A 6-week program that gives self-driven high schoolers what high-performers have that others don't: genuine self-knowledge, real execution and tech skills, and a strategic plan built around who they actually are -- so every application, decision, and opportunity gets their best.
The Missing Piece
School builds credentials. It doesn't build self-knowledge, strategic thinking, or the practical skills of high-performers.
82%
of managers say Gen Z lacks needed soft skills
Source: Harris Poll
80
years of research show that self-knowledge and relationships outpredict grades and credentials for career success, health, and life satisfaction.
Source: Harvard Study of Adult Development · Robert Waldinger
55%
of teens hang out with friends 2+ times weekly (20+yr low)
Source: Atlantic
The research is clear: what predicts long-term success and fulfillment isn't grades or credentials -- it's self-knowledge, strategic thinking, and real execution skills. School wasn't designed to build any of these. Designing High School was.
Adult Development
Self-knowledge and relationships predict success and wellbeing more than grades or status.
The philosophy behind the social fitness and relationship-building work in Designing High School -- and the reason self-knowledge comes first.
Life Design
Design thinking -- the methodology behind the world's best products -- applied to building a life.
Draws on the design thinking tradition pioneered at Stanford's d.school -- reimagined for the teenage years in Designing High School.
Stixrud & Johnson
Autonomy and internal motivation -- not parental pressure -- produce resilient, successful adults.
The research behind the self-direction and execution skills curriculum in Designing High School.
The Element
When teens discover what they're built for, everything -- including academics -- gets easier.
The inspiration behind the values, strengths, and career exploration work in Designing High School.
The skills that change how your teen shows up -- in every room, every application, and every opportunity that matters.
Which parent are you right now?
"This is the window. Before the college prep pressure hits, I want my teen building the practical skills and self-knowledge that amplify her strengths -- and turn them into authentic accomplishments."
She's motivated and capable -- you can see it. But the skills that turn real potential into results don't come from school. Strategic thinking, self-knowledge, execution skills, social confidence -- these get built deliberately, or they don't get built at all. Right now she has the potential. This is when she builds the system to go with it.
This window is uniquely valuable -- and finite. The teens who use it deliberately arrive at the college process with something most of their peers don't have: a real foundation underneath the credentials.
"The pressure is on -- and he's ready. I want his genuine strengths and accomplishments to open the right doors, and his choices to reflect who he actually is."
He's put in the work -- the grades, the activities, the preparation. What most high-achieving teens don't yet have is the layer underneath: genuine self-knowledge about what drives them, strategic clarity about what they actually want, and the ability to articulate both compellingly. That's what makes the difference between a good application and one that's impossible to ignore.
Self-knowledge at this stage isn't soft prep -- it's the difference between a good application and a great one. The teens who know what drives them, what they've genuinely built, and where they want to go show up to the college process with clarity and conviction -- and make choices they're still proud of ten years later.
Wherever your teen is in the journey -- we meet them there, and guide them toward the self-knowledge, practical skills, and authentic accomplishments that change what's possible.
A teen who knows where they're headed -- and the execution skills to get there.
Live Saturday sessions plus weekly async modules on the MPA learning portal. Rising 11th and 12th graders, Bay Area, Summer 2026. Application-based, intimate cohort.
All sessions, workbook, portal access & 1:1 coaching
- 7 live Saturday sessions -- 60-min orientation + 6 core sessions of 90 minutes each
- Weekly async learning modules on the MPA portal -- personal finance, career & major exploration, AI-enhanced research, social confidence
- Strategic 4-year academic & activity plan -- built by your teen
- Student OS Workbook -- weekly execution system built on frameworks used by peak performers, adapted for teens
- Teen mindfulness curriculum -- stress regulation, focus, and the inner practices of high-performers
- Personalized strengths, values & archetype profile
- 1:1 coaching session -- parents welcome
- Personal strategy presentation to cohort -- Week 7
Built by a Practitioner
The students MPA has worked with — and the districts — share a similar challenge: the potential is clear, but the path forward isn't.
Neil Dandavati founded MPA because he'd seen that challenge up close, in a San Francisco classroom. The life design course he developed there won a national teaching award and scaled to 15 Bay Area schools and more than 2,000 students a year through a partnership with the Pearson Foundation.
Since then he's carried the same framework further, advising Alameda County district leadership on long-term planning, and leading strategy and operations at an early-stage AI company. The context changes. The work is the same.
That work is what Master Plan Academy is built on. The students and districts we work with leave with more than just a plan — they leave with the clarity and confidence to act on it.
I especially valued the clear, practical strategies for college admissions and the way you made the activities and digital tools engaging.
— Parent of 10th grader, Alameda, CA
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