We Mean Business

Providence College accounting students were the winners of the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) xTREME Accounting (xACT) competition, besting University of California–Berkeley, University of Texas–Austin, University of Washington, and Villanova University on the weekend of January 8 in New York City. The xACT competition is one of the two events of the xTREME games, the other being a taxation competition called xTAX. More than 4,400 students from 84 schools competed in the games, and five schools were named as finalists in each competition. Providence College has competed in the past seven xACT competitions and advanced to the finals two years ago. This was Providence College's first national championship.

The team, "The Consolidators" consisted of Ann C. Montemarano '12, David J. Glaser ‘13, Vincent A. Travelyn, Amanda P. Medeiros ‘14, and Philip M. Pin ‘14. Dr. Christine Earley, professor of accountancy, coached the students. Each student received a prize of $2,000 for making it to the finals, in addition to the coveted Montgomery Award. Each team member will receive a replica of the Montgomery Award, and the names of the students will be engraved on the actual award at PwC.

The teammates have been working together since the fall. Each year, the Department of Accounting takes interested students and puts them into teams for the competition. Earley said that effort is taken to ensure that the teams are all relatively equal in strength and there are no "all star" teams. Each team had a coach that is a member of the accounting department.

The teams competed on campus in the fall, and were judged by two PwC employees. The Consolidators were the winning team of that competition, and the video of their presentation was sent to PwC to be compared to the other 44 schools in the competition. Their presentation and those of teams from four other schools were selected as the finalists to go to New York City.

Providence College was the only school out of all the finalists that does not yet have an accredited business school. Providence's business school is on track to become accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). The AACSB only accredits about a third of the business schools in the nation. Montemarano and Earley both feel that the profile of the business school has been elevated as result of the victory over much larger schools.

Montemarano said that the schools they competed against had much larger programs than Providence College does, and "they can make a team of their best people." Montemarano says that she feels that the victory in the competition elevated the business school and will make the school attractive to potential accounting majors. Montemarano thinks that the small size is actually a strength of the program, and that the majors are able to receive individual attention from professors, which is not available to students at large schools. "At a large school, a person may never meet their adviser," explained Montemarano.

Montemarano also feels as though the accounting program at the College is one of the more "underrated" programs. Montemarano initially came into school declared in finance, and switched to accounting after taking two accounting classes. She first competed in the xACT program as a sophomore, at the urging of a professor. Although she was initially intimidated by the workload of the project, she grew to enjoy the competition.

At the competition, each team is given a scenario and is told to develop a presentation for what the company should do. "It's as if we were actually employees of PwC," explained Montemarano. In this competition, the team had to develop a plan for a cosmetics company looking to expand into a natural line of cosmetics. The team was judged on its presentation skills, its recommendation for the company, and its skills in a question-and-answer session about its presentation.