<p>I don’t know… I guess I have far less CC essay experience, but in my opinion, you don’t want to be formal necessarily - you want to be YOU. Regardless of the formality of your essay, your essay should have your voice. Colleges aren’t looking for a five-hundred word term paper-esque writing sample, and I think that abbreviated forms such as can’t and won’t and don’t are perfectly acceptable… especially in certain contexts. Though perhaps I’m just defending my own decision to do the exact same thing to stay under the five hundred word limit for Brown…</p>