Posts by Dave Bergman:

Thirty Miles Out: A Nantucket Student’s Guide to Building a Competitive College Application

Posted on: 26 Sep 2025

Nantucket sits 30 miles off the Massachusetts coast. It is reachable only by ferry or small plane, and it has a single public high school. That isolation shapes how students there build a college application. Instead of choosing among a dozen nearby internship providers, Nantucket students work with a small, tightly connected set of island […]

Is Chester County, Pennsylvania a Good Place for College Admissions?

Posted on: 26 Sep 2025

Chester County stretches from the Main Line suburbs near Malvern down to the horse country around Unionville. Its academic reputation is not built on a single district. Instead, it rests on a cluster of them. Downingtown, Unionville-Chadds Ford, Tredyffrin-Easttown, Great Valley, and West Chester each run schools that regularly appear on U.S. News & World […]

Is Eugene a Good Place for College Admissions?

Posted on: 24 Sep 2025

Eugene, Oregon, is a mid-sized university city with a strong progressive culture, deep outdoor recreation traditions, and an educational landscape that reflects the broader character of the Pacific Northwest. Families here have access to a range of public schools with varying levels of academic intensity, and the presence of the University of Oregon shapes the […]

Do Colleges Look at Social Media?

Posted on: 24 Sep 2025

Wondering if colleges look at the social media accounts of prospective students, and how they find them? Let’s start with a cautionary tale. In a well-publicized story that made international news, Harvard University rescinded offers of admission to more than ten students who posted obscene, sexually explicit, and racist memes in a private Facebook group. […]

Case Study: How a Nantucket Student Turned Island Preservation Work into a Winning Admissions Strategy

Posted on: 23 Sep 2025

Families on Nantucket face a college admissions landscape unlike almost anywhere else in Massachusetts. The island has exactly one public high school. Consequently, its students compete for selective seats against applicants from large mainland districts with dozens of AP sections. However, Nantucket also offers something those districts cannot: direct, hands-on access to one of the […]

Beyond the Platform: How to Get into Top Colleges from Summit, New Jersey

Posted on: 23 Sep 2025

Summit sits eighteen miles west of Manhattan. That fact shapes nearly everything about how its students approach college admissions. The town’s Midtown Direct train line puts an internship or a research library within an hour’s reach. A biopharmaceutical manufacturing campus sits practically inside the downtown grid. For students, Summit offers a rare combination: small-town accessibility […]

Case Study: How One Summit Student Earned Admission to Selective Colleges

Posted on: 18 Sep 2025

Union County’s Increasingly Competitive Admissions Landscape Summit, New Jersey, sits in a stretch of Union County where families often choose neighborhoods for the schools attached to them. The city’s only public high school, Summit High School, serves the entire Summit Public School District. It currently ranks 30th in New Jersey and 499th nationally, according to […]

Greenville, SC: A Growing Upstate Market with Real Academic Depth

Posted on: 18 Sep 2025

Greenville has transformed over the past two decades. Specifically, it moved from a textile town into one of the fastest-growing metro areas in the Southeast. In turn, that growth has reshaped the local secondary school landscape. Additionally, families relocating for jobs at BMW, Michelin, and other advanced manufacturers have raised expectations for rigor. As a […]