Chance me: Rural midwestern applicant, poor ECs, 3.9UW, 33 ACT [MN resident, accounting or economics, $200k total ($50k per year) from parents]

Chance Me / Match Me
7

This post is just some research I’ve done that may be helpful. For people who are interested in accounting, I think that one way to gauge the strength of a program is by the percentage of students who pass the CPA exam on their first try. Now, there can be some selection bias, as in schools with lower admit rates that accepted students with higher standardized test scores often perform better. But there are schools where that is not the case, and thus, it can be a way to see the strength of the instruction being provided.

I did not find a more recent data set that shared the results for pretty much all colleges, so the data set I am using is from 2018. Things can change over time, but this is the best I have available. If others have a more recent resource source, please share! I looked for schools that had a path to affordability that were residential campuses in southern states and chose an arbitrary 60% as a cutoff point. These were the schools, sorted by size and, within each category, by state:

Larger Schools (9k+ undergrads)

  • Florida Gulf Coast: 63.2%, about 14k undergrads

  • U. of Central Florida: 64.0%, about 60k undergrads

  • Florida State: 67.7%, about 32k undergrads

  • Georgia Institute of Technology: 60.6%, about 20k undergrads

  • U. of Georgia: 72.8%, about 32k undergrads

  • Louisiana State: 63.3%, about 33k undergrads

  • U. of Mississippi: 63.5%, about 19k undergrads

  • U. of North Carolina – Chapel Hill: 74.3%, about 21k undergrads

  • U. of North Carolina – Charlotte: 63.3%; about 24k undergrads

  • Clemson (SC): 60.8%, about 23k undergrads

  • College of Charleston (SC): 63.4%, about 11k undergrads

  • U. of South Carolina: 63.3%, about 28k undergrads

  • U. of Tennessee: 70.4%, about 29k undergrads

  • Baylor (TX): 66.8%, about 15k undergrads

  • Texas A&M: 72.8%, about 60k undergrads

  • Texas Christian: 72.5%, about 11k undergrads

Medium Schools (3-9k undergrads)

  • Pepperdine (CA): 76.2%, about 3600 undergrads

  • Santa Clara (CA): 63.0%, about 6200 undergrads

  • U. of San Diego (CA): 61.6%, about 5700 undergrads

  • Tulane (LA): 68.3%, about 7300 undergrads

  • Wake Forest (NC): 78.9%, about 5500 undergrads

  • Lee U. (TN): 63.2%, about 3300 undergrads

  • Abilene Christian (TX): 63.8%, about 3200 undergrads

  • Southern Methodist (TX): 63.3%, about 7100 undergrads

Smaller Schools (below 3k undergrads)

  • Stetson (FL): 69.0%, about 2300 undergrads

  • Covenant College (GA): 93.8%, about 900 undergrads

  • Wesleyan College (GA): 66.7%, about 600 undergrads at this women’s college

  • Barton College (NC): 66.7%, about 1200 undergrads

  • Davidson (NC): 94.1%, about 1900 undergrads

  • U. of North Carolina – Asheville: 80.8%, about 2900 undergrads

  • U. of Tulsa (OK): 61.4%, about 2500 undergrads

  • Furman (SC): 77.4%, about 2300 undergrads

  • North Greenville U. (SC): 77.1%, about 1900 undergrads

  • Freed-Hardeman U. (TN): 65.1%, about 1900 undergrads

  • King U. (TN): 60.9%, about 1100 undergrads

  • Trevecca Nazarene (TN): 65.0%, about 1800 undergrads

  • Southwestern (TX): 60.0%, about 1500 undergrads

  • Trinity U. (TX): 81.3%, about 2500 undergrads

If you share more about what kind of a college experience you would like, I can sort some of these into some chancing categories, or at least categories as to their overall admissions rates.