Congratulations to our Class of 2022! We celebrate our Spike Founders’ college results, notable Spikes, and significant growth milestones.
In our Spike Coaching program, gratitude is a key marker of whether a student will launch a successful Spike project. This trend speaks to the necessity of teaching kids gratitude. We include tips on how parents can cultivate this trait in their teens.
Are you a teen who wants to a business? Or become an innovator? In this article, I’ll describe the unique benefits of learning entrepreneurship in high school, highlight the beliefs that set Spike Lab apart, and shout out a few other notable programs.
Confidence is what we feel when we believe in ourselves. How can parents help their teens build this superpower? And how can teens supercharge their confidence through our Spike Coaching program?
Self-motivation can be hard for students to build and maintain. How can they practice motivation as a skill? How can parents support them?
This article showcases the Spike pitches of sixteen kid entrepreneurs who recently finished our inaugural Young Innovators Program, in partnership with the New Jersey professional chapter of the famous African American Sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha.
Our first pro bono Young Innovators Program with the famous African American Sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, was a success! Learn more about how this workshop serial version of our 1:1 Spike Coaching program develops teen entrepreneurs.
Does the idea of being an entrepreneur feel overwhelming? Like you don’t know where to start? This is why we’ve compiled the best books for young entrepreneurs!
Decades before, a well-rounded high school student could easily gain college admission into the most elite schools. However, the elite college admissions system shifted with the times. Knowing how modern college admissions has evolved historically can help today’s applicant understand how to stand out in today’s competitive environment.
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.
An entrepreneur, designer, and engineer, Sonia is passionate about the application of human-centered design (HCD) and technology to improve quality…
The importance of self-reflection for students appears in both a Spike project and colleges applications. But how do you cultivate this skill that is essential for lifelong learning and success?
We previously posted a blog about time management, so we’re back with a list of the best productivity apps for…
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.
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.
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.
In this post, you’ll meet Alex Owens, a former classroom teacher with a decade of experience helping students launch ambitious community-oriented projects.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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…
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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.
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.
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.
We’ve expanded to Hong Kong! Learn more about what that means here.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
