The Skills Teens Need Before College Prep.

90 minutes on Saturday mornings plus 30 - 40 minutes of independent learning and application on our course portal between sessions. The program also includes one 30 minute 1:1 virtual coaching session that parents can join. We designed the program to not just it around sports, AP coursework, and existing commitments — but to enhance how teens go about selecting and taking part in them. 

Bring them to a free intro call. Students who "don't need it" are often the ones who get the most out of it — they just need to hear the framework directly rather than have it filtered through a parent. Most students who resist the idea before the call are enrolled by the end of it.

Neither. Designing High School is a structured life design and executive function program. We are not addressing mental health conditions — that's the work of a licensed therapist. Instead, we draw on disciplines including design-thinking, life coaching, and personal finance and combine them with insights on teen success backed by research and the experience of a national teaching award winner. We are building self-knowledge, decision-making skills, and execution systems. Think of it as the operating system that makes everything else — including therapy, tutoring, and admissions coaching — work better.

Leadership camps give you an experience. College prep programs give you a deliverable. The Life Design Program gives you a methodology — a repeatable system for making decisions about your own life that you own and use long after the six weeks are over.

The difference shows up in what your teen walks away with. After a leadership camp, they have memories and maybe a certificate. After college prep, they have a polished application. After the Life Design Program, they have a written personal strategy, a Student OS they built themselves, and a framework for every major decision they'll face in high school, college, and beyond.

This isn't a program about building character through challenge or checking boxes toward college. It's a structured methodology — the same kind of rigorous goal architecture used in high-performing organizations — applied to the question of how a teenager figures out who they are and what they're actually building toward.

The Life Design Program is a live, interactive experience — students participate in group discussions, work in shared files, complete typed exercises, and engage in breakout conversations with classmates. Here's what your teen needs before the first session:

Device & Internet

• Desktop computer, laptop, or Chromebook — ideal
• OR iPad or tablet with a connected keyboard and mouse — minimum acceptable setup
• Reliable internet connection
• A phone is not sufficient for participation

Accounts & Software

• A Gmail address and active Google Suite access — Google Docs, Sheets, and Drive are core to the program's tools and deliverables, including the Student OS workbook. If your teen doesn't have a Gmail account, setting one up takes about five minutes.

AI Tools

• We recommend Claude Pro (~$20/month) for its strength in writing, reflection, and structured thinking tasks. Other platforms including ChatGPT are compatible. Free plans can work but paid plans offer meaningfully greater capacity for the learning and productivity work we do together.
• All AI use is governed by MPA's AI Integrity Usage Policy, which students review and agree to at enrollment — emphasizing responsible, source-supported, and academically honest use.

Space

• A dedicated space where your teen can speak freely, engage with the group, and give the session their full attention — not a shared common area or the backseat of a car.

Every student receives a session recording and has access to session slides and tools. The cohort is small enough that nobody falls through the cracks. If your teen misses a session, Neil follows up directly to check in via email.

Most college essays are weak because they're written backwards — the student picks an activity, then invents a narrative around it. The Life Design Program flips that sequence entirely. Students start by mapping their genuine values, strengths, and sources of energy. They use that foundation to prototype activities, areas of study, and summer opportunities that actually fit who they are. Over six weeks, that process builds a strengths-based identity — a clear, honest picture of what lights them up and why — that compounds. Students who know what they're building toward naturally pursue more of it, which generates the kind of purposeful trajectory that produces genuinely compelling application narratives.

By the time your teen sits down to write their essays, they're not staring at a blank page wondering what to say. They're choosing which part of a real story to tell.

The 1:1 session is a 45-minute conversation between Neil and your teen, typically held in the final two weeks of the program. It focuses on your teen's personal strategy deck — reviewing the plan they've built, sharpening their goals, and identifying concrete next steps heading into the next semester. Parents are welcome to join for all or part of the session. Many families use it as a shared check-in where the teen presents what they've built — which tends to be one of the more meaningful conversations a family has about their teenager's future.

Yes. Families who want continued support after the program (or additional support during the program) can book individual coaching calls with Neil directly. Additional sessions are 45 minutes at $150 — available to current and alumni families. These work well as semester check-ins, decision-making sessions around course selection or summer planning, or simply a space for your teen to pressure-test what they're working on with someone outside the family.