IU, UT Austin, USC, or UC Berkely for Accounting

Which university would offer the best overall experience and education?

Except for USC, those are all flagships. The experiences are going to be similar. USC is a large private, so its experience may not be that different, either.

Which one are you instate for ? They’d all be expensive for an OOS student. What are your parents saying about paying for an OOS school? If they will happily pay the high OOS costs, then super. If not, then the question is moot.

There are SO MANY schools that are great for accounting.

What are your stats?

how much will your parents pay each year?

What is your home state?

FYI…It’s Berkeley

Thanks for the reply, I have a 4.0 GPA and a 31 on my first ACT. I am still a Junior so I expect to bump my ACT up to about a 34. I live in Chicago so I’d like to add UIUC to the list I gave too, and regarding financial stuff my family is relatively wealthy and they are happy to send me wherever I want to go. My goal after college is to land a job with Deloitte in Chicago, so if any of those schools would give an advantage to that it would be great.

They’re all fine for accounting. And UIUC has one of the top accounting programs in the country. Getting in to a Big4 would come down to you much more than which of these schools you attend so personally, I would take the cheapest option where you are guaranteed admission to your major (UIUC, mostly likely). Admission to Haas is competitive and not assured after you enroll at Cal, BTW.
The locales are different, though, so if your family doesn’t care about splurging just so you can have fun, you can choose whatever you desire. Though for a job in Chicago, it doesn’t make sense to go to school in a different region.

The only difference I can see in terms of prestige in accounting is that Cal would be more highly-regarded abroad (UIUC and USC would be in the next tier down in Asia).

For what it’s worth, US News ranks UIUC as #2 in accounting, and USC as #5.

USC connections would be great if you wanted to stay in California, but I don’t know how how valuable they’d be in Chicago.

All good, all in big cities; however, the “cultural fit” of the universities – and certainly of the metropolitan areas – substantially differs. Does any school’s/city’s FIT seem especially appealing to YOU?