Stanford Splash Parents' Program

Speaker Biographies

Eleanor Freed:
Eleanor Freed is mother of four homeschooled teens and author of "Let Them Eat Pizza", a book for parents who want to help their teenagers find and develop a passion. Over the last thirty years she has worked as a teacher, mentor, curriculum developer, educational evaluator, educational therapist, CEO, author, career counselor, and educational consultant. Her current focus is helping teens grow their passion, their sense of self, and their place in the world.

Dan Evertz:
Learn about how to double your eligibility for endowment scholarships, the truth about 529 plans and how they can cost you money, the one question you have to ask every school before applying and the single biggest mistake that 70% of parents make when applying for scholarships.

Jon Reider:
A frenzy is stalking the college admissions scene. It is too competitive, too expensive, and too scary. It creates more anxiety and tension than anyone needs. Why is this, and what can you do about this all by yourself, without changing the world? Here's how...

Jon Reider is the Director of College Counseling at San Francisco University High School. He is a nationally recognized author, speaker, and opinion-maker in the college admissions world. He is the co-author of Admission Matters, a straightforward and easy to absorb book on what you need to know to get through the process in a healthy way. Before University High School, he was a Senior Associate Director of Admissions, a Lecturer in Humanities, an academic advisor, and a dorm parent at Stanford. He is provocative, controversial, and humorous.

Blair Silverberg:
While I was at Stanford, I noticed incredible diversity among my classmates. This is something Stanford is very proud of and it is absolutely fantastic. Students come from hundreds of different countries, a variety of socio-economic backgrounds and very different ways of thinking. I was surprised, however, to find that all the Stanford students I encountered shared one very important thing in common. Incredibly, this is something that can and should be taught to each and every child. Do you wonder what it is?

Blair Silverberg decided he wanted to go to Stanford when he was 12 and earned his way in by acing 15 AP exams and starting a company that sold pens online. Since graduating from Stanford in 2010, he started a company called TutorCloud that connects middle and high school students looking for academic help with online mentors from schools like Stanford, Harvard and MIT. When he's not working on extending mentorship to as many students as possible through TutorCloud, he spends as much time as possible skiing around Lake Tahoe.

Daniel Zaharopol:
More Educational Opportunities:There are a tremendous number of opportunities out there for all kids, but finding them is hard! We'll go through a huge collection of creative ways to find opportunities for your students, building off of their excitement for Splash.

Description for Building a Movement: Over 1000 college students volunteer to teach and run Splash for over 6000 middle and high school students nationwide. Come find out what motivates so many extraordinary young people to do so much good.

Daniel Zaharopol is the CEO of Learning Unlimited. He graduated from MIT in 2004 after directing their Splash program twice, and then did graduate studies in mathematics and mathematics education at the University of Illinois. In addition to his primary work with Learning Unlimited, he is the founder and program director of a summer math program for underserved New York City middle school students with talent in math and serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Mathematics Foundation of America.