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Since 2003, PricewaterhouseCoopers has invited University at Buffalo students to participate in its PricewaterhouseCoopers xACT competition.
Every November, PricewaterhouseCoopers invites approximately 50 schools nationwide to compete. The winning team from each school receives a cash prize and is invited to compete nationally to become one of five finalist teams. The five finalists are then invited to make their presentations at PricewaterhouseCoopers’ New York office.
Teams are composed of five students each, working as consultants for a fictitious client. They have two weeks to research an assigned accounting issue and develop a 12-minute presentation. Each team is assigned a faculty coach and a PricewaterhouseCoopers mentor. On the day of the competition, teams present their analysis and recommendations to a panel of judges from PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Information about this year's competition is available at the PricewaterhouseCoopers xACT competition website.
The PricewaterhouseCoopers xACT competition presentations were held November 2, 2012, at the University at Buffalo. Twelve teams of accounting students made their presentations in the Jacobs Management Center. The case involved the role of accounting consultants in helping a firm to determine the viability of an acquisition. In all, 60 students competed. Congratulations to the winning teams:
Team Elite won the top prize of $1,000. In addition, the team's presentation video was sent to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ New York office for the national competition, which included 46 other schools. Participating on the winning team were Alex Killian, Bryan Kao, Philip Silvestri and Shuang Zhang. Professor Shelby Collins served as faculty coach.
Ledger-dary, the second-place team, also won $1,000. Team members were Naman Bhatt, Matthew Epstein, Alisa Ho, Matthew Wells and Karolina Wisniewski . Professor Susan Hamlen served as faculty coach.
Team Suit Up took third place in the competition. Team members Shannon Callinan, Joe Hoffman, David Kim, Karolyn Kroboth and Zach McGee were coached by Professor Claudia Qi.
After the presentations, all participants enjoyed a catered dinner and interacted with PricewaterhouseCoopers staff. In addition, all participants received a gift card.
Congratulations to the students and coaches who took on the challenge in this year’s event. Mark Bruno, head of recruiting for PricewaterhouseCoopers in Buffalo, and other firm staff were very favorably impressed by UB's showing.
