<p>Hi everyone,</p>
<p>I recently graduated w/ a BA in Advertising from Southern Methodist University. I also have a minor in business administration from our Cox School of Business, and I would love to take on a MS accounting program to ultimately sit for the CPA. I have taken 3 accounting courses, all were subpar due to some family issues going on at the time but I absolutely loved the courses themselves and the content within. They were OK grades, but not outstanding.</p>
<p>My dream school of where I would love to go for this is UT-Austin. I've also considered other schools (SMU, UTD, TCU). In terms of the prereqs, I already have everything that is required at UT -- My grades on them were: A in Macro, A- in Micro, A in Statistics, and a B in Financial Accounting.</p>
<p>I've recently started working on the GMAT by purchasing all of the books that I found recommended by others. I am a good test taker (174 LSAT when I was considering law school) so I feel fairly confident that I can come out with a good score with ample study time and attention.</p>
<p>However, not sure if I have a shot in heck at UT-Austin, and I'd like to get a ballpark figure on a GMAT that I would need to push me over the top in this program</p>
<p>Undergraduate GPA: 3.3/4.0 upper level courses (this is how they calculate GPA for UT) from Southern Methodist Univ.
Somewhat relevant business work experience includes: I have worked as a teller at a bank for 6 months while in school. With my current employer, although I work at an advertising agency (200+ employees, 3 offices between Dallas, NY and Philadelpha to give you an idea of how large) - my job has a heavy emphasis on financial reporting and analysis. I work very closely with our Finance Manager, Senior VP Operations, and Director of Project Management and make a lot of effort to perfect our billable time (making sure everything that is billable has a billable rate associated or analyzing our time entry to ensure everything that is billable is being billed, just for an example), in addition to manipulating lots of our financial data to get actual numbers to give to management throughout the company.</p>
<p>Because of the job above, I have extremely above average knowledge (completely proficient) in Excel - including formula creation and manipulation. Back in high school (although not relevant now) - I was a part of a Computer Applications UIL team and I placed 1st in District, 1st in Region and headed to the State Competition, and the entire contest was centered around the high level use of Excel.</p>
<p>My letters of recommendation (already confirmed) will include: Financial Planning and Analysis Manager from current job, 2 Professors from upper level undergraduate coursework (includes my capstone course professor), and the President/CEO of the bank that I have worked at. I am debating about throwing in one or two personal references, but as it stands, both the president and VP of the bank I worked at have known me my entire life.</p>
<p>I also have quite a bit of volunteer work for Campfire USA under my belt from undergrad.</p>
<p>What type of GMAT score do I need to be looking at to be competitive? I know my GPA is a little bit on the low side so I am trying to think of ways that I can compensate for that.</p>
<p>Would this work experience help me at all or does it even matter?</p>
<p>I am also a first generation college student in my family. I was the very first one to graduate with a bachelors degree.</p>
<p>Thanks for your help everyone.</p>