High Aspirations School

Elite Education for Everyone

We believe that education is the best tool for unlocking human potential. We are building an online community that connects highly motivated students all over the world with elite teachers to help them turn their dreams into realities.

Our Background

Dylan Farrell

Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer

Dylan received his BA from Harvard University in 2018 with a Joint Concentration in Statistics and Mathematics and a secondary in Economics. After graduation he worked as a strategy consultant, data analyst, and machine learning engineer at Curinos, a financial technology company specializing in retail and commercial banking solutions and advice.

Stephen Farrell

Co-Founder and Chief Educational Officer

Stephen recently retired from Choate Rosemary Hall after teaching English there for 43 years. Over that span he held just about every administrative position at the school, including Assistant Headmaster, Dean of Faculty, Dean of Students, Dean of Academic Affairs, and Head of the English Department. Since 2016, Stephen has also been teaching online History, Literature, and Writing classes to Chinese students who are interested in attending US schools. Stephen has a B.A in English from Wesleyan University, an M.A in English from Middlebury College, and a M.A.L.S from Wesleyan University. He has received multiple honors and awards for his teaching.

Caitlin Farrell

Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer

Caitlin received her BA from Georgetown University in 2019 with a major in Government and a minor in Spanish. She went on to play professional soccer in the NWSL for the Orlando Pride. Following her professional soccer career, she worked as an operations coordinator for the summer programs office at Choate Rosemary Hall. She then worked as a senior paralegal for Murphy & Riley in Boston before joining High Aspirations School.

Our Inspiration

The inspiration for our school's name and ethos comes from a 1973 painting by Black American artist Ernie Barnes entitled High Aspirations. Stephen purchased a framed copy of this painting in 1980, and ever since it has hung in his home. As a basketball player and coach, he was immediately drawn to the work, and he especially loved how the details of the painting captured the title. Dylan and Caitlin grew up looking at this work of art every day, and when it came time to choose the name of our school, Dylan quickly said let's use the title of the Ernie Barnes painting we all love. Thus, we chose this work of art because both the artist and his painting embody the character traits that we believe are essential for success in learning and in one's career.

The painting depicts an elongated young Black male about to dunk a basketball into a homemade wooden basketball hoop. He is playing alone amidst a barren rural landscape with only a large wooden house depicted in the background. The focus of the painting is the young male, seemingly of high school age, his dreams of the future, and his willingness to extend himself (literally) in the pursuit of them. Like Jay Gatsby in Fitzgerald's famous novel, he is not going to let his impoverished origins, social isolation, or uninspiring landscape limit his dreams. In fact, they will be the inspiration to make his dreams larger than life.Read more

Why High Aspirations School?

A rigorous, fast-paced learning environment that pushes you to reach your full potential

Our programs are designed to maximize learning by teaching at the pace of the brightest students. We offer small classes (up to 15 students) where you will learn alongside peers who are smart, hard-working, and engaged and where you will receive real-time, tailored instruction and individual feedback from a world-class teacher who gets to know you and your learning style.

Comprehensive tracks that prepare you for successful careers in top industries right out of high school

While we are strong believers in the value of a liberal arts education, we also believe an elite school should prepare you for immediate success in your career. We offer 6-year tracks that serve as end-to-end preparation for landing coveted jobs in a variety of domains such as software engineering, machine learning, finance, and many more.

A strong signal of your qualifications and potential to future employers and others

Instead of signaling student potential through low admissions rates, we signal potential through very high standards for work ethic and performance. Students who do not meet these standards will be removed from courses and required to keep retaking them until they pass. This benefits everyone by providing a strong signal to employers that those students who do meet our standards and complete our programs are the elite of the elite and will thrive in any environment.

Access to a valuable network of alumni and peers

Students who complete our tracks will be among the smartest, hardest working, and most successful people in the world. When you participate in our programs, you will gain access to this network which will serve as an invaluable source of advice, opportunities, and friendship. Much like the elite military programs such as the US Navy SEALs and Marine Corps, we expect you and your classmates will have a bond for life over your shared challenging experience in the classroom.

Clear path to a $100K+ job at a fraction of the cost and time of attending top private schools and colleges

With an average cost of $2,000 per 12-week course, you can expect to pay only ~$48K total for each 6-year track. This is significantly less than you would pay going to an elite private middle school, high school, and college. Furthermore, upon completing our tracks we expect you will be able to earn a high salary right out of high school. This means you would be able to earn up back several times the cost of a track's tuition before your peers have even graduated college.

How it works

Our track system provides a clear path to domain expertise in target fields

Tracks are a series of courses meant to be taken sequentially that provide end-to-end preparation for starting a successful career in specific domains right out of high school. Most tracks will have three phases: building foundational skills, learning the theory in the target domain from first principles, and applying that theory to real world examples and preparing for interviews. For example, our machine learning track starts off with foundational math, statistics, and computer science courses. It then progresses to core machine learning, deep learning, and reinforcement learning courses. Finally it culminates in real world projects, interview preparation, and recruiting support as you apply to jobs in the field.

We also offer electives that cover interesting topics and contribute to a well-rounded education

Electives are offered in a range of subjects and are not attached to any specific track. They consist of either a single course or a small series of courses covering a specific topic. For example, our Pandora's Box: Humans and Machines elective explores the pros and cons of our relationship with technology and includes foundational books such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as well as popular films such as Blade Runner and Ex Machina.

Courses are fast-paced and rigorous, pushing students to reach their full potential

Course schedules vary by teacher and subject, but in general they run for 12 weeks and meet 4 times a week for an hour at a time. Multiple instances of each course are taught at once, with different instances offered at different times during the day in order to accommodate students in different time zones. Courses move at the speed of the fastest students, and students who are struggling to keep up are expected to put in additional effort outside of class on their own time and with our tutoring service in order to catch up. In addition to coming to each class, you are expected to complete homework assignments, projects, and assessments to reinforce learning and to demonstrate mastery of each concept.

Classes within each course are synchronous, highly interactive, and hosted online via Zoom

Although we are online, you can expect strong engagement with the teacher and peers in every class. We expect everyone to show up on time, well-prepared, and ready for a lively discussion. Teachers in each course employ the Socratic Method to lead the class through the material while building intuition and critical thinking.

We evaluate students on a pass / fail basis and have very high standards for passing

Our school places an emphasis on hard work and iterative improvement. Courses are pass / fail because we want students to focus on true mastery of the material instead of on grades. This approach will serve you well not only in our courses, but also in life where being process-oriented instead of results-oriented yields greater outcomes. We have challenging assignments and assessments in each course, but we use them purely as a feedback mechanism to let you know where you excelling and what you will need to catch up on in order to pass the course. We expect you to retake each assessment until you receive a passing grade. While we hope most students pass each course the first time around, we encourage those who do not to take the course again.

We encourage students who need additional support to participate in our low-cost tutoring service

Our courses are meant to push you to your limits. We expect it to be a significant challenge for many students. In fact if it were not a significant challenge, it would not be a worthwhile use of your time or our time. To support students who are falling behind, we offer a low-cost tutoring service comprised of expert tutors and students who have passed the same course in the past. We expect many students will find that tutoring enables them to not only catch up, but even surpass peers who did not require tutoring.

Tuition is affordable, especially when considering the return on your investment

We have an average price of $1,600 for each 12-week course. The vast majority of this goes directly to paying your teachers and improving the platform. This means that completing a full 6-year track will cost ~$38K in total. We expect taking one track will be desirable for some students, but also expect many to take multiple tracks and electives. Even if you took 5 of our tracks, you would still be spending a fraction of the cost and time of attending top private schools and colleges. Furthermore you would be prepared for a successful career in 5 fields upon graduation and would have a plethora of job opportunities and a great return on your investment.

We plan to offer need-based financial aid in the future to make our school even more affordable

We realize many bright, hard-working students who are interested in our programs may not be able to afford tuition for each course up front. Unfortunately we are unable to provide financial aid or assistance at this time due to our own financial limitations, but we hope to be able to in the coming years.

Who we are looking for

Our ideal students are bright and highly motivated and have high aspirations for their educations, careers, and lives. We are especially interested in students who are frustrated by the offerings, pace, and rigor at their current schools and are excited at the prospect of learning in an intense environment such as ours. We understand students can benefit from our courses in a variety of ways and that not everyone will be able to be a full-time High Aspirations student. We envision successful students using our platform in the following ways:

Supplementing their 6-12 school experience by enrolling in one of our tracks or electives that is not offered or not taught at a high enough level at their school.
Replacing their 6-12 school experience by enrolling in multiple tracks in our program.
Replacing their 6-12 school and college education in order to get a head start on their careers by enrolling full-time with High Aspirations School.

If these statements resonate with you, please create an account and send in an application.

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