Three former Palo Alto Unified School District students star in the newest product of the Everyday Genius Institute’s Think Like A Genius series.

The product, which integrates a book (or strategy blueprint) and DVD, is called Think Like A Genius Straight A+ Student and features former PAUSD students Jenner Fox, Alex Freeman and Andrea Vallone.

Fox and Freeman are 2010 Palo Alto High School graduates, now freshmen at Yale and Georgetown respectively. Vallone was born in Stanford and came up through the Palo Alto public schools before transferring from Jordan Middle School to the Chinese International School after seventh grade, when her family moved to Hong Kong. She is now a senior in the International Baccalaureate program there. Fox, Freeman and Vallone are all student athletes who juggle and excel at both school and sports.

Everyday Genius Institiute CEO and co-founder Taryn Voget said she chose the three from a pool of 15 recommended students.

“When it came time to work on the series, I came up with a list of criteria I was looking for in the students we wanted to model and put out the word to several people who were connected to high-achieving high school students,” Voget said. “Alex Freeman, Jenner Fox and Andrea Vallone really stood out as exceptional students and exceptional people.”

Vallone described participating in the project. First, behavioral scientist Tim Hallbom interviewed the students about the ways they studied and pinpointed their best, most effective techniques.

“I was essentially forced to think about how I think,” Vallone said.

The Everyday Genius Institute then decided which specific skills they wanted the students to explain on the DVD.

“They gave us some guiding questions that we were going to answer in our own words during the filming,” Vallone said. “Everything was done very professionally. The company and film crew were very helpful and encouraging, which helped to take the pressure off.”

According to Voget, the Everyday Genius Institute began the project in July and completed all of the interviewing and filming by early August.

“Once the interviewing and filming was done, it took us a few months to edit the video and write and illustrate the strategy blueprint,” Voget said. “We released the final Think Like A Genius Straight A+ Student product on Nov. 1. So altogether, from start to finish, this project took about four months.”

Think Like A Genius Straight A+ Student breaks down success in school into the broad categories of mindset, study habits and test tips. Within each of those areas, Fox, Freeman and Vallone identify specific approaches that work well for them. They discuss these strategies on the 45-minute DVD, and the book reviews their techniques.

The product highlights time management; the featured students have figured out how to maximize their efficiency and to prioritize.

“I feel I have good time management,” Freeman said. “It definitely helped me stay collected in a stressful environment like Paly, especially during SATs and college apps.”

While the product offers good advice and some creative studying ideas, it provides no single magic formula for success–not every strategy will work for everyone. Students need to experiment to discover which strategies work best for them individually.

“Doing the project made me realize no two people think alike,” Vallone said. “I had assumed that everyone studied like I did, but according to the Genius Institute, this isn’t the case.”