Princeton, Bitterness, and Pink Whistles

I was talking to one of my close friends (whom I shall not name here for the sake of privacy) from back home (he also goes to my old high school) over the phone (whoa, a phone! Who still uses those?) and he was asking me about stuff relating to college applications. Somehow, Princeton University entered our conversation, and he talked about how an admissions officer who visited our high school said this:

Don't show any of your friends your college applications. They're going to steal your essays.

First, let me leave aside any discussion of copyright. It isn't really applicable here, not because essays are or are not copyrighted, but because this is more a case of plagiarism (because these "friends" would be taking your work and claiming it as their own without crediting you in any way, and if you write your essays describe moments of your own life, they would be totally false when applied to your "friends'" lives). The reaction my friend and I simultaneously had was, "Doesn't this guy have more faith in people? He obviously must be bitter about a similar incident that happened in his high school or college years." I didn't get into Princeton, and knowing this, I'm actually glad that I didn't. Maybe it's fine for graduate school, but the undergraduate environment seems to foster cutthroat competition based on this statement.
It reminds me of the recent case of a couple high school (or was it college?) football referees being suspended for two games for using pink whistles to promote awareness of breast cancer. (I've always wondered why other diseases aren't publicized in the same way as breast cancer is, but I guess at the same time something is better than nothing. That's a post for another day.) The manager (or whatever he is) who suspended these referees said that using whistles that aren't black are against game regulations and that not suspending these referees for breaking the rules would tell players that it's OK to break the rules. In a word, no. The message the manager sent is that all laws are absolute (which they aren't) and that if the law says it's wrong, even if breaking the law doesn't hurt anybody and actually helps society, it's still punishable. Both of these people seemed to feel a little small and powerless, so they wanted to exercise their power by being total [expletive]s. I guess what they say is true after all: "No good deed goes unpunished."

Why are College Essays so Hard?

For most of my classmates as well as myself, it's that time: college applications.
Thankfully, the Common Application is now online and most other colleges have tried to make their applications as uniform and painless as possible. There's very little chance of losing paperwork as almost everything now is electronic.
The one major pain that remains, however, is in writing the essay.
Now it's even harder because along with the Common Application essay I have to write many different supplements for colleges as well as essays for non-Common Application schools.
But the question remains: why is writing the essay itself so hard, and why does it remain so even if there was only one essay to be written?
I think I have an answer for my fellow seniors.
One thing that is thought of as an issue is that almost all college essay questions are broad. This is actually good after a bit of thinking, because narrow essay questions about one's experiences limits one's ability to write the essay. Thus, this isn't really an issue.
The issue comes with how one is taught to write an essay and one's interests.
Students are usually taught to write essays at the beginning of middle school. These first essays along with the multitude of essays that follow are almost completely passionless analytical essays that require students to analyze and take a stand about some facet of a novel while exclusively using the 3rd person and only using material from the book for support. These essays continue throughout high school English classes.
The essays for college applications require that one spin a story around an event or idea. It requires that one use one's storytelling and fluffing abilities to make an essay sound better even if there is no more substance to speak of.
The other thing mentioned was one's interests. I can only speak for myself here, but I am very interested in science. My interest is such that I don't really read storybooks anymore but instead stick to nonfiction science- or technology-related books or news articles. I honestly have no patience for a book that tries hard to spin a story. This is why I stopped reading The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring after 70 pages and why I generally dislike John Steinbeck's works: the authors fluff up the stories way too much with description and almost fail to mention a plot of any kind. Reflecting this, my essays tend to be very direct and to-the-point without much storytelling; I don't like writing in a style of literature that I don't like either. This, however, means that some people may think my essay needs a lot of work while others will say it's fine. For example, my mom says my essay structure needs more "maturity", while my brother thinks I could make it even less formal. At the same time, he says it should come out naturally, almost spoken, while my dad says it needs to be more like a spun story. If I cave to too many demands, it won't sound like me anymore, and that's also bad.
HELP!
I guess the only solution is to ask all English teachers above grade 6 in this area/country to require at least 1 of these personal-style essays per year so that students will be able to crank them out as easily on college applications as they do analytical essays in school.
I need to continue writing my essays now...