EC: Football manager 2 yrs
National Honor Society 2 yrs
National Art Honor Society 2 yrs(Treasurer)
Math League 4 yrs
Junior Class Council for a year (VP)
Low income family
Asian (Permanent Resident)
Taken 2 AP classes (not a great score, so i won’t use those) AP lang AP UShistory
Taking 4 AP classes for senior year
Senior yr curriculum :
AP Stat
AP Lit
AP Drawing
AP Physics 1 & 2
World history
Spanish IV-Honors
Took English as second language class as freshman but end up taking AP Eng classes by junior year
Also is it a good idea if i choose my major as economics if the colleges do not have an accounting major?
I want to go to a 4-year university or college that ranked high and very selective in their admissions.
Which colleges should i apply to?
So far I’m applying to
University of Minnesota
University of Maryland
University of Virginia
Washington and Lee university
University of Southern California
Purdue University
University of Delaware
Carleton college
Colorado college
You have a 1260 M+CR. You need to focus on schools that will accept you and those may not be schools that are “very selective.” USC, Carleton College, UVA, will not likely accept you.
You have a LOT of expensive OOS publics on your list. What are your parents saying about how much they’ll pay?
What is your home state?
Luckily, there are many very good accounting programs at “good schools,” that aren’t hard to get into. However, much will depend on how much your parents will pay.
I see that you’re low income…if that means that your parents can’t pay much, then take off all of the OOS publics.
What is your state of residence? You will likely not get need-based financial aid from U-MN, U-MD, W&L, Purdue, or UDelaware if you are not a resident of their respective states. UVA will give aid, but your test scores do not seem competitive there. I don’t think Carleton is in reach, and they don’t offer accounting as a major. I doubt Colorado offers it, either.
Sorry… your college list probably requires a complete rewrite. Out of state public universities are not a good choice for low income students, and very few liberal arts colleges offer accounting as a major.
For each college you end up considering going forward, run the net price calculator on the college website to see what your cost may be. Check the academics page on the website to see what majors are offered. And Google the Common Data Set for the college to look at average score ranges.
Regarding Econ – you can’t become a CPA by that route. Whether you should choose Econ is up to you – many Econ majors go on to have general business careers.
Picking a good Accounting school for your stats is pretty easy. U of Delaware since you are instate. Then Bryant, Muhlenberg, Scranton, Manhattan College, St. Bonaventure, Siena are good places to start. All have the coveted AACSB accreditation.
Accounting firms recruit where the kids stay a while and they aren’t that into prestige. The schools I listed will have all their Accounting kids employed before graduation.
The Catholic schools have very good Accounting programs, perhaps because double entry Accounting was invented by the church.
You may get merit aid at most of these schools, consider them for safeties:
-Albion College
-Augsburg College
-Canisius College
-Caroll College
-Creighton University
-Elizabethtown College
-Gannon University
-Juniata College
-Le Moyne College
-Loyola University New Orleans
-Maryville of St. Louis
-Ohio Wesleyan University
-Pacific Lutheran University
-Saint Louis University
-Valparaiso University
If you want to become a CPA you need to go to a schools with a business program and an accounting major. Economics is a liberal arts course of study and is not at all the same as majoring in accounting. Note that you need 150 credits to become a CPA so unless you have a lot of APs you may need to go for an extra semester or year to get the requisite number of credits. Many people who want to get a CPA get a one year Master’s in accounting.
Agree that you should look to your state schools and privates. If you are looking for merit aid, look into schools where your statistics are above the average for the school’s profile.
I should have provided more detail. The schools listed in my first note are schools my DS has on his list. He is accepted in all but UConn and Syracuse at this point. All are OOS. No good instate choice so it is what it is. Masters of accountancy I feel is the better way to go in order to get the CPA designation. Does anyone have specific experience or knowledge of the schools I have listed? Thanks.
@mma396 Elon, Pitt and Miami U are excellent schools. All AACSB accredited and great reputations. Elon is a private school and might be the best value since you aren’t instate for the other two state schools. Elon is a very popular choice for kids in this area. Of all the schools Elon would be my choice.
You don’t have to have a masters in accounting you just need 150 total semester hours.
Scarednjdad1: without being specific, we are from a northern state that has fine State colleges it just that DS wants to venture away. We found Miami University very compelling for accounting as the Big 4 have offices within the business school. Elon is the up and coming hot university these days. From what we read they don’t have a master’s of accounting program but do offer a summer prep for the CPA exam. Trouble is trying to get the required hours in to qualify for it. DS will not have any AP credits to bring so we will ask Elon how that all works at accepted student day.
Pitt offer is for honors college and guarantee into their masters program if you keep up your undergrad grades. So far Miami University is the cheaper choice with excellent merit aid and direct admit to their business school.
@ScaredNJDad1 It is absolutely true that you don’t need a Master’s in accounting to become a CPA. And for a student with a ton of APs who just needs a few credits to get to the 150 level it may not make sense to get a Master’s. However, for a student described by the OP who will come in to college with no AP credits, a one year Master’s degree in Accounting is probably the way to go.
In addition from what I see in the profession (I am a CPA as is my H and very recently my S) with the 150 credit threshold, it is becoming more and more common for new CPA’s to hold a MS degree so it is a nice additional credential to hold. And perhaps more importantly my S said that he learned a great deal of higher level material his MS program so at least in his case, it was a valuable educational experience.
One more comment about the MS degree. It is very nice to be at a school where you know you will get into the MS program if you meet a certain undergraduate threshold. But just so you know, there are schools that take students in for a one year MS in Accounting program. For example, my S went to Fordham as an undergrad and Notre Dame for his MS. (He did automatically qualify for Fordham’s MS program so it was nice to know he was in there from the start. He loved Fordham as an undergrad but he chose to get a different experience at a different school for his MS. However, going that route required that he take the GMATs which he could have skipped if he chose to stay at Fordham).
@mma396 Any school that has active Big 4 recruiting is compelling. Your choices career wise are all good. Since compensation will be identical except for regional cost of living adjustments, I would make the decision based on cost first and the likeability of the school a close second. Accounting recruiting is heavily regional in that the initial placement will be an urban location close to school. A student that is hired our of Ohio will not work in Manhattan or Boston in all likelihood.
You can double check, but I believe Iess than 20% of the 150 hours must be in accounting classes. In order to get the extra 30 hours, your child could perhaps double major in something like philosophy, history, english, etc. This would be highly valuable especially if the student decides to get an MBA or law degree later on.
@happy1 I am not disagreeing but many people think the only way is a Masters in Accounting.
@ScaredNJDad1 Sorry to disagree with you , but you are wrong in saying that accounting recruiting is completely regional. While that may be true for local/regional firms, it is absolutely positively not the case for the Big 4 and other large firms… Those firms do recruit nationally. When you interview, you let the firms know what office or offices you would be interested in working at.
My S (recently) got his MS and interviewed out of Notre Dame (in Indiana) and got multiple Big 4 offers in NYC and he had friends who went to other non-local schools (ex. William & Mary in VA, UMichigan to name but a couple) who ended up with Big 4 offers in NYC. My S found the process took a little longer that it would have if he wanted to work in Chicago (the nearest large city), but wanting to work out of the area of his school was absolutely no issue. And even way back in the dark ages I went to college in Phila. and got all my offers in NYC and my H went to Notre Dame and his offers were in NYC as well.
And there are other ways that one can go other than a MS in Accounting. But it is necessary to keep in mind that the amount of accounting/business classes one must take varies from state to state so it is critical to check with the state board of accountancy. It would be unwise to go off and get the additional credits in another discipline and assume it will be fine unless one first checks the requirements with the state board where he/she wants to practice.
In addition, most employers expect that if students go on for a Master’s it will be a MS in Accounting or a MBA – firms may not be looking to recruit a student getting a Master’s in English or something along those lines and a student getting a MS in English as the example given may not even be eligible to interview out of the business school. I’m not saying that a MS in Accounting is the only way to skin the cat because it is not, but these are some things to be careful about if one chooses another route.
Thank you all for the feedback. I believe S wants to keep east coast focused after college. That masters route would add some deeper course material on specific accounting topics that would not hurt future career advances.
It will be great conversation with career development departments about where internshps and grads end up.
Sounds like a good plan and sounds like your S will have many fine choices. Congratulations. And as a small aside, summer CPA prep (such as Elon offers) is not a huge deal because the big accounting firms all pay for the Becker CPA review course for their new hires (one can choose to go to lecture classes or take online). My S did the Becker online course with great success.