Getting to know me

Since my only two topics of conversation these days seems to be work or business schools, I thought I'd take a moment to reflect on the essays that have become the bane of my existance. How does one express who they are and what they want in 250 to 1000 words. If that weren't hard enough, each school asks a slightly different questions so instead of writing four essays, you write at least four per school. Here are the basic questions that keep reoccurring and a few just for fun:

1. Why MBA? Why _____ school?
2. Discuss something you've changed (accomplishment, transform idea into action, etc.)
3. Describe your biggest challenge and how you dealt.
4. What have you done that was innovative?
5. How are you a leader?
6. What would you do if you didn't have to work for a living?
7. What matters most to you and why? (thanks, Stanford)
8. What's your favorite quote and why is it important to you? (thanks, Berkeley)

Do these questions really give the schools enough info to understand me? Why does each school need different questions? Wouldn't a common application do?

Now, a call to action: For those of my that know me well from an outsiders perspective, do you have any suggestions for how I should answer these? I'd especially appreciate quotes that could be used with the last question.

I've started working on these, but keep going back and starting over. Will likely be contacting some of you to review my essays over the next few weeks.