Hi everyone! I am a rising junior and my current major is accounting. I got offers from Umich and UIUC but I don’t know which one I should choose. I like Umich more than UIUC but the thing is I was accepted to the LSA in Umich, which means that it might be hard for me to take accounting or other business courses. Econ sounds good to me but I am not sure if I am eligible for applying business programs in graduate school with an Economics degree.I am also wondering the career path for students with Economics/Econ+Math degree.
If you want to be an accountant, then you should go to UIUC. Are you in-state for either one? Yes, you can apply to business graduate school with an undergrad econ degree but you need to plan on working for a few years first if an MBA is your plan.
It is important to understand that economics and finance are very different majors. Economics is a liberal arts course of study and gets very theoretical at the upper levels. In contrast if you go to an undergraduate business school you will take a business core with introductory classes in subjects such as accounting, finance, IT, marketing etc. and then you will major in one of those disciplines. I’m not saying that one path is better than the other, but they are different. I would take the time to look at the coursework (can be found online) for both an accounting and an economics major and see if one path is preferable to you. As noted above UM is great for economics and UIUC ie great for accounting.
There are no prerequisites for getting a MBA so you can do so from either path. Note that the top MBA programs look for outstanding academics (GPA, GMAT), great application (essay, recommendation) and typically a minimum of years of meaningful work experience.
If you want to work in accounting, go to UIUC. It is truly excellent in accounting. If you are not interested in accounting, go for Michigan…assuming cost of attendance is not a concern.
Whether you major in accounting or economics will not impact your MBA application.
