gradschoolstressed

Applying to grad schools is stressing me out way more than it should. Being on here hasn't made it any better so far, I'm now concerned that the schools I've chosen to apply to aren't decent enough programs after reading everyone's "Cornell, Duke, Chicago, etc." Yikes. At any rate, I'm really struggling with my letter of intent/statement of purpose/you know what I mean. I've read conflicting opinions that personalizing it can either be beneficial or very harmful. I'm not using the "when I was a kid" approach, but I am trying to personalize it to make sure that I actually come through in my writing, instead of it just turning out to be dry sentences addressing each point they want to know about. I'm also not sure how much of my undergraduate background to include, as they will have my transcripts and resume/CV to look at separately. And while I'm on the panic train, my GRE verbal score was great, but my reasoning score was awful (39th percentile) and my writing score was mediocre at best. Any thoughts?