. All of this resulted in me being very overwhelmed. I decided to enroll in college right off the bat so I wouldn’t lose my motivation. Coming from a small town in Illinois where hardly anybody strived to do anything with their life I wanted to be different. I was tired of seeing friends with 2 and 3 kids with no money and no education after 10th grade. But, now I realize that given the circumstances I should have taken the semester to adjust to all of the new changes before committing to something so huge.<br>
During my first semester at Johnson County Community College it was nearly impossible to keep tabs on my grades due to teachers not using angel or not updating grades. My math instructor refused to tell me what my grades were when I went to her and when I finally did find out how close I was to failing it was too late.
In the future I am going to do several things to ensure this does not happen again. This will entail using better time management skills, meeting with a counselor to review the progress being made on a regular basis, and going to counselor’s when having a problem like the one I had in the previous semester in regards to my grades. In addition to the things I am going to ensure this does not happen again I have adjusted to my new environment and have a lot less going on.
Furthermore, I am asking for my appeal to be approved so I can have a second chance at receiving the education that I need to succeed.</p>