Job prospects for accounting majors not from a top school?

College Majors Business Major
1

<p>Okay, so I'm thinking of studying accounting. I'm going to U of Maryland, College Park. It's a good state school, but it's not up there with UCB, UCLA, Wharton etc. Being in the DC area there are a fair few financial firms in the area (I'm pretty sure both Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers have offices here). </p>

<p>So what are the prospects for a person with an accounting degree who went to a school like Maryland? Am I going to have a tough time getting at the Big Four? Are my prospects of becoming a consultant for a big company pretty low?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

2

<p>As far as Big 4 goes, you don’t need to go to the best school to get a job. You just need to go to a school they recruit out of. It looks like they do recruit out of Maryland, so you’re in a good position.</p>

<p>Consulting is more difficult. You usually need to go to a bigger name business school for that. [Edit] However, it looks from the career website that they placed a few people in consulting jobs.</p>

<p>Looked here for stats: <a href=“http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/career/students/undergrad/stats.aspx[/url]”>http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/career/students/undergrad/stats.aspx&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

3

<p>PLEASE read post number one: “Everything you wanted to know or should know about accounting.” It will answer your question.</p>

<p>The School doesn’t matter per se. It is the GPA that is King.</p>

<p>However, partners from firms recruit at local schools. Thus, if you want to work in Maryland, you will have Maryland partners recruiting there from many firms. The same if you want to work in California.</p>

<p>Again GPA is king. If you go to school in Maryland or California or anywhere else and get a strong GPA ( at least 3.4+ overall and 3.5 or better in major) then you can interview anywhere for a job from almost any school.</p>

4

<p>A two-years old thread bumped up last week and post #18 caught my attention.
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/business-major/332668-best-undergrad-business-schools-california-2.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/business-major/332668-best-undergrad-business-schools-california-2.html&lt;/a&gt;
From Calcruzer (post #18),

All 3 colleges are in bay area. Santa Clara and SJSU are just within 5 miles apart. There’s a debate a few posts later about nudge down GPA to 3.3 for all school. But according to one of last year’s accounting graduate from SJSU, only the very tops got recruited from SJSU.</p>

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<p>As taxguy says, GPA, GPA, GPA!</p>