Struggling to write your first resume as a high school student? Check out this guide on how to craft one for an internship or college app.
Recommendations becoming more important in college apps. We outline why and what you can do to improve the quality of your recommendations.
Always feel like you’re running out of time? In this blog, we’ll explain how to conduct a time audit and analyze your time management.
How well your business runs depends on how well you manage your time. Check out these ways to manage time for max productivity.
CollegeBoard is discontinuing the SAT Subject Tests and the optional SAT essay. Here’s what students can do with their extra time.
The best process for developing purpose is through action, a purpose project that we call a Spike. This process is more an art than a science, but we liken it to a very simple 4-step framework that our students follow.
We are proud to announce the results from our students in the class of 2020. These students worked extraordinarily hard…
No decision has been reached yet in the Harvard admissions trial, but it’s already changed the world of elite college admissions. This post takes an inside look at Harvard’s admissions processes and discusses some of the biggest takeaways and what you can do to increase your chances of getting into Harvard.
This article explains our company’s mission: to develop “purpose-driven innovators for life”. We are working to foster a fundamental paradigm shift in adolescent education that puts the development of purposeful innovators at the center.
College interviews can be one of the most stressful parts of the application process. The good news is that they don’t have to be if you know more about the purpose of the interview and how to prepare.
We previously explained how to craft a pitch. In this blog post, we’ll show you two example pitches and explain what works and what doesn’t.
Got a great idea for a product or project? Not sure how to pitch it to potential users? Here’s a guide on how to start!
In our work as coaches to high school superstars, we come across important stories on youth innovation and college admissions.…
In December 2020, King Sze Yip (left) and Jane Griffiths (right) joined The Spike Lab team in Hong Kong as Senior Advisors. In this post, they talk about their shared history and what drew them to The Spike Lab’s work.
It’s a hard lesson, but sometimes you need to slow down in order to go faster, and sometimes you need to lay down in order to run.
In this post, you’ll meet Daniel Chiu, a software entrepreneur and technology consultant helping teenagers become entrepreneurs themselves.
Several weeks ago, our featured student and TSL alum Monica spoke with us about how her Spike project experience has opened opportunities for her in college.
In this post, you’ll meet Alex Owens, a former classroom teacher with a decade of experience helping students launch ambitious community-oriented projects.
Illustration from “Healing The Whole Family” by Jon Han for The New York Times This New York Times article is…
In our work as coaches to high school superstars, we come across important stories on youth innovation and college admissions. Every month, we share our round-up of the most important ones. This month highlights the importance of social-emotional wellness during COVID and lessons on learning entrepreneurship. We hope you enjoy them!
This is a guest post written by our coach, Grace Chiang. It’s no question COVID-19 has massively disrupted the education…
This is an except from our press release published on multiple sites including Yahoo Finance, Market Watch and AP News.…
In this post, we share Buddy Tutoring, the awesome Spike that Felicia launched to help connect students with free tutoring.
Back before the coronavirus pandemic had swept the US, a small group of our team members and coaches gathered together in upstate New York for our Annual Coach Summit. We reflect on it in this post.
In this post, you’ll meet Steven Eno, a former teacher and engineer who has built multiple successful STEM and innovation programs at high schools.
Colleges are being forced to rapidly innovate a holistic admissions process that hasn’t been changed in years, all due to COVID-19. Universities and applicants both face significant uncertainty. In this post, we expand upon the issues fueling this uncertainty and how seniors can effectively navigate the upcoming application cycle ahead.
August 2020 recommended stories on youth innovation and college admissions.
Launched recently, Vanessa’s Wear No Hate fundraiser will donate all proceeds to charities serving Asian communities impacted by COVID and Black Table Arts, a non profit improving African American student outcomes through art.
Meet Allison, one of our former students who launched an awesome Spike to help students learn Chinese history.
In this post you’ll meet Ines Gramenga, a LSE and Stanford GSB alum and an experienced consultant and entrepreneur.
Learn more about “Songs Against Silence’s” global art competition and how you can contribute by submitting a song by July 21st
At The Spike Lab we work tirelessly to build a team of world-class coaches. This is part of a series of blogs introducing them to you.
See our webinar with Preminente on how to make the most of your summer!
Yani is one of our former Spike students — now at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. As you…
If you’re laboring away trying to figure out what to do this summer, labor no more; build a Spike. It’s the most fun, developmentally challenging and rewarding way for teens to spend their summer AND it’s pandemic proof!
At The Spike Lab we work tirelessly to build a team of world-class coaches. This is part of a series of blogs introducing them to you. In this post, you’ll meet Spencer Whale, a NYC theater director, inventor, and Cornell alum.
High school students around the world are scrambling to figure out what to do this summer due to the Pandora’s box of programmatic changes and uncertainty from the COVID-19 pandemic . This article is meant to provide some clarity and guidance amidst the chaos.
It’s impossible to know precisely how these shifts will affect college admissions, but one thing is certain: academics are going to play the smallest role they have ever played. As admissions officers have less and less confidence in their traditional measures of student aptitude, they are going to look more and more to the untraditional. Spikes will be more important than ever.
Empathy interviewing is a valuable skill for anyone in the early stages of an ambitious project. In this post, our coach Sara DuPont breaks down best practices for empathy interviewing.
This is a guest post by our coach, Jane Marie Chen, the original post can be found on her website…
At the time of writing this post, coronavirus (COVID-19) has hit East Asia hard and is now accelerating rapidly across…
In our work as coaches to high school superstars, we come across important stories on youth innovation and college admissions.…
At The Spike Lab we work tirelessly to build a team of world-class coaches. This is part of a series of blogs introducing them to you. In this post, you’ll meet Sarah DuPont, an experienced educational entrepreneur and Williams and BU MBA alum.
At The Spike Lab we work tirelessly to build a team of world-class coaches. This is part of a series of blogs introducing them to you. In this post, you’ll meet Justin Gupta, a Georgetown alum and experienced social entrepreneur who has consulted with a number of prominent education and tech companies.
If you’re young and starting a new social venture, don’t make the common mistake of registering as a nonprofit too early. This article outlines three other options you should consider first: staying informal, organizational sponsorship and fiscal sponsorship.
We often get asked “what does a good Spike look like?” The best way to answer that question is by pointing to specific examples. Here are four famous, world-changing spikes that were started by high school students.
At The Spike Lab we work tirelessly to build a team of world-class coaches. This is part of a series of blogs introducing them to you. In this post, you’ll meet Nathaniel Toppelberg, a Yale alum who has launched multiple education companies.
At The Spike Lab we work tirelessly to build a team of world-class coaches. This is part of a series of blogs introducing them to you. In this post, you’ll meet Ayna Agarwal, a Stanford alum and Harvard HBS Class of 2020 student with years of experience in tech and policy.
Greta Thunberg won the Time Person of the Year with her Spike, the Fridays for Future Movement. We’d like to recognize her with our own distinction: The Spike of the Year.
At a 2.5% hire rate, it’s harder to become a coach at The Spike Lab than it is to get into Harvard. This article gives you an inside look at what we look for in our coaches and the interview process we’ve designed to make these difficult decisions.
At The Spike Lab we work tirelessly to build a team of world-class coaches. This is part of a series of blogs introducing them to you. In this post, you’ll meet Uchechi Kalu, a Princeton alum and talented writer with experience in college admissions and starting companies internationally.
Our founder, Lloyd, was quoted in a recent article in US News & World Report about some of the biggest…
Colleges have released their supplemental essays for the 2019-2020 application cycle. This post includes a list of the supplements for most of the top colleges.
As a result of the Harvard Affirmative Action lawsuit trial documents recently made public, we know exactly how the Harvard…
Come join us at the Princeton Club on Thursday, September 5th for our seminar on A Different Approach to Getting into a Top US College.
RSVP now!: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/CrSvstyYq2MT02oMw66wYw
During summer break don’t fall into the common trap of thinking that it’s enough to just have packed schedule with great programs, internships, summer classes, test prep programs, traveling and/or itineraries. It is still important to do your own strategic planning if you want to make the most of your time.
The summer presents a unique opportunity because of how much time is available. Make the most of this opportunity and spend it doing something that will really help you in the future.
At The Spike Lab we work tirelessly to build a team of world-class coaches. This is part of a series of blogs introducing them to you. In this post, you’ll meet Grace Chiang, a Yale alum and Stanford MBA with experience in venture-backed startups and at McKinsey.
Last week, our founder Lloyd had the pleasure of speaking on a panel at the New York EdTech Meetup, the…
This blog post outlines the most important competencies that high schoolers need to be developing to be prepared for the innovation economy. The primary categories include Initiative, Creativity, Planning and Communication.
The massive admissions scandal shook the foundation of the American college admissions system. In particular, it exposed the existence of immoral and illegal “side doors” into elite universities. This article explains what you need to know going forward if you’re considering hiring a private counselor for college applications.
Seniors are awaiting college admissions decisions with bated breath. In this post, we provide the dates that students can expect to hear their decisions from all of the top colleges.
In a world of rapidly increasing change, it’s no longer sufficient for students to learn hard skills and facts — the ‘what’. To thrive in this new environment, they need to develop purpose — a ‘why’. This blog post explains why purpose is so important for today’s youth and provides some guidance for how you can develop your own ‘why’.
In partnership with several of New York City’s top private schools, who are all leaders in entrepreneurship education, we hosted a New York City young entrepreneurs meetup for high school students at Spotify’s US Headquarters. See pictures from the event inside.
If you’ve already applied to colleges and are waiting to hear back, there’s still something you can do to move the needle on your chances.
Our research has found that it is substantially harder for international students to get into top US colleges when compared with their domestic counterparts. In this post, we’ll outline some of the possible explanations for why that may be the case.
Our research indicates that on average, acceptance rates at top US universities tends to be between 2-3x harder for international students when compared to domestic students. Find out what this means and what you can do about it
A large percentage of college admissions officers now Google applicants to learn more about them. Your online profile, including your social media accounts, will influence your application so don’t make the common mistake of forgetting to consider it part of the college application process.
College applications are extremely time consuming, thanks mostly to supplemental essays. This post details some of the colleges that don’t require supplements and could make great additions to your college list with little to no time commitment.
Do colleges actually care if you’re interested in them? In this post, we give you a glimpse inside colleges’ official stances on how they consider demonstrated interest, as well as what you can do to signal that interest.
You’re probably planning to visit college campuses at some point, but what should you do once you’re on campus? In this post, we’ll discuss the essential things that we recommend our students do during their campus visits.
We ran several innovation programs with Dwight School in New York, and faculty from four different Dwight campuses around the world. Learn more about our takeaways here.
Summer is the perfect time of year for internships, vacations, or academic summer programs. If you’re running out of time to make those plans, don’t worry — it’s not too late to have an amazing, productive summer.
We’ve expanded to Hong Kong! Learn more about what that means here.
The period after you hear from colleges can be as stressful as the application process itself. No matter your circumstances, know that you have options in front of you. In this post, we outline the common situations students find themselves in and what they can do to get the best outcome in each.
This is article is part of our series featuring the Spikes of Taiwanese students who got accepted into top US colleges. We hope these stories help exemplify the little known yet courageous stories of hard work and achievement, starting with Philip Kuo — a freshman who got accepted at the #6 undergraduate engineering program in the US.
In this installment of our Spike Stories series we look at Jessica (Johns Hopkins, ’22) who created an initiative to help kids with microtia.
Writing is one of the most important skills for college applications, college courses, and life in general. Yet high schoolers don’t spend nearly enough time developing it. In this post we outline what you can do to start developing this skill sooner rather than later.
For international students, navigating the US financial aid system can be confusing. The entire process of understanding the types of aid available, researching scholarships, sifting through requirements, and submitting applications can take months. This post will provide a brief overview of the most important things you need to know when seeking scholarships.
After a tough semester, it’s tempting to want to spend winter break sitting around doing nothing. Since free time is rare in high school, this is a totally understandable feeling. However, winter break is a fantastic opportunity to get things done that you wouldn’t otherwise have a chance to.
What does great coaching or teaching look like? There is no one answer to this age-old question, but this article reveals how we evaluate the quality of all our coaches!
With college application season upon us, we’re asked by a lot of parents, “What should I be doing to help my 9th grader prepare?” In this blog post, we’ve outlined a number of guidelines for parents of younger high school students to follow.
In mid-December, students typically hear from their early application schools, for better or worse. We thought we’d give some advice to students in the latter group.
When it comes to college applications, many students think more is better. More applications means a better shot at getting into a great school, right? Wrong! Read this blog to learn how over-applying can actually hurt your admission chances.
Are you creating your college list? Don’t fall into the common trap of choosing all reach colleges! Categorizing colleges in Safety, Match and Reach colleges is very difficulty, especially for international Asian students. This article provides instruction on how to do it.
It’s normal to get stuck when writing your college applications, but the important thing is to get yourself unstuck as quickly as possible. We’ve prepared a guide to help you quickly reach out to colleges and get the answers you need.
Application season is upon us, and arguably the most important part of any application is the college essay. There’s a huge amount of advice circulating about writing a good college essay (enough to fill several books), and in this post, we try to distill some of that advice into a few key tips for our students to follow.
The November 1st Early Application Deadline creeps up faster than most expect. In this post, we’ll detail what it means to apply early and why you should or should not do so.
When it comes to applying to college in the US, there are a lot of moving parts. This can be overwhelming at times and missing even a single part can render your entire application incomplete. In this blog post, we’ll take you through a broad overview of the entire application and briefly discuss the strategy for each part along with some recommendations.
Preparing a good college application is like cooking a great dish. You have main ingredients, but you can combine them…
For centuries, colleges have been bastions of wealth and power. Now, they’re trying to reform their image. For many, this is welcome news, but if you’re wealthy this could influence how colleges view you as an applicant.
I grew up in one of the wealthiest suburbs outside of Boston. Despite being at a public school, our…
Are Asians judged at a higher standard than everyone else by US College Admissions? This blog post explains this hotly debated topic and provides some practical tips for Asian applicants.
According to research from Princeton University, students who identify as Asian must score, on average, 140 points higher on…
In this post we check in with Johnny, who at the time had recently returned from participating in MIT’s Launch Program. Talking to Larry, Johnny shares about his experience at Launch, how he got accepted, and gives an update on his journey so far toward college.
This summer, one of our students had the extraordinary opportunity to attend MIT’s Launch program. Launch is an entrepreneurship summer…
We are frequently asked about the pros and cons of various clubs and activities, so we’ve summed up our general insights about some of the clubs that are time “traps” because they don’t help nearly as much as people think.
One of the most frequent questions we get asked is “what clubs should I join”? The only person who can…
This article covers some general insights of medical majors and specialized pre-medicine college programs. Find out which program is perfect for you right now!
When it comes to deciding on colleges, it’s important to know about the resources that each prospective school has to…
A Spike is a unique and impressive achievement that showcases your passion and helps you stand out to college admissions. But why does The Spike Lab’s college counseling program focus so heavily on Spike coaching when other college counselors don’t? Learn about why we believe so strongly in having an amazing Spike and why it’s worth the time and investment.
“Is it safe?” Many international students have been wondering how safe it’ll be for them to study in the U.S. under U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. Read this post to get a sense of how Trump’s campaign and victory is affecting the education world.
According to the US Department of Education, there are approximately 2,300 four year degree-granting colleges in the US. The average international student is familiar with a very small percentage of these. How should you go about narrowing down your list to the short list of (6-10) colleges that you’ll eventually apply to?
Don’t make the common mistake of only applying to the highest ranked US colleges. It’s more important to first figure out which colleges are the best fit for you and then aim for the top colleges on that list.
Not all achievements are impressive, and some Spikes are better than others. The question then becomes: “what makes something impressive to U.S. colleges?” In this post, we’ll give you a glimpse into our own coaching process, and the questions we have students answer in order to determine if their Spike is worth pursuing.
This post was made in partnership with Forbes Asia and covers some of the largest mistakes international students make when applying to colleges in the states.
When it comes to developing a deep achievement Spike, passion is an essential ingredient. But for most students, discovering passion is no easy task. Like most students, you probably have too many interests and even deciding on a place to start is a challenge.
It’s hard to know where to start studying for the ACT. This post outlines a few resources to help students prepare to self-study for the test.
Get an inside look at how our founder, Lloyd Nimetz, thinks about the mission of The Spike Lab: so all students graduate from high school with the achievement skills needed to become leaders and entrepreneurs. Please, not, this is an outdated version of our mission statement. The latest can be read here: https://thespikelab.com/the-spike-labs-reason-for-being-2/
In early high school, you shouldn’t be writing your college application yet, but it is important to have a clear story. At The Spike Lab, we think about your story as the north star that guides and aligns all of your activities, classes, etc during high school. Check out this article to learn about what makes a good story.
This year, US News drastically changed its rankings. Find out how this affects your college search and which rankings are best for international students as you begin your college search.
The international version of the ACT is now taken by computer instead of by pen and paper. Because of this, we’ve changed how we recommend this test compared to the SAT.
The Additional Information section, whether in Common App, Coalition, or the UC application, is a vital opportunity for you to communicate valuable information in your application that might not fit elsewhere. This post breaks down how to fill out this section of those applications.
