Can an “excuse essay”/ life story help me get into a target/semi-target MSF?

I have heard that having a good essay is an important part of a good application for top schools. I honestly do not have this great story of overcoming my weaknesses and wanting to make the world a better place and whatnot. I went to a shitty undergrad (not even top 300 according to usnews, and even as a shit ranking, puts it into perspective ) so I think my relatively high 3.9 GPA and GMAT of somewhere between 650-690 wont matter given its from a school that is easier than ivy league’s for example. Also as an international student I feel that being accepted requires me to have a great potential to even be considered.

Would it help me if I write an “excuse essay” as to why I attended an unknown college and couldn’t get accepted into a better school straight out of high school?

I never thought I was going to graduate high school and much less college, not because I was going to dropout, but because I genuinely believed “the world was going to end” before that happened. The thing that made me different than most kids my age during school was that my family, and therefore me too, were part of a relatively small religion that makes its believers believe that the world is about to end any time now. This high control religion (some might call it a cult, or at the very least containing cult-like behaviors) actively told its followers that attending a university is bad because “satan controls them”. As a kid and teenager who was told that the world will end any day now, and that college is evil, I never developed any interest in higher education or in doing good in high school as those grades wouldn’t even matter anyway, so I graduated with a 2.2-ish gpa (adhd also helped in that,but I still have it and I am doing better).

Fast forward to freshman year in college living away from parents and not going to church or activities revolving around church 3/4 times a week and I quickly started doubting my faith slowly over a two year period. During those days I started actually studying because for the first time ever I started considering that I was going to eventually graduate. I actually enjoyed learning for the first time ever and decided that I wanted to not only get good grades but even get a masters degree (remember that going to an international university away from home and getting higher education was already “rebellious”, doing a masters meant in the eyes of the people of that religion that I stopped trusting god and instead “had faith in myself and the world under satan’s control”.

Looking back I feel dumb for not realizing how crazy that religion was, but I can definitely see how it made me a different person and changed my priorities while I still believed. This story is very personal, and I rarely mention things like this to the people i know, with my girlfriend being the exception.

I would like to attend a top university, but my lack of experience makes me feel that I will never be accepted into somewhere that is even top 50.

Would this experience be enough to differentiate me among so many smart and talented kids that were able to attend better undergraduate colleges, have great past internships, maybe even actively working for nonprofits making the world a better place, and get better gpa’s and gmat scores?