Congratulations to high school students excelling in courses from Stanford and beyond

Caspar Lian is a high school senior in Brooklyn, New York, but he already has accomplished college-level success, acing the Stanford computer science course he took in the fall through the university and a nonprofit that brings credit-bearing college courses to underserved high schools across the country. 

The experience provided Lian a window into his collegiate future. “I feel very happy and proud of myself for making the honor roll in the Stanford CS 105: Introduction to Computers class as it shows to me that I can achieve something great,” he said. “It also gave me confidence in tackling new subjects and provided a strong foundation for future coursework.”

Lian, who attends Science Skills Center High School in Brooklyn, was named the valedictorian of the Stanford course. He is one of 1,066 high school students from 23 states recently inducted to the Honor Society of the National Education Equity Lab, a nonprofit organization.

The honorees represent the top 20 percent of all students nationwide enrolled in college courses offered through the Ed Equity Lab by Stanford and other leading universities including Brown University, Howard University, University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, Wesleyan University, Cornell University, and University of California. They hail from 57 cities, including Los Angeles, Miami, Albuquerque, Topeka, and Flint.

Preparing students for college success 

Excelling at this challenging level of coursework is a strong predictor of college achievement, said Lian’s principal, Dahlia McGregor. “We use CS 105 as a success criterion for students who want to major in computer science after graduating high school,” she said. “We’re extremely grateful to the Ed Equity Lab and Stanford for making this possible.” Patrick Young, a lecturer in the Stanford Computer Science Department, has taught CS 105 to undergraduates on campus for more than 20 years, and he has worked with Stanford Digital Education to make the same course available online to high school students.

Ed Equity Lab Founder and CEO Leslie Cornfeld told the honorees during a March 12 virtual ceremony that they have earned the “bragging rights” to include this academic distinction on their college applications.

“If you have learned anything tonight and through your semester, it is yes, you belong in college. You have proven to yourself, to all of us, that you can succeed in an actual college course, and more than succeed, you can rank top in the nation,” Cornfeld said. 

The Ed Equity Lab offers college courses to students — regardless of ethnicity, race, nationality, or religion — in Title-I-eligible high schools across the country. To be eligible for Title I funding, a school has to enroll at least 40 percent of its students from low-income families.

So far the Lab has served more than 40,000 students nationwide and is on track to serve one million scholars over the next decade. “Each semester, thousands of students from low-income backgrounds demonstrate their ability to excel in college courses from leading universities — proving again that talent is evenly distributed, opportunity is not,” she said. 

Stanford has 13 undergraduates who took Ed Equity Lab courses currently enrolled, while there are at least 42 and 15, respectively, at University of California and Ivy League schools.

Through the collaboration, Stanford Digital Education has brought CS 105 and four other courses, offered annually over the last four years, to more than 2,400 high school students, with plans to launch five more courses by the 2027- 2028 academic year.

Teachers are seeing the impact.

“One of the greatest rewards of being a teacher is to see your students succeed like this,” said Los Angeles-based Fairfax Senior High School math teacher Eric Morse. “I'm very happy that Stanford University was able to offer them this opportunity," said Morse, who also praised the “amazing teaching fellow,” Stanford alum Christina Sakellaris, for assisting with the class.

A partnership that keeps growing

Students take the Stanford courses in their classrooms, and each high school teacher is assisted by a teaching fellow — Stanford undergraduate, graduate student, or alum — who delivers weekly lessons via Zoom and work with students individually. Students also watch recorded lectures from Stanford faculty, who also provide additional course materials.

“These courses provide an opportunity for low-income high school students of all backgrounds to benefit from Stanford’s knowledge, build social capital, and challenge themselves with a growth mindset,’’ said Matthew Rascoff, Stanford vice provost for digital education, who attended the celebration. “The experience raises their own expectations of what they can achieve. They are emboldened to apply to well-matched colleges and they do better once they get there,” he said.

“We could not do this work without our partnerships with the Equity Ed Lab, and with the Stanford professors who share their love of teaching and learning with students across the country,” Rascoff said. “Congratulations to all the students on their remarkable achievements.”

The student experience, in their own words

Out of the 270 students  from 13 high schools across the nation who completed Stanford’s CS 105 course, 51 were inducted into the Ed Equity Lab National Honor Society in March. We asked some of them to share their experience. Here is what they had to say:

Ciero Perez

“Making the honor roll in the CS 105 class surprised me. When I signed up for the class, I wanted to explore my interest in computer science. I was focused on making the most of the opportunity to learn from a Stanford professor, but I had no idea I'd be recognized for my curiosity. The homework assignments came week after week, meaning I needed to keep a consistent study and work schedule to avoid falling behind. It was a wake-up call that I'd need to properly manage my time, and I had a year to practice those skills. At this moment I am still deciding on either Cornell University or the University of Rochester for my post-secondary plans.” 

Ciero Perez is the salutatorian of CS 105 and is a senior at University Heights Secondary School in Bronx, New York.

David Kim

 “Learning about making and designing websites was something new to me and it was an amazing learning experience. I feel very accomplished knowing that I have made the honor roll in the Stanford CS 105: Introduction to Computers class. I believe the Stanford CS course will better prepare me for college as I know how college courses will go.”

David Kim is a senior at Fairfax Senior High School in Los Angeles.

Camille Gaultier

“Throughout the course of the CS 105: Intro to Computers class I worked very hard so I feel honored that I was able to achieve the honor roll. The course was challenging as it was all new information that I had never viewed before. However, I found that along with the videos, one of our best resources was our teaching fellow Christina as we were able to ask her questions we had while doing the assignment and she would do a great job at explaining what we were confused on. I think that taking classes like these further reinforces my confidence in being able to complete harder classes at college in the future.”

Camille Gaultier is a sophomore at Fairfax Senior High School in Los Angeles.

Enzo Catanho Pinheiro

“I'm a senior in high school, and my plan is to go to college and study something related to tech or business. I feel really proud of making the honor roll in the Stanford CS 105 class. It was a challenging course, so it felt good to see my hard work pay off and know I can keep up with college-level material. Taking this class gave me a better understanding of how college classes work and helped me improve my time management and problem-solving skills. It also made me more confident about studying computer science in college, and it definitely made me more interested in going that route.”

Enzo Catanho Pinheiro is a senior at Reseda Charter High School in Los Angeles.

Caspar Lian

“Taking Stanford’s CS course better prepared me for college by improving my problem-solving skills, building technical literacy, and helping me manage a rigorous academic workload. It allowed me to practice and learn new coding languages such as HTML and CSS that will help me during my college courses.”

Caspar Lian is the valedictorian of CS 105 and a senior at Science Skills Center High School in Brooklyn, NY.

 Amirhossein Mikaniki

“As my first college-level class it inspired me to take more college classes in my community college. I want to become a mathematician so knowing backend and frontend development is going to be helpful for me.”

 Amirhossein Mikaniki is a junior at Reseda Charter High School in Los Angeles.

Henry Melgar

 “I feel incredibly accomplished to have made the honor roll in such a difficult class, especially for someone my age. I went in with a basic, cursory understanding of coding and general computer science and came out much more knowledgeable, as well as understanding that this is absolutely the field I want to work in later in life. I was essentially completely unaware of how college courses operated before taking this class, mainly because I had no frame of reference. Now that I do have an idea of how college courses work, I feel significantly more prepared for college. I’m proud of myself for what I accomplished, and I’m glad this class pushed me to my limits and beyond. I know exactly what I aspire to do in life, purely because of this class. Knowing that I did so well in this class gives me a lot of confidence and motivation to try my hardest to make my dream a reality.”

Henry Melgar is a junior at Fairfax Senior High School in Los Angeles.

Amin Maiekulshoev

“This course has helped me better understand the level and nature of college. It was one of my first college classes and a very valuable experience. I enjoyed working with HTML and CSS. I had worked in Python before, but even so, I was able to discover many new ways to solve problems. The most challenging but also interesting part of the course was the final project in which I independently analyzed a chess game and then created a web page for it. For this, I used all of my newly acquired skills, which helped me remember them better.”

Amin Maiekulshoev is a sophomore at Reseda Charter High School in Los Angeles.

Other schools with CS 105 students inducted into the Ed Equity Lab Honor Society in March 2025 include Antioch High School, Antioch, Tennessee; Birmingham Community Charter High School, Lake Balboa, California; Engineering & Technology Academy, Esteban Torres High School, Los Angeles; International Leadership Charter High School, Bronx, New York; KIPP East End High School, Houston; Manhattan Village Academy High School, New York; Maplewood High School, Nashville, Tennessee; Middle College High School, Los Angeles; and Woodrow Wilson Senior High School, Los Angeles.

Deborah Petersen is a writer and editor living in the Bay Area. She served as the editor in chief of the San Francisco Examiner and is the former editorial director at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

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