<p>I will be graduating Bentley undergrad in Economics-Finance this year (Class of 2012!) and would like to go for my Master's of Accounting as well. The company I am with now and hope to have a fulltime job as a financial analyst with has a $10,000 a year educational reimbursement. Bentley's tuition for the full program is around $35k, while UMass Amherst is around $18k. If I go to UMass Amherst, I will be able to finish my masters within a full college year (two semesters), fully reimbursed. If I go to Bentley, it will take me four semesters across four years to be fully reimbursed.</p>
<p>Is Bentley's reputation worth the extra years? [Note: I would like to go back and get my MBA in the next three years, so I do not want to stay at the company for four years plus the extra year you have to because of education reimbursement guidelines] Should I take a semester at UMass and finish in three years? Should I just go to UMass and get it over with in a year?</p>
<p>I am not looking to be an accountant or be hired by a Big 4 firm, just trying to compensate for poor grades in undergrad for grad school, as well as getting a degree under my belt.</p>
<p>If you are able to get a job as a financial analyst, do not go for a MAcc, especially if your goal is to get a MBA. Get a job, work for a few years, and then apply to a good MBA program. Don’t waste your time on a MAcc: if you do not want to get into public accounting, and just for reimbursement of your grades. GPA matters when you apply for your first jobs. In the long run your working experience will trump anything else, including your GPA. (you may even omit it later) Do you really want to spend another year at a college, instead of getting working experience, and being actually paid?</p>
<p>Whether or not the OP goes for a Macc isn’t the question. I do question, though, why you would go for a Macc if you seek to become a financial analyst? The Macc degree is largely meant to help the student sit for and hopefully pass the CPA exam. If you don’t want to go into public accounting, then why strive for a Macc?</p>
<p>As for your actual question, I would advise pursuing the degree at UMASS. Bentley has the better business program, but UMASS probably has better mix of price and prestige especially for a potential Macc student.</p>
<p>Toshtemirov - I apologize, I should have mentioned I will be doing the Master’s part-time. Don’t you think GPA is important though for pursing an MBA? I feel like my undergrad grades are too low and I believe that by going back to school and showing them (them being the MBA admissions office) that I am capable of doing well in grad school, then I will be capable in their school too.</p>
<p>Trizz75 - I do want to sit for CPA exam as well. I know that I will probably not be practicing accounting, but I think it is a good back-up program and if the company I’m working with decides to spend $10k a year on me, I don’t want to waste it by doing nothing!</p>
<p>True true. But, on the employer end, why would they fund continuing education for you when the course of study you would go for doesn’t match what the firm actually does?</p>
<p>studentinthecity, “Don’t you think GPA is important though for pursing an MBA? I feel like my undergrad grades are too low and I believe that by going back to school and showing them (them being the MBA admissions office) that I am capable of doing well in grad school, then I will be capable in their school too.”</p>
<p>For a MBA, the GPA is less important than your working experience and GMAT score. If you score 700+ on the GMAT and have from 2 to 5 years of working experience, you will have a chance to get into a decent MBA program. How low is your GPA? Is it below 3.0? In addition, I have never heard anyone doing masters in order to get into a MBA program. How do you know for sure that you going to do better in a graduate school, if you did poorly in the undergraduate? A masters won’t matter, for the MBA admissions are looking for the three main attributes, which are (from most important to the least): woking experience, GMAT score, and your undergraduate GPA. Instead, eventually, you could spend those 10,000$ on your MBA. Though it is up to you.</p>