gmatmba
Depends ... which school? how many essays do they have in total?
For eg. MIT does not want you to write about that far back. If its a school that only has 2 essays (like Yale, Cornell, etc), you may want to write about a strong leadership experience from work that is recent.
i have used an example from 2000 in one of my sloan essay (that makes it 6 years old)
it's not that MIT doesn't want you to go that far back...what i could gather from my interactions with the admissions staff...one instance going that far back is okay...don't make it a habbit or else it will appear as if you do not have any recent acheivements to talk about...it goes without saying that if you are using an older example, it has to be solid...
same goes for word limit...few words here are there is okay....don't cross the limit "unnecessarily" in all the essays...
note: that some schools do specifically mention not to use old examples..MIT is not one of them...
So, homefry....if you think that your undergrad experience is a glowing ode to your existence, you can use it...as long as Haas doesn't explicitely mention to use only recent examples