Austin Scholar #149: How my classmates got into Stanford
& how your kid can, too
Hey, y'all!
This week from Austin Scholar...
Austin’s Anecdote: How my classmates got into Stanford
How your kid can, too
Scholar’s Sources: What I’ve been thinking about…
This past weekend, my entire dorm went on a trip to Lake Tahoe! It was the most incredible way to start this winter quarter and I just feel so lucky to be a part of my dorm community. I spent my Saturday in the best way possible: teaching my friends how to ski, racing down mogul runs with another skiing-lover, going out to an Italian food dinner with all of the girls in the dorm, and watching Now You See Me 2 while eating Insomnia Cookies. Literally my perfect day.
On Sunday, we spent an hour down by the lake itself – which was absolutely stunning. I felt so at peace and thought that there was no better time to practice some mindfulness.
I decided to use my favorite exercise, grateful mindfulness:
Take four square breaths (in four, hold four, out four, hold four)
Once your mind is calm, look around you and notice five things that you are grateful for (e.g. the chair you’re sitting in, the view you have, a person you can see, the way your hair falls in your face)
Say “thank you” to each thing
Place a soft smile on your face
Austin’s Anecdote: How my classmates got into Stanford
A few months ago, I wrote a newsletter filled with every single resource you could possibly need on how to get into the school of your dreams – plus my own philosophy on how to approach college admissions.
Because I only used my own experience as proof, I received some doubts about my recommendations (“Austin, how do you know this will actually work for somebody besides yourself?”).
I thought this was a really good point, so I decided to do some research for myself. I've since collected the stories of hundreds of students who got into college in deliberate ways, and I interviewed a few of my own friends at Stanford about how they got in. The following are the exact transcripts of our discussions with the filler words taken out and the grammar fixed – done with AI).
After I share the interviews, I'll be sharing my own takeaways from all this, so stay tuned for that!
In high school, I developed a strong interest in arts, filmmaking, and creating movies. It was a hobby I had nurtured from a young age. I enjoyed picking up a camera, being creative, and experimenting with video editing software. During high school, I began producing my first short films and wanted to showcase them by submitting them to film festivals. As an artist and filmmaker, sharing your work with others is incredibly fulfilling, and film festivals are one of the best ways to do that.
When I started researching festivals, I discovered a variety of options—local, statewide, national, and even international. However, I quickly realized that many of these festivals were prohibitively expensive for students. Entry fees could range from $10 to $200, with the more prestigious festivals charging even higher fees. For a high school student hoping to submit to 10, 20, or even 30 festivals to maximize their chances, the costs could easily add up to hundreds or even thousands of dollars. This financial barrier made it clear to me that many young, aspiring filmmakers were being excluded from opportunities to showcase their work.
At the end of my sophomore year, in May 2022, I decided to create a solution. I envisioned an accessible film festival for students, run by students, with no submission fees. I partnered with friends who shared my vision, and together we founded the Student World Impact Film Festival (SWIFF). The acronym often gets compared to "Swift," like Taylor Swift, which we’ve found to be a fun and memorable association.
From the very beginning, we were committed to making SWIFF free and student-focused. I assembled a team of students and volunteers to help bring this idea to life. Early on, we realized there was significant demand for a no-cost, student-run festival. Within just one week of launching in May, we received 1,000 film submissions. This was far beyond our expectations—we had anticipated receiving around 20 to 30 films. The overwhelming response made it clear that we had tapped into an unmet need, but it also presented new challenges. We needed more volunteers to review and judge these films.
To address this, we launched a recruitment campaign to attract volunteers through social media, our website, and platforms like Instagram. We managed to onboard about 1,000 volunteers—primarily college students studying film at universities like NYU, USC, Stanford, and UCLA, as well as international schools in France, Italy, Germany, and countries in Asia. These volunteers were better qualified to judge the films than we were as high school students, and their diverse backgrounds gave our festival global representation.
We hosted the first SWIFF in November 2022. The entry period ran from May to November, during which we received several thousand submissions. The inaugural festival was an incredible experience, bringing together students from around the world. Given the lingering effects of the pandemic, we decided to host the event online, which worked in our favor since we had submissions from students in 140 countries. We received emails from international participants asking if they could attend in person, but hosting online made the festival accessible to everyone, regardless of location.
After the success of the first festival, we immediately opened submissions for the second SWIFF in November 2022, with the entry period closing in June 2023. The second festival, held in June 2023, brought our total participation to over 13,000 students. The scale of the event exceeded anything we had imagined when we started.
As SWIFF grew, so did its recognition. We caught the attention of major organizations like Google and Amazon, who became our partners. Google provided funding to support our nonprofit and help us host the festivals. Meanwhile, Amazon’s Prime Video division collaborated with us to distribute students' films on their platform. This partnership was a significant milestone, as it gave student filmmakers the opportunity to have their work published on a global streaming service—an ultimate goal for many indie filmmakers. These partnerships not only validated our efforts but also transformed SWIFF from a high school project into a large-scale initiative.
Looking back, one of the most important factors in our success was our ability to find and engage with the right people. Initially, I relied on friends from my school, which helped us build a team of about 20 students. But as the festival grew, we needed hundreds, even thousands, of volunteers. To scale our efforts, I explored various platforms for recruiting volunteers, such as VolunteerMatch and Idealist. While these platforms were helpful, they didn’t yield the volume of volunteers we needed.
Instead, we found tremendous success on LinkedIn. By posting volunteer opportunities as job-like positions, we attracted college students who wanted relevant experience to add to their résumés. This approach resulted in about 50 applications per day, and ultimately, LinkedIn became our primary source of volunteers, bringing in over 1,000 participants. These volunteers, many of whom were film studies students, were eager to gain experience as festival judges, and their contributions were instrumental in making SWIFF a success.
For anyone working on a large-scale project, I would emphasize the importance of understanding your audience. For us, that meant recognizing what motivated our volunteers. By framing the opportunity as a way to gain industry-relevant experience, we were able to attract passionate individuals who shared our mission. This principle applies beyond film festivals—whether you’re running a nonprofit or starting a business, knowing what drives your audience and tailoring your approach to their needs is key.
In terms of structure, incorporating as a nonprofit was another important step. While it took time and effort to register at the state and national levels, becoming a 501(c)(3) added credibility and helped us build partnerships with organizations like Google and Amazon.
Finally, I’d encourage anyone with a vision to stay persistent. Success often requires trial and error. When I first started SWIFF, I drew on my own experiences as a filmmaker, including my frustrations with expensive festival fees and knowledge of platforms like FilmFreeway. By identifying a problem I was deeply familiar with, I was able to create a solution that resonated with others.
Ultimately, the key to any successful initiative is to remain adaptable, work with passionate people, and continue learning from your experiences. There are countless problems in the world waiting to be solved, and with persistence and creativity, you can make a meaningful impact.
Anya Parasher
I’m from Albuquerque, a city I deeply love for its beauty and culture, but it has its share of challenges, particularly when it comes to youth issues. Albuquerque ranks 49th out of 50 in education nationally, which is concerning because education is the foundation for so many life outcomes. Additionally, we rank 47th in youth mental health, and there are troubling statistics about youth homelessness as well. Overall, the city doesn’t give enough attention to its children, which leads to poor outcomes for many young people.
I grew up in a relatively good area of Albuquerque and was fortunate to have the privilege of focusing on academics. However, many of my classmates didn’t share the same experience. My first exposure to the deeper issues affecting youth in my community came during my freshman and sophomore years of high school, when two students from my school died by suicide within six months of each other. This was around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it became clear that students were struggling to adjust and that mental health among young people was a significant issue.
I was on my school’s student council, and we began researching ways to incorporate Social Emotional Learning (SEL) into our school’s platform to address the mental health trends we were witnessing. We implemented a program from Yale that we hoped would help, but it turned out to be ineffective. The program offered teachers basic tools like a “mood meter,” but it didn’t provide anything directly to students. We spent $5,000 on this program—money that New Mexico schools, which are already underfunded, could have used elsewhere. It was a frustrating and eye-opening experience.
After that, I became deeply interested in exploring how to create a better environment for young people in Albuquerque, particularly in terms of mental health. I started working with Project ECHO (a non-profit that impacts 6.5 million students’ well-being), a global nonprofit with roots in Albuquerque. With them, I created the first student-led ECHO program, LIFTER, where we brought together representatives from schools across Albuquerque. We recruited two students from each school to participate in an eight-week program that I developed based on research I conducted using SEL resources like CASEL.
In this program, students learned core SEL competencies and created activities such as yoga sessions, chalk affirmation events, journaling workshops, vision board activities, and self-care kits for World Mental Health Day. These efforts aimed to establish Student Wellness Advisories at each school, with the overarching goal of fostering a positive culture and reducing the stigma around mental health in Albuquerque schools.
While working on mental health initiatives, I also became aware of another critical issue: youth homelessness. An acquaintance was living in a shelter without stable housing, and it was shocking to see the lack of resources available for young people in such situations—especially when it’s something completely out of their control. This led me to begin working with the City of Albuquerque government, specifically in the mayor’s office, where I conducted research on affordable housing. Eventually, I went through the process of researching, writing, and presenting proposals to address housing for young people aging out of the foster care system, many of whom had nowhere to go.
Through these experiences, I developed a strong passion for addressing youth issues in Albuquerque—a city that is incredibly diverse but also faces significant systemic problems. These challenges motivated me to keep working on initiatives that could make a real difference.
While I was working on these projects, college applications weren’t my primary focus. I was a strong academic student—I studied for standardized tests and maintained good grades—but once I started on these initiatives, I found myself completely immersed in them. It became a bit of a rabbit hole, where each project led to more opportunities and challenges. By the time I finished the mental health project, we had impacted over 4,000 students in New Mexico, which was a remarkable achievement given the state’s relatively small population.
Our work gained recognition, and we collaborated with organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics and Stanford CME. One of the highlights was presenting at conferences to share our progress and passion. I believe this work helped me stand out when I applied to Stanford, and the timing worked out well since I got to meet with Stanford affiliates related to health policy at a conference just a month before I applied.
If I were to give advice to others pursuing similar projects, I’d say that having a strong motivation and clear purpose is essential. For me, seeing the struggles of those around me and growing up in a city with poor outcomes for youth fueled my dedication to these initiatives. While I had the support of organizations like Project ECHO and mentors at the mayor’s office, the projects themselves were entirely student-led and directed by me. This made for a steep learning curve, but it was incredibly rewarding.
One practical tip I always recommend is cold-calling and cold-emailing. When I first started recruiting students for the mental health program, I reached out directly to representatives, counselors, and even students. This approach helped me build our first cohort of 10 students, many of whom still operate wellness advisories at their schools today. Conferences also played a big role in connecting me with others who shared my vision. As a young person, you stand out at these events, and people are often eager to help you because they admire your passion and ambition.
Another important lesson I’ve learned is the value of building a strong community. When I launched the second cohort of the mental health program, students from the first cohort returned to help me run it. These alumni became leaders and mentors for the next group, which created a sustainable model for the program. Keeping connections close and maintaining relationships is crucial because you never know when you’ll need help or collaboration in the future.
On a technical level, I’d also recommend leveraging tools like AI to streamline processes. For instance, I used ChatGPT to create checklists and organize tasks. When I first started, I used a tool like Padlet but eventually transitioned to building a website with AI, even with no prior coding experience. Learning to delegate as your projects grow is another key takeaway—it’s impossible to scale effectively if you try to do everything yourself.
Finally, I’d stress that your passion projects in high school don’t have to align directly with what you plan to study in the future. For example, while I grew up surrounded by STEM-focused peers, my passion projects focused on mental health and public policy. I also encourage students not to choose projects just because they think the final product will look good on a résumé. Instead, focus on what truly motivates you and where you can have the most impact. Follow your intuition, and let your efforts grow naturally. If you do that, you’ll not only create something meaningful but also discover more about your passions and future goals.
How your kid can, too
These stories are great, of course, but how do you actually apply them?
Here are my biggest takeaways from the stories that your kid can use to get into the college of their dreams: