High School Student Accepted to Five Ivy Leagues After Writing Essay About Her Love for Costco

Be prepared to look at your weekend shopping trips in a whole new light

Photo: Andriy Prokopenko

It’s that deep.

One 18-year-old college student used her love for Costco to score acceptance letters from five Ivy Leagues and one other top university, according to reports.

After paralleling her love for the wholesale distributer to her life experiences, Brittany Stinson was accepted to Yale, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth, and Cornell, NBC reports. Stinson was also accepted into to Stanford.

According to the network, the essay prompt asked students to write about a “background, identity, interest or talent that is so meaningful,” that their application wouldn’t be complete without it.

Stinson did just that.

“My intense desire to know, to explore beyond the bounds of rational thought; this is what defines me. Costco fuels my insatiability and cultivates curiosity within me at a cellular level. Enfolded to immerse myself in the unknown, I find it difficult to complacently accept the ‘what;’ I want to hunt for the ‘whys’ and dissect the ‘hows.’ In essence, I subsist on discovery,” Stinson wrote in her essay – obtained by NBC – after detailing how the commonplace samples, and product choices triggered her curiosity as well as intellectual conversations.

Despite her mother Terry telling the network that she is “first in her class,” Stinson – an only child who wants to be a doctor – reportedly chose the unique essay topic to help her stand out from other students with similar grades.

“I couldn’t afford to go via the traditional route. I would actually be more worried about taking a traditional route at the risk of blending in with other applications,” Stinson told NBC. “I knew that writing about my experiences at Costco would at least make for a memorable essay, whether [admissions committees] loved or hated it. On another hand, I felt that the essay ended up being such an accurate representation of me and my personality.”

Now, the high school senior is tasked with making the difficult decision of which school she will attend, however she said “admitted student day visits are going to be so vital,” since she has no idea where she wants to go. She added that financial aid packages will also play a role in her choice.

Read her full essay here.