The pressure was on last week as students from Binghamton University competed at the Extreme Accounting Campus Competition in front of a panel from PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The PwC Extreme Accounting (xAct) Competition, which took place on campus Tuesday, Nov. 11, is held annually at schools across the nation. Students enrolled in BU accounting courses formed 21 teams of five participants each to register.

“Being involved in this competition is as close to a real world [business] experience as we provide on campus,” Elliot Kamlet, a professor in the School of Management, said.

The winning team, which included junior Laura Vollmer, sophomore Melissa Wolkis, junior Evan Roth, senior Pamela Engelberg and sophomore Samantha Greenberg, was awarded $1,000 to divide amongst its members.

The judges from PwC videotaped the winning team from each of the 42 universities participating in the xAct competition. The company is then planning to choose five of these teams to compete in the national competition for a chance to win $10,000.

“We are still waiting to hear from PricewaterhouseCoopers,” Greenberg said. “It would be very exciting if we were chosen to go to nationals. If we are selected, we will have to get together as a group and rev up our presentation.”

The second place team also won a prize of $1,000, and each member of the third place team received an Apple, Inc. iHome stereo.

Each team that participated also received a four-gigabyte flash drive.

“PwC seeks students who are eager to plunge briefly into the environment of the real business world to show what they’re made of as critical thinkers, able collaborators and persuasive advisers on important business issues,” states the xTREME Games Web site of PwC.

The challenge provided by PwC was one that involved knowledge of the business world, and a full team effort, according to Leor Joudai, a sophomore majoring in business with a concentration in management, and a member of the third place team. Each team was provided with a mentor from PwC to help them overcome any obstacles they may come across while preparing their presentation.

“We were given a situation where an energy company was running low on resources and we were given two options on how to handle the situation,” Joudai said. “One option was to invest in research and development, and the other was to merge with another energy company.”

PwC sent two partners, three senior managers and two recruiting personnel to BU to judge the presentations.

“The presentations were of extremely high quality,” Kamlet said. “The same comment came from the judges. I heard excellent feedback; they were very impressed.”

Participation in the xAct competition was not mandatory. Accounting professors, including Kamlet, offered their students extra credit as motivation to register with the competition.

Four of the five first-place team members, including Vollmer, Wolkis, Roth and Engelberg, placed within the top five national finalists for the 2007 Extreme Tax (xTax) competition, another section of the PwC campus competitions. They received $10,000 to divide amongst the team.

“This [xAct] was probably one of the best programs I participated in at Binghamton,” Greenberg said. “I got so much out of it over a short period of time … The presentation was nerve-wracking since it was in front of partners of the company.”

“If you can handle the high-pressure situation on campus, then you can handle it out in the real world,” she added.