While the college admissions guidebook industry has churned out numerous books and websites telling students what their essays should and should not do, most of those are written by former admissions officers, not by writers or teachers of writing, and almost all rely heavily on providing models of top admissions essays. As a result, students who use these books are frustrated because they can repeat the dos and don'ts, they can point to examples of what their final product should look like, but they have no idea "how" to get there themselves. In this article, the author describes how she discovered that college application essays share many of the characteristics of creative nonfiction, and that by teaching students how to borrow and use elements of creative nonfiction, they are better able to write essays that reflect their experiences, insights, and personalities. In this article, she describes how her creative nonfiction workshops inspired students to attend more closely to their personal experience, voice, and sensory detail in their college essays. (Contains 1 figure.)