Possibly, but another thing to watch out for (same sort of logic about not duplicating other things in your application) is too much overlap with “Why this college?” or “Why this major?” supplemental essays. Those are very common, and to me what you described sounds like it could be part of the answer to such questions.
In general, I would just underscore that this is an opportunity to make them think something like, “Wow, this is an interesting person, I would like to know more about them!” That is quite the challenge in some ways, certainly different from most essays most kids have written before, and I think sometimes kids go overboard trying to get creative in response. But I do think a lot of people end up picking something that sounds safely on point to them, which is OK but maybe not the sort of essay most likely to make a difference.