Posts by Dave Bergman:

The Early Decision Machine: How Binding Admissions Became the Dominant Path Into Selective Colleges

Posted on: 04 Jun 2026

At forty schools, more than half the incoming class is filled before regular decisions go out, and the trend is accelerating. At Davidson College this year, 69 percent of the incoming freshman class was admitted through Early Decision. At Middlebury and Emory the figure was 68 percent, at Bucknell and Claremont McKenna 67 percent. At […]

The Transfer Backdoor: Where It Is Wide Open, Where It Is Bolted Shut, and How to Tell Them Apart

Posted on: 28 May 2026

At some elite schools, transfer applicants face better odds than freshmen. At others the door is essentially closed. Six years of data show which is which. Plenty of students end up somewhere other than their first choice, whether through a rejection, a poor fit, or a deliberate start at community college. The question that follows […]

MBA for Military Veterans: How to Use the GI Bill and Yellow Ribbon to Earn an MBA in 2026

Posted on: 27 May 2026

For most prospective MBA students, the program is a financial decision that requires careful return-on-investment modeling: an estimated $80,000 to $200,000 in tuition for a top program, lost income during full-time enrollment, and a multi-year payback period before the credential earns its cost back. For military veterans using Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits combined with Yellow […]

Pfizer Tuition Reimbursement: A Complete Guide to Pfizer’s Education Benefits in 2026

Posted on: 26 May 2026

Consider a Pfizer manufacturing technician at the Andover, Massachusetts site, six years into a stable production role, considering a Master of Science in Biotechnology to position for a process development scientist track. The cost concern is real: a private-university biotech master’s degree typically runs $40,000 to $60,000 total. The technician’s manager mentions the company’s tuition […]

Tenet Healthcare Tuition Reimbursement

Posted on: 25 May 2026

If you are a Tenet Healthcare employee researching how to use the company’s tuition reimbursement program, the honest opening point is this: Tenet’s education benefit is real, but it is structurally weaker than what employees at peer non-profit health systems receive, and the financial plan that makes sense for a Providence or Mass General Brigham […]

The Selectivity Premium and the Schools That Beat It

Posted on: 22 May 2026

An analysis of 1,202 four-year institutions reveals that prestige commands a real ROI premium. Dozens of overlooked colleges deliver even greater returns for the investment. Every spring, as acceptance letters arrive and tuition bills loom, millions of families face the same gut-level question: is a more prestigious college actually worth the extra cost? The answer […]

The 50 Hardest Colleges to Get Into in 2026

Posted on: 21 May 2026

As we continue along in the 2025-26 cycle, the American college admissions process continues to be insanely competitive at the very top. Schools that are considered “elite” and “prestigious” are attracting more applicants than ever before. The end of pandemic-era test-optional policies at schools like Brown, Caltech, Dartmouth, Harvard, MIT, and Yale has not slowed […]

Online College Review: UT Dallas Naveen Jindal School Programs and Adult Learner Fit

Posted on: 20 May 2026

Maria works as a senior analyst at one of the 23 Fortune 500 companies headquartered in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. She has eight years of professional experience, lives in Plano, and wants the AACSB-accredited MBA that will qualify her for the director-track promotion her manager has flagged for her trajectory. She cannot attend evening classes […]