There are 3 New England schools known for Business - Babson, Bentley, and Bryant. A common question to ask is “which is the best?”. With rigorous analysis of key statistics from the U.S. Department of Education, Niche ranks Babson 15th place, Bentley 48th place, and Bryant 60th place for “Best Business School in America”. However, a number can only tell you so much about a school.
Babson - 3 words I would use to describe Babson are “Entrepreneurial”, “International”, and being a “Small college”. Babson is known for their early roots in entrepreneurial business education. The education from Babson is well suited for entrepreneurship, consulting, and finance -
1. The curriculum teaches a lot of analysis with real-life case studies - having pitch competitions and being the only place that allows students to start and run their own businesses as freshmen
2. Students get to interact with guest speakers, but more importantly, professors have real-life experience working as CEOs
3. Babson has many resources on campus like the Entrepreneurship Tower, the Center for Women's Entrepreneurship, and the Family Entrepreneurship Center.
The Babson experience has been an asset for alumni since 7 Babson alumni have already appeared on ABC’s “SharkTank”, and in Wall Street, most of the top banks have our alumni in senior positions. In addition to their entrepreneurial education, they can be described as an international magnet. The school is like the United Nations; there are people from all nations and socioeconomic backgrounds at Babson. This diverse student body brings a variety of cultures to campus. Babson is a very small school, being half the size of Bentley. This allows for more one-on-one interaction with professors. At the same time, this means the alumni network will be smaller than the top universities.
Bentley - 3 words I would use to describe Bentley are “Big Four”, “Career Services”, and “Acquisitiveness”. Bentley is the school to go to for accounting or finance. In terms of finance, if you are looking for ibanking, wealth management, sales and trading, Bentley is the school for you. Bentley is known for their large trading room, students can get Bloomberg certified, etc. In terms of accounting, if you are looking to break into the Big Four accounting firms, Bentley is the place for you. Unlike Babson which is very entrepreneurial, Bentley exposes students to solid careers where you hear more about Angel Investors and Venture Capital. The Big Four companies (Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, and PwC) are actively promoting their companies and recruiting students on campus. Regarding recruitment, Princeton awarded Bentley as #1 in Career Services in 2017. 92% of students complete 1 internship, and 71% of students complete 1+ internships. These internships are tightly connected with Boston companies. Finally, Bentley’s social environment is geared towards the accumulation of power and wealth. The most common words students use to describe the culture are “apathetic” and “acquisitiveness”. This has resulted in the addition of "Ethics and Social Responsibility" as an academic discipline.
Bryant - 3 words I would use to describe Bryant are “Liberal Arts”, “Greek Life” and “Social and Close-Knit Community”. Although Bryant is historically a business school, they are now emphasizing more liberal arts. Bryant is more of a well rounded liberal arts school with a very strong business focus (having the most popular majors be finance and marketing). More specifically, they have an integrated curriculum: students either Major in Business and Minor in the Liberal Arts, or Major in arts and science and Minor in business. Bryant also has a growing Greek Life on campus, with the oldest 2 chapters dating back to 1944. Overall, this school is very social and is often described as having a “close-knit community”.
Although some schools have higher ranking than others, that does not necessarily correlate with the highest value school. Academically, Babson is valuable for those wanting to go into entrepreneurship. On the other hand, Bentley and Bryant are great schools for accounting and finance, while also allowing students to be exposed to a liberal arts curriculum. In regards to size, all 3 schools are small. Babson has the smallest enrollment rate and student : professor ratio, while Bryant has the largest. For those looking for a more diverse community, Babson has the more international population, following Bentley, and then Bryant. In regards to the social environment, Byant has the most “close-knit” environment which will leave you with many experiences / memories. Babson on the other hand is more academically focused. In general, depending on one's needs and desires, different schools will be “more valuable” than others.
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