Bryant versus Bentley

College Search & Selection
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<p>Ok, so I have been accepted to both Bryant and Bentley and I want to major in a business major (which is obvious if you know these schools). Anyway, this decision is really difficult for me and as the days are counting down, (May 1) I am beginning to feel the heat. So my question is, which college is best? Some important factors</p>

<p>Which college will best educate me
Cost
Prestige(which is more respected/ well known/ credible)
--Also Any other factors -you- feel are important---</p>

<p>The financial situation is this. </p>

<p>Bentley has offered me a scholarship of 1/3 tuition. I would pay $154,000 over 4 years.</p>

<p>Bryant has offered me a scholarship of $16,000 per year and they have admitted me into their Honors Program (is this significant?). I would pay $116,000 over 4 years</p>

<p>I have asked a question before on a similar subject but could not make any decisions of the information. Again any help will be greatly appreciated. I am the first in my family to go to college(including my parents!) an So thank you in advance.</p>

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<p>This is funny, I was just comparing these two schools on a post the other day. I personally think Bryant is a far better school. Their job placement is top in the nation-98.7%, their campus is pretty much brand new. Their athletics are D1. In fact there isn’t much Bentley has over Bryant, I can’t really think of anything. </p>

<p>Of course if you ask a Bentley kid it would be a much different answer. Bentley is known for being incredibly snobbish, and us here in Mass can’t really figure out why because they aren’t considered even close to a top school in MA. Id say prestige-wise Bentley ranks in the mid twenties in MA. </p>

<p>This is another advantage Bryant has over Bentley because Bryant is considered 3rd in RI. Bryant graduates have the rep of being a “Roll up your sleeve” kind of worker who gets the job done and does it extremely well because they have had a top notch education. Bentley Grads have a rep of thinking they are too good for their work, and that’s why Bryant has a far better job placement then Bentley. Again, students of the two schools would argue differently, however, in a biased opinion, the two schools arent comparable. Bentley just isn’t in the same league as Bryant</p>

3

<p>Although every school has strengths and weaknesses, Bentley definitely has a lot of selling points to seriously consider. We are one of few schools in the country to have EQUIS (European Quality Improvement System), which is an international accreditation and a high honor. Over 90% of our students participate in at least one internship and our technology just can’t be beat. Princeton Review ranked us as #20 —Best Career/Job Placement Services and #4 in the “Top 20 Wired Campuses” for 2009! Our campus is always being updated, in fact our library and athletic center were renovated 2 1/2 years ago and are amazing! Have you seen our Trading Room???</p>

4

<p>Masskid has a major bias towards Bryant. He must be a Bryant student. </p>

<p>Although Bentley is higher ranked than Bryant, and has a better rated accounting program to that of Bryant, you should check each you. Bryant is a bigger school with more majors. Bentley started out as a school to train in accounting and finance. Thus, those two programs are particularly strong.</p>

<p>In addition, you can take a number of liberal arts courses, including most of your gen eds, at nearby Brandeis. </p>

<p>My son attended Bentley’s graduate program in Financial Planning. He LOVED the school. He didn’t notice any “stuck up” kids that Masskid seems to make a big todo about. He Loved the campus and loved the dorms that he was in. They were huge and brand new,but I think that they are upperclass dorm. They are the ones near the tennis courts. Check out Bentley’s library and trading room, both of which are the best I have seen</p>

<p>Again, although both schools started as business schools, they really have very different cultures and attitudes. You should check them both out.</p>

5

<p>Agree with Taxguy. Masskid does not like Bentley! As I posted in your last thread, my daughter was deciding between Bryant and Bentley three years ago and chose Bentley. </p>

<p>Have you visited each campus? I was at Bryant last night with another daughter whose has her club soccer practice there. I find the campus itself much smaller than Bentley. It is also has much more of a modern feel to me. Bentley has more of a traditional New England feel. Yes, Bentley is on a hill. You will have to walk up some stairs. But it does not seem to bother the kids. </p>

<p>Like I mentioned before your 1/3 tuition scholarship to Bentley will increase as tuition increases. Bryant’s is fixed.</p>

<p>My daughter has met many kids who transfered from Bryant to Bentley after their first year because they were not accepted as freshman to Bentley.</p>

<p>My daughter has never talked about the school being snobby! She has met kids from all over the country. </p>

<p>My daughter also has friends from high school who attend Bryant and love it. In my opinion Bentley is a stronger school, but Bryant is close behind. Go where you feel the most comfortable.</p>

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<p>There’s a shuttle that picks students up from lower campus and brings them up the hill for classes, too…</p>

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<p>I am an undergraduate student at Bentley right now and am actively looking at undergraduate schools for my little sister via this site. I came across this posting and thought I might be able to give you some incite as to what it is like to be a Bentley student. </p>

<p>Bentley, Babson, and Bryant have been weighed against one another for decades now. I had been fortunate enough to have been accepted to all three schools and there were a couple of things that really tipped the scale for me. </p>

<p>First, I came from a small high school where I had really good relationships with my teachers. Valuing these relationships, I wanted to replicate that learning environment in college. Second, I believe that technology is a major driver of success in business. I was blown away with the technology that Bentley makes available to its students; it was unparalleled with anything that I had ever seen. Exposure to these programs gives Bentley students a big step up when they make the transition to the business world. Lastly, the focus on the professional development of students and making them feel comfortable in a corporate setting helped to reassure me that I was making a good investment into my own future. I am not sure where masskid got his statistics, but I know that BentleyÂ’s placement rating has rivaled or beaten that of Babson or Bryant since I have started here. </p>

<p>I do not want to discount the value of a Babson or Bryant education by any means; they are both very well respected business schools. I simply wanted to add a new perspective for you to weigh. </p>

<p>If you have any other questions I would be glad to help you outÂ… just shoot me over an e-mail:
<a href=“mailto:Dufrane_hunt@bentley.edu”>Dufrane_hunt@bentley.edu</a></p>

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<p>Actually Taxguy, I graduated from neither schools a couple years ago, however, my nephew came down to NY to look at these two schools. I actually told him at first that Bentley was better and to not waste his time at Bryant. However, he heard great thngs about Bryant and wanted to see it, so we looked at both. After visiting both campuses I was blown away by Bryant and how much change it has made since the last time I’ve been there.</p>

<p>Bentleys a great school, however, after hearing what Bryant has done and what they are planning to do, I guarantee they will surpass both Babson and Bentley in the next few years. I was literally blown away. They have so much land to expand, they can literally do anything. I read something about how Bush Sr. and their president have connected with China to start building the first US-China relations building on Bryant’s campus. </p>

<p>I mean check out both because they are both amazing schools, however, keep in mind that Bentleys rep is still just local. However, in my opinion Bryant will become a nationally prestigious school. They are already begining too with their Lacrosse team, didn’t they get the Duke coach and a couple of their eligable seniors after that scandal. I hear they are amazing.</p>

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<p>Ironically, I grew up in Waltham and now live in Smithfield, there’s no doubt that Bentley is a stuck up schools taxguy. It’s pretty much common knowlege in Massachusetts. It’s a great school however, I don’t think they have the right to be a snobby school because they aren’t that good. I personally like Bryant a little better pretty much for the same reason masskid presented. That school is going places in the next few years trust me. </p>

<p>The two schools are about even at this point, you can’t pay attention to businessweek because they have proven time and time again that they are an unreliable source. They tend to be at least 2-3 years behind based on updated technology or buildings etc. Bentley did slide down this year and Bryant jumped up big time, so they are starting to come to their sences. </p>

<p>Both are great schools, you will get the same education, same jobs, you might get a few more job offers from Bryant because their career services are top in the nation. Bryant will get a lot more publicity obviously because of their D1 sports and that East-West global connection institute. This school will blow up to be a world-wide prestigious business school. </p>

<p>Bentley is really good at this point but they can’t really do much more, they have no room for expanding, what you see is what you get.</p>

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<p>I got into all three:Babson, Bentley, and Bryant, I recieved a very large amount of money from Bentley, but not too much from the other schools. </p>

<p>However, I decided to go to Bryant for many reasons, first, I liked the smaller school atmosphere, Taxguy, Bentleys the biggest one out of all three, not Bryant. I liked the idea that there were 12 kids in all my classes and that it was a smaller learning environment instead of all the lecture halls at Bentley, thats an enormous plus for Bryant. </p>

<p>Second, I don’t think the two schools campus’s can be compared, Bryant is a prettier, much more modern college than Bentley at least in my opinion. I personally am a big fan of libraries and next to Bryant’s libraries Bentleys is awful. </p>

<p>Finally, Bryant seems to just do everything right, they have a lot of money and alot of land to do whatever they want, Bentley is packed on top of that little hill of theirs and isnt going to change.</p>

<p>For me the multiple benefits from Bryant outweighed all the money i recieved from Bentley, In my opinion the two schools aren’t comparable. Bentley was better for a while but now the guards have changed.</p>

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<p>OP – I don’t know either school. I read through this thread because a “business college” is an interesting concept about which I know nothing… </p>

<p>From all the posts, it seems Bryant and Bentley are about equally ranked currently. </p>

<p>Bentley has the advantage of smaller classes
Bryant has the advantage of being more affordable.</p>

<p>Everything else I read seems about feel/culture. I am going to assume you are not able to visit them both… so in that case you really need to decide between smaller class vs. smaller tuition.</p>

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<p>I hate to be rude and contradict you, but Bentleys classes are 2 or 3 times bigger than bryants, and unfortunately our tuition is pretty much the same. however bryant has a little more money invested in giving financial aid to those who deserve it, in most cases. However, I got a hefty tuition off to bentley and barely any off to Bryant so theres exceptions as well</p>

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<p>MARIBR12 – I’m not making that claim, I was summarizing prior posts. HDuf did make the claim that Bentley’s classes were very small, and nobody contradicted that statement until you just did…</p>

<p>when I said Bryant had the advantage of being more affordable, I meant for the OP due to the larger aid, not in general.</p>

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<p>No i know, please don’t take it to offense, I was simply correcting you to portrait the correct info. </p>

<p>I personally think that if you can get into any of the small new england colleges (Bryant, Babson, Bentley, Stonehill, Quinnipiac to name a few) you should go to them because they are amazing. Including Bentley, it’s a great school, and I thought I was going to go there until I stepped foot on Bryant, Then going back to Bentley, I realized that Bryant was deffinately right for me. Although I’m sure you’ll get different opinions from everyone.</p>

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<p>Taxguy, I’m curious why you think that Bentley students being able to take classes at Brandeis is an asset. Personally I think thats a huge con for Bentley, If i wanted to take classes at Brandeis I would of gone there. If I’m a Bentley student I expect my school to have strong enough liberal arts to educated me themselves not ship me over to another school.</p>

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<p>I’m a former Bentley student ('08 grad), also fortunate enough to get into the three B’s. Here’s my take on the topic and my decision making process five years ago:</p>

<p>Babson wins, hands down, as the snottiest of the three. The school is very perfectly set across the road from the Wellesley Country Club. I never seriously entertained the thought of going after I visited. Bentley and Bryant are both much more accessable student bodies. Bentley has a more classic New England college vibe and more access to Boston (and the internships therein!) than Bryant. Bryant had nicer buildings when I went, but Bentley’s new library has far surpassed anything that either campus had when I was making my choice.</p>

<p>Bentley also boasts an impressive International population, which Bryant did not. If you’re interested in having friends from outside New England (I was from Florida), I think Bentley has the most diverse population in general. I remember on my Bentley tour, we had a girl from Brazil and a guy from Montana, but when I toured Bryant everyone was from Mass and Conn. Might have just been the luck of the draw, but I found it conspicuous. It’s nice to have the variety of people.</p>

<p>Class sizes are kind of a moot arguement. The average in major is around 12 people, maybe twice that for popular gen ed courses. I never had a class larger than 28, and “huge lecture halls” are an enormous overstatement. UMass has huge lecture halls - neither of these schools do. You will find that the professors are incredibly hands on at Bentley and probably are at Bryant as well. When I was deciding, Bentley had much more impressive tech integration and supporting faculty, which seems to more or less hold true today.</p>

<p>I think Bentley’s key strength is a very well established alumni network in the financial sector. If you are looking to go into Accounting, Finance, Ops or some variation, you will find that there is a huge benefit to being a Bentley alum. Even out of the region. I had no problem getting a great job in Atlanta right out of school. I can’t speak to Bryant’s recognition, but Bentley is known for turning out top-notch finance students. One downside is that people sometimes push you toward finance career paths, even if you’re a marketing major. I can also say from observation that Bentley seems to be better represented at the officer level of the finance work and at the major financial firms. Networking opportunities abound.</p>

<p>Finally, Bryant also offered me a touch more scholarship money out of the gate. The dynamic scholarship actually ended up being better than what Bryant offered by the end of my college career, although in today’s economic climate, tuition may not rise as steeply for you as it did for me. </p>

<p>Good luck making your choice! If you have any questions, feel free to ask.</p>

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<p>This is why it’s crucial you check out both schools and make you’re own decision, because I got the exact opposite feel from bentley than the post above me. I don’t think it’s a contest between the libraries, Bryant’s is still the best library Ive ever seen and I’ve toured a lot of schools. </p>

<p>Also, when I toured Bentley my tour guide was from Southie and all the kids in my tour were from MA or RI. And when I toured Bryant there was a girl there from California and Oregon and my tour guide was from India. Bryant brings one of the best IB majors in the nation. I guess that can also be because of the Confucius Institute that wasnt in the plans when the post above me toured. This institute is bringing the best of the East over to America for the first East-West business connection. </p>

<p>Finally, it’s funny he mentioned this in the post above because when I looked at the establised alumni list from both schools, Bryant’s was 4 or 5 times bigger. And their Career services/alumni relations is top 10 in the nation. </p>

<p>See, these 2 schools are so rediculously similar that you can’t place the most important decision of your life on the shoulders of a bunch of people who have never met you. Tour both schools, and then you should get a good feel of which one you like better.</p>

1 Like
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<p>I would defnitely choose Bryant. It has a better reputation and it will save you a LOT of money. In today’s economic times, every dollar counts. And, on top of that, the Honors program is very prestigious and it is very significant. I would take complete advantage of it, you’re very lucky to have been accepted there and with so much money. Good luck!</p>

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<p>Thanks all for the sugestions. Any final sugesstions?</p>

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<p>Let us know your decision. Good luck.</p>