Student writes college admissions essay about her love of Costco, gets into 5 Ivies

A groundbreaking college essay.
(Image credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Getting into the top colleges in the country is no easy feat — great grades, test scores, and extracurriculars all play a role. And then there is the college admissions essay, which gives students a chance to flaunt their SAT-worthy vocabularies while also attempting to stand out from the crowd.

For Brittany Stinson, an 18-year-old senior at Concord High School in Delaware, that essay just happened to be about her love of Costco; writing about the wholesale superstore helped earn her a place at five Ivy League universities — Yale, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth, and Cornell — as well as Stanford.

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Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.