UIUC vs Wake Forest (Accounting)

Graduate School
1

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>I am a UIUC senior and I'm considering two schools for master program on accounting. UIUC and WFU.
UIUC has a very good reputation on accounting, but it's not easy to get a job after graduation as an international student.
Wake Forest has a very good job placement rate and it offers internship opportunity. Its CPA passing rate is the highest in the US. But WFU ranking on accounting is not good. :( I'm not sure if this is a very important factor to consider for choosing a graduate school. Will employers care a lot on rankings?</p>

<p>Can anyone give me some advice?
Thank you so so much!</p>

2

<p>Caveat: Accounting is not my field.</p>

<p>I’m curious as to what makes you think it’ll be easier for you to get a job post-graduation with a degree from Wake Forest than UIUC. Normally, I say that numerical rankings themselves don’t matter and are more useful for comparing groups of schools.</p>

<p>What ranking are you looking at? If it’s this one (from here: <a href=“http://www.byuaccounting.net/rankings/univrank/rank_university.php?qurank=All&sortorder=ranking6”>http://www.byuaccounting.net/rankings/univrank/rank_university.php?qurank=All&sortorder=ranking6&lt;/a&gt;), note that this ranking is based upon “classifications of peer reviewed articles in 11 accounting journals since 1990.” If you are going into an MAcc program with the goal of getting a professional accounting job post-graduation, this hardly matters.</p>

<p>But in other places Wake Forest’s undergraduate accounting program is very well-ranked, and sometimes in the top 10 with UIUC (<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?; <a href=“Top Accounting Programs 2023 | Accounting.com”>Top Accounting Programs 2023 | Accounting.com; <a href=“http://www.accountingweb.com/topic/education-careers/top-business-and-accounting-graduate-schools-ranked”>http://www.accountingweb.com/topic/education-careers/top-business-and-accounting-graduate-schools-ranked&lt;/a&gt;). Wake Forest’s business school is also ranked about the same as UIUC’s, in the top 50.</p>

<p>I don’t think the vast majority of employers care so much about rankings, unless you are trying to get into one of the Big Four or something. I think what employers are concerned about is the reputation of the school, your own performance, and most importantly your skills and experience (i.e., internships and projects). If Wake Forest has better internship opportunities you may want to go there. If you also know for sure that WFU is better at placing international students into jobs, that’s also where you want to go.</p>