What Does Accounting Have in Common with Legal Fiction?

If you are a numbers person, you are already aware that accounting is a great fit for you. But if you need an even stronger motivation to become an accountant – how about job security? The U.S. Department of Labor predicts that demand for accountants will increase at least 20 percent between now and 2018. Every company needs an accountant, so the possibilities are endless. You can work in-house, you can establish a one-man enterprise and set your own hours, you can work in the public or private sector, you can join one of big auditing firms and break the next Enron scandal, and you can become a CPA and really rake in the dough. Should you tire of your calculator eventually, accounting can also lead to opportunities in finance, compliance, business analysis, upper level management, and even writing (yes, John Grisham has a degree in accounting). Here are three great programs that can set you on your way.

 

University of Chicago – Booth

 

What’s so great about this school?  Booth has an unusually flexible curriculum in its fulltime MBA program, so students easily have the opportunity to narrowly define their area of interest within accounting, whether that is corporate accounting, bankruptcy, investing and restructuring, or tax and business strategy. The faculty comes from diverse backgrounds, which means that there is always someone available to the students who is an expert in any given field of interest within accounting. And the extremely low student-to-faculty ratio ensures that the faculty will not only have the qualifications and experience to be great mentors, but will also have the time. Booth students say that the career services office on campus is empty because employers willingly coming knocking on the students’ doors well before graduation.

School Type: Private

Median GMAT Score: 715

Average Incoming GPA: 3.52

Percent of Applicants Accepted: 22%

Student to Faculty Ratio: 3 to 1

Average Age: 28

 

Emory – Goizueta Business School

 

What’s so great about this school?  The Goizueta accounting program goes beyond spreadsheets and mathematics to incorporate psychology, economics, and a tolerance for ambiguity into the curriculum. Students learn to get inside the minds of business leaders to understand decision-making processes that will enable them to serve their companies best and root out potential problems. 100 percent of students participate in internships while completing their MBAs to gain valuable on-the-job knowledge and start building their professional networks. In addition, in the 2012 Bloomberg Businessweek rankings, Goizueta ranked number 1 for job placement, with 95 percent of students receiving offers within three months of graduation.

School Type: Private

Median GMAT Score: 640

Average Incoming GPA: 3.40

Percent of Applicants Accepted: 40%

Student to Faculty Ratio: 5 to 1

Average Age: 28

 

University of Rhode Island

 

What’s so great about this school? The full time MBA option at the University of Rhode Island is one year program that has a cohort of just 25 students. These students often come from one of the many major corporations located around Providence, including Fidelity and Citizens Financial Group, and bring that experience into the classroom for collaborative learning. Students can take classes from any graduate program in the university as their electives, not just those that are part of the MBA curriculum, which gives them the ability to acquire many different skills that will supplement their business acumen. If you want to join the part time program, you have access to the same professors and resources as those in the full time program.

School Type: Public

Median GMAT Score: 562        

Average Incoming GPA: 3.00

Percent of Applicants Accepted: 65%

Student to Faculty Ratio: Not Available **

Average Student Age: 28

 

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