My kid can not write “narrative” or “descriptive” essays to save his live. He absolutely he could not write an essay like the ones posted on line. He excels on persuasive and expository instead and that’s the structure he used although it is not recommenced. He wrote about his process on forming an opinion in an issue as mom comes from X, dad from Y and he lives in Z which has large communities from A and B. Not an emotional or scholarly essay of deep thoughts but interesting, well written and centered on him. The recommendation letters were based on his classroom discussion skills and he was applying to B schools. I think the essay went well with the rest of the app. I think that’s the point anyway. Essays are not judged by themselves as literally pieces.