Bentley v. Northeastern v. Drexel

Bentley is pretty decent for accounting if you want to go the Big 4 Accounting route. Don't expect to get any BB ibanking or sales & trading positions from either Bentley, Northeastern, or Drexel though unless you have very close to a 4.0 and your uncle is the group head.

Agreed, Bentley is pretty good for accounting and Big 4. On the IB front, Bentley will place ~3 per year into either BB/MM/boutique. It's probably not impossible from Drexel or Northeastern, but given the larger class sizes and lower b-school ranking, my guess is that Bentley is your friend's best bet. A 4.0 isn't necessary, but 3.75+, good ECs, and hardcore networking are imperative.

It's possible to make it to S&T/IBD from all three with networking.

thanks for the responses, azwethinkweiz and indian-banker

I'm from Mass, Northeastern is your best bet. I've met NEU kids while interviewing at boutiques.

I have friends at all three schools, and I recommend Bentley. It may not have the best placement for banking but many of their students get into rotational programs at large F500 companies as well as finance/operations roles at BBs.

I'd go with Northeastern I know one student getting placed at GS structured credit and a couple being placed UBS/CS for banking not to familiar with Bentley

Well, when these guys say Bentley is better, that is in a relative sense. GPA is just a screening factor. I would recommend picking the school that will get you the highest GPA possible freshman/ sophomore year and then transferring to a target. Don't plan on getting into IB from one of these schools.

I'd go with Northeastern, the kids I know there are reasonably intelligent, while the kids I know at Bentley are legitimately retarded.

And no, you assholes, I didn't/don't go to Drexel

Thank you dipset1011, fads_86, budfox24, advisory88, and drexelalum11! your answers are quite helpful.

something that keeps coming up is that NEU sends more people to wall st., but their class size is significantly larger than bentley's.. do you guys think your opinions still hold while considering class size?

NEU has 15,000 undergrads while Bentley has 4,200. based on this alone, i would expect NEU to have 3/4x as many people on wall st.

Though it is true, if you remain near the top of your class at both places, have good ECs, and network, you'll have more opportunities at Northeastern. I think what's key here is that NE is likely to have a greater number of alums on Wall Street, which will give you a larger target when networking. It's unlikely you'll get into IB through OCR, so networking is going to be key.

I recommed Northeastern for two reasons:

1) Their co-op program REQUIRES you to have internship experience before you graduate. This means you already have a leg up on other kids and I know kids who have done their co-ops with reputed financial firms in Boston such as Prudential.

2) The location (in the middle of Boston) is much better than Bentley (middle of nowhere outside of Boston) and Drexel (Philly sucks)

thanks, investor1..

fyi, in philly right now, so please, some respect for philly would be much appreciated.

at the same time, northeastern does take an extra year, it seems and because your direct competition all has these forced internship experiences, it seems a bit harder to differentiate yourself (and tell your own little story of how you ended up somewhere or what you did for a crazy summer)

anyhow, pt well taken

im a NEU grad. in recent years, the schools rankings have shot up, particularly the business school (28th-ish in businessweek).

after doing a co-op (6 mos.) at a BB, i used that connection to get into a SA program through my MD. i received a FT offer and am now working in S&T at a BB. although i consider myself very fortunate, northeastern is probably your best bet as they have a myriad of networking channels that are imperative to ones success.

my gpa is not spectacular and my uncle is not the group head, investor1 :-)