<p>Do most of you use the essay prompts in the application or do you choose to write about whatever you want? Which is better?</p>
<p>Welcome to CC...</p>
<p>The best way to answer this question is to visit colleges that post examples of good essays (Tufts is one of them) and compare that to their own prompts. You will quickly discover that people generally ignore the prompts and write on a generic topic along the lines of who are you/memorable experience/the way you see the world.</p>
<p>There is a simple reason for this. Most people seem to apply to ~10 schools and there is no way one can do a decent job with a unique essay for every school. My guess is that most people write a single fairly generic essay and then tailor it a bit for the school.</p>
<p>YMMV</p>