Is story telling a must in an admission essay?

I've been reading old essays from 2009 till present and find that most of the essays had some form of story telling.

I do understand that an essays needs to have a hook for the officers to read,but somehow it turn outs to a complete (sob/sad/fun) story and completely ignores the questions itself?

How does the admission officer sees that ? The fact that he/she read a good story or the fact that you disregard the question completely ?

Wondering how many officer does your essays get through ? Like if its 2 officers,one could say yes and could say no,but if its one?

The number of readers varies from college to college. No college admissions panel (and it usually is a panel) has one person look at your essay and say "yes" or "no". The decision is always made with respect to your entire application.

Most essay prompts DO ask you to refer to AN experience, so story telling kind of comes with the territory.

An effective essay tells a story (maybe in one paragraph, maybe in three), and analyzes that story (really an experience) for how it answers their ultimate question.

Failure to address the prompt is almost universally considered a lack of capacity to write at a college level. Always address the prompt before you say something you think is "interesting".

From what I learned, people are hard-wired for stories.

Unfortunately, story telling is a must. But, the difference between a "good" college essay and a bad one, are the lessons you show you have learned. For example a story about adopting a dog will not get you into college no matter how cute it was, UNLESS you learned something from it.

Supplements however are less rigid.

Stories manage to entertain the reader, but they're only effective if the writer succesfully manages to imprint the moral of the story.