<p>A friend of mine got accepted to both. My friend is mainly interested in going into accounting and hopefully one day working for the Big 4. To get for the Big 4, you have to get recruited on campus during junior or senior year and you need to have a really high GPA as well as having taking a bunch of accounting classes.</p>
<p>Do you think my friend should choose Cal (majoring in econ) or choose UCI (majoring in Business Administration?)</p>
<p>Keep in mind, my friend "could" apply for Haas, but it is extremely difficult to get into. There is no guarantee chance she will get in. On the other hand, my friend is already accepted into UCI's School of Business. Not to mention in general UCI is a less competitive school (relative to Cal) and I personally believe if she went to UCI she would have a greater chance of having a higher GPA and getting recruited by a Big 4 for a summer associate gig.</p>
<p>Is your friend minoring in accounting @ Cal? If not, how will your friend get into the accounting courses?</p>
<p>If so, then I don’t think it should matter too much, both schools are recruited by the big 4 heavily so as long as your friend keeps up the GPA, is personable, does extra-curriculars/part-time job etc., then he/she should be able to get an offer. </p>
<p>Well actually, the above perhaps only applies to Irvine, since I don’t know how it is for Cal.</p>
<p>If it’s easy/doable to get the required Accounting Courses at Cal then I’d say the schools are pretty even.
UCI’s Business Administration just makes it more guaranteed that your friend will get the courses he/she needs for the CPA. </p>
<p>I am not sure if UCI is “less competitive” than Cal. GPA wise yes. But for Big 4 all you really need is the minimum GPA (which is like 3.3 / 3.4 here) and then the rest is all on you as a person. Yes, having a good GPA can help get you at least first rounds, but so does good networking skills. And those networking skills is what gets you past the first rounds and the offer. & For recruiting in Accounting, UCI doesn’t just compete with UCI students, we compete with Chapman, Fullerton, Long Beach, and even USC and UCLA. Berkeley on the other hand, I always felt like had less competition from other schools? This could be inaccurate though.</p>
<p>Also, I’d say it might help to be at the area your friend wants to be in the future. Although you can interview for a different office, imo I think it’s easier to interview with the office you already see a lot through recruiting events, since you’ve met a handful of their people and maybe even your future interviewers! But if someone’s great at networking, they’ll get the offer at either location.
Lastly, I’d assume Berkeley has more firms recruiting at the school (in the case that Big 4 isn’t for him/her). UCI currently has: KPMG, PwC, Deloitte, Moss Adams, Grant Thorton, Squar Milner, BDO, and McGladrey.
E&Y does recruit at UCI, but very lightly. They don’t go through the typical recruiting process at all and have 0 in-person exposure at UCI.</p>