Hello everyone,
Congrats on the students who got into Bentley ED. Now it is time to look to the RD period.
This is my son’s other business school that he is considering. He will need to receive some merit money to attend this one. This is going to be our financial reach school. At $65K COA, it is quite rich for us but we are hopeful that a package can be put together.
His basic stats are 710 math; 630 English on SAT and a 3.99 WGPA, Three varsity sport athlete, NHS.
Go Falcons!
Whats his other choice business school?
@business2021 Sorry for the late response. For some reason the site did not show my that I had a response to this thread.
My son also applied to Bryant University under the EA program. We have not heard back yet. He decided to skip Babson College as he felt it was just a little too small.
My sons in the same boat. Loves Bentley but would need the 1/2 tuition scholarship. At the minimum the 1/3 but then would need to take out a small loan. I don’t think we will receive any need based aid so merit is key. He has received generous merit from his EA schools so far, but still has Bentley as top choice. I guess he’ll have to sweat it out until end of March. Good luck to your son MassDAD68!
@VirginiaDare I am a bit worse off than you are I guess.The 1/2 tuition scholarship which I know is generous and hard to get will only bring the COA down to around $45K/year. That is still $180k for an undergrad degree to learn accounting which is basically a trade (I am a CPA). He can only expect to start around $60K/year and it will be expected that he have a masters to allow him to sit for the CPA exam. A masters from Bentley is another year of study full time. So another $70K. Total cost of a CPA education would be a cool $250K.
Bentley is a good school but the cost is beginning to reach levels where it may not longer pass the cost/benefit analysis. Students need to understand that there are different paths to the same career. And paying $250K might not be the wise option.
For us, the big scholarship is what we need. It is very competitive and we would consider ourselves very lucky to receive it. We are hoping for the best but we are preparing back up plans.
Bryant University looks like a more workable plan for us.
We will see.
The best of luck to you and your son also.
I totally get where you are coming from. My son is a jr in high school and we live in NY. I am a big believer in state schools. My son thinks he wants to pursue business, accounting in particular. I have said this many many times before. If you want to become a cpa, you do not need to go to a private school. Do not get me wrong, Bentley is a great business school. They have great placement rates for accounting students. However, if my son goes to Binghamton, Albany, in NY, the cost is 25k per yr as opposed to 65k per yr at a private institution, and the placement rates are just as good.
My son will be applying to Bentley because we want to see what type of merit aid he gets, if he gets accepted. It is fun to apply to different schools just to push the envelope and see where he can get in. At the end of the day, the big 4 accounting firms do not say, hey, Joe went to NYU, lets start him off at 20k per yr more than a student who went to Bryant. It does not work that way. All of the big 4 firms have set starting salary ranges and they run from 62-70k with a masters degree no matter if you go to Bentley, Yale, NYU, UMASS etc.
So, that said, I am with you 100%. To me, unless one is affluent, it makes no sense to spend 250k or even 300k with a masters to do accounting when you can spend half that amount at a good state school.
I was just wondering. You mentioned Bryant, but isn’t the tuition there similar to Bentley? I thought Bryant was around 60k per yr as well.
Good Luck in whatever you decide.
Binghamton is a fantastic school. You are lucky to have in state access.
You are absolutely right. The Big 4 has starting ranges determined by geography. They are not going to hire one person with no experience for anymore money than another person with no experience regardless of where one went to school. The only main concern to a person should be whether or not the Big 4 has a presence on campus. As you mentioned they visit all the larger state schools. Smaller city colleges maybe not.
Bryant might be an option because my son might be able to commute there. Bentley is located in a congested area were even if you were to live 10 miles away would take an hour to travel.
I am confident my son will get in. Just not sure what the merit aid will be.
Good luck to your son as well.
That is great if your son can commute. That will save a lot of money. It is funny, folks always ask, what makes a great accounting program? Yes, the number of professors is one aspect. Smaller colleges may only have 5 professors in the program whereas a larger university may have 10-20 plus in a program. Second, degrees. I gather the better programs have more phd’s and cpa’s with those credentials, so that is a plus. However, the main thing is recruiting and networking. That is where the rubber meets the road. Not everyone can or wants to work for a big 4 firm, but the better programs have many more companies recruiting on campus than the smaller colleges. It is simply numbers. Are recruiters going to go the larger or well known universities or the smaller ones to pluck a few students away, or go to a larger university with a larger pool? It comes down to dollars and cents.
One other point to keep in mind is that a student has to do well in a accounting program. Just because a student goes to Bentley or NYU does not mean that they will get an internship with a 2.75 gpa. KPMG will not throw themselves at your feet with that type of gpa. Not that a 2.75 is terrible, it is a 83 which is a B - but the big 4 really want a 3.3 to a 3.5 and up. The smaller or midsize firms want a 3.0 gpa and up generally speaking.
What I am saying is, no matter where a student goes, he or she has to do well. The big 4 firms do not weight a school and say hey, this school is better than that one so we will take a 3.0 gpa. Maybe if one went to Wharton or Columbia there would be leeway, but not most of the time.
So, that said, go to whatever program one wants to go to. Just be sure you can afford it. As we have said earlier, I just do not think 250k plus anothter 65 k for the masters is worth it when you can literally spend half that at other excellent schools.
Good Luck
@euve69 You and I are of the same mind. You bring up great comments that will be helpful to many readers in the future. You are spot on. Grades matter big time. I told my son he needs to crank out a 3.75 or higher to have the most opportunities.
He originally wanted to be an engineer because everyone goes into engineering. lol. He scoffed at accounting. Even his STEM teachers scoffed at accounting. Like all CPA’s do is add and subtract. Well now that he has decided to go into accounting (or maybe finance), I told him to show me how easy it is by cranking out A’s. We will see.
Take care.
Let me tell you something, not all engineers gain employment easily. Don’t get me wrong, it is a great profession, but I know someone who went into civil engineering and it took 9 months to get a job. It really depends on what specialty a person goes for in engineering.
I love accounting becuase I feel it provides alot of job security if you earn a CPA. I do not know many cpa’s out of work. And if they are due to downsizing etc, if they are smart with their money, they can buy a practice if they wanted to.
One last thing I forgot to mention about scholorships is simply this. You have to keep up a strong gpa as well. In the case of Bentley, if you get the half tuition, you need a 3.25 gpa, full tuition is a 3.5 gpa. Now, that is not unreasonable, however, what happens if a student gets a 3.0 gpa? That is very respectable, but not good enough to keep the scholorship. So folks have to understand that there is pressure to some degree to keep up those grades. That is not a bad thing, it gives a student more motivation, but if a student is in a hard major such as accounting or finance, they may not have a 3.25 after their first year. Then what?
@euve69 Another great point! Are you my twin? lol.
I have spoken to my son about this. If he shoots high to an expensive school and does not maintain the required GPA, then it is off to the local city state college because his college money would have been blown on attempting to attend a financial reach school. I have been very honest about what we have to spend, we are also giving him leeway and allowing him to make his decision but once the money is gone, it is gone. But I will not allow him to attend a place where we cannot have the first four years locked down financially. There is no way my wife would show tough love if he attended three years at Bentley and then ran out of money. She would cave in and borrow for him. Wrong!
One route open to him is to commute to the local city college now and get his accounting degree plus credit to sit for the CPA exam. I will then send him to Bentley for an MST. He would basically have a BS, two MS’s and a CPA under his belt debt free for less than the cost of four undergrad years to Bentley. The risk is that the accounting firms would not be active at the local state school. That is the big blocker.
We should be twins. LOL I have been doing research on schools etc since my son was a freshman in high school. No joke, I know as much as alot of the admission counselors. Now that my son is a jr, I can sit back and relax, and not rush around like a maniac. I know all of the info I need to know for the colleges he will be applying to.
I find that alot of folks, parents, students etc, just do not do the deep deep research. For instance, at Binghamton, if you do not get into their school of management directly from high school, forget it!!! You need a minimum of a 3.5 gpa to transfer INTRA university. Now, most 17 yr olds would never even think to ask these questions. I asked my son. is it worth the stress to go to Binghamton and bite your finger nails to get a 3.5 or 3.75 gpa? Or would you apply directly to the business school and if you get in great, if not, go to another good state school for accounting. It us up to my son ultimately, but I have an obligation to let him know what he is up against.
A few years ago the best advice I tried to give my son was to either have a trade, electrician, plumber, lol or get a license in something. Law, Accounting, MD, Pharmacist etc. If you do not go through any of those routes, that is fine. But just remember, if you major in general business and go into marketing,sales, etc and you get laid off when you are 50 or 45, it is not easy to get a job at that age making what you were making. However, if you are a professional, there is no guarantee that you will be employed forever. There is never a guarantee, but the chances are that if you are a Doctor, Lawyer, CPA, Pharmacist, Engineer etc, the chances are that you will always be able to land something. You have a skill, trade etc.
As a parent, that is all I can do. Again, in the end, he has to do what he likes and makes him happy. He may hate accounting, and law etc, but at least I tried to guide him.
By the way, if you live in Mass, isn’t umass amherst a great state school. I know they have an excellent business school. I believe it is the Isenberg school of business. Believe me, your son will have great job prospects coming from that school. No need to spend 70 k on Boston university or Northeaster. Although, they are very good schools.
UMass School of Business is a good school. I agree. He also has a shot at the Honors college there. As much asa I tried to get him to apply, he just feels it is too big and too crazy for him to feel comfortable. He would like a school around the 5K size and definitely under 10K. In MA, there really are not that many options within the state system. After the flagship Amherst campus, you then enter the next tier below which are the city schools. Smaller local schools. They are ok schools but he feels that with a 4.0 gpa he would like to shoot a bit higher to a more selective school. So we are looking into the private schools. I only have the cash to fully fund the state schools fully - $30K/year. He can get another 5k in loans as you know to bring the total to $35k. That might still be short for private. And it is never good to spend every last penny to just attend. There are always other costs you do not anticipate.
You made me chuckle. I too have told him the same thing about the trades. I am concerned that this next generation will begin to see outsourcing to a greater extent than you or I. Already white collar tasks are being outsourced such as tax work and certain consulting tasks. medical scans like MRI and CT to places like India where the professional labor force is cheaper. The trick is to be hands on like a plumber fixing your pipes, any government job (IRS, SEC, FBI, NSA, etc), lawyer attending court proceedings, Pharmacist to dispense drugs, etc. The joy of working at home on a laptop is fraught with outsourcing risk. You must have personal interactions to ensure your job will not be outsourced.
All we can do is advise. Our children need to decide their own path.
So true. In the end, our kids have to make their own decisions. I do feel that alot of cpa work will not be outsourced like audit, taxation etc. There are definitely menial accounting tasks that are not only outsourced, but handled by computers. Heck, a little ol lady can do her own taxes on turbo tax if it is not a complicated return. That is what is funny, most people think that accountants only do tax returns. There is a lot more to it than that as you know.
Stay the course my friend, dont buckle under the pressure, LOL stick with your gut and do not spend 300k on an education that you can get for a third of the price.!!
@euve69 
See you on the other side when the results come in.