janitors sound like fortune 500 company sanitation engineers.

I like essays in that they allow students to provide a more personal view of who they are. That's good, and should be part of an application. That contextual flavor of applicant interests outside of the classroom is important. But no matter how dedicated you were as the soprano 2 section leader for 3 years for your all women's HS choir, if you struggle with taking a test and can't get about a 24 on the ACT, you will struggle at a high level academic institution like BYU as well.

If you want well rounded kids, a section that allows applicants to list extracurriculars a la a resume is sufficient to be able to see how much a kid does outside of class. An essay or two could highlight one of those things, but a highly subjective (and forgeable) essay is given way too much weight.