<p>i was an engineering major (and to be clear, i am currently employed, not fresh out of school)</p>
<p>you most definitely do not need an accounting major to be a management / strategy consultant</p>
<p>i was an engineering major (and to be clear, i am currently employed, not fresh out of school)</p>
<p>you most definitely do not need an accounting major to be a management / strategy consultant</p>
<p>The recruiting has started for winter internships and I have had no luck at all. I am entering my 4th year but have planned to take an extra semester to spread my credits out and will graduate probably December 2011.</p>
<p>I have a 3.82 GPA and a 4.00 Accounting GPA. Got a 2.8 my very first semester, ouch.(Only had the basic intro fin, intro management, and intermediate I). I listed a 4.00 major GPA anyway on my resume. This semester I have Intermediate II and Information systems. </p>
<p>I went to the career fairs, talked to people, applied on my schools career website for their positions and not one requested an interview. I realize that I have no leadership experience on my resume besides competing in a Deloitte case competition. But I have been working my entire time since going to school at either, grocery store, or office job for my school, at one point both at same time.</p>
<p>I feel like a big reason I went into accounting was because it was a fail-safe get a job career. Now, even with a high GPA, I cant even get an interview. </p>
<p>Is there any hope guys?</p>
<p>I’m pretty similar. My GPA is even a little better and I do have good leadership experience but as typical as running a BAP bake sale which is what they really want.</p>
<p>Apply for respectable industry jobs. I don’t know if your school isn’t reputable or well recruited, but if it’s okay you should still have a chance. I got a few Big Four interviews and slightly lesser players and only got one callback, which didn’t work out. I pretty much felt like a loser but after catching up with people over the summer I’ve learned that I was far from alone. However, at this point many of the best candidates(the 3.7+, very good looking, and important social org president types) are no longer going to be your competition. I had an interview for a job at a top 5 company and fortunately didn’t notice the people that were getting callbacks at ALL the Big Four last year. Those people have been snagged already.</p>
<p>I also don’t know if your problem is you are competing with people in a 5 year program who will be CPA eligible with a Masters degree. I understand that many are going to tell you that you are fine with a Bachelor’s. That’s undeniably true IF THERE AREN’T 300 PEOPLE AT YOUR SCHOOL GETTING A MASTERS DEGREE WHO WILL BE CPA ELIGIBLE APPLYING FOR THE SAME JOBS AS YOU.</p>
<p>I go to Michigan State University and I feel that accounting majors are all over the place here. Most of the places I am applying for are in the Detroit area. Just feels really sad. I told my family what my plan was, I was going to get a spring internship and listed all of these reasons because it pays more, I get more experience, there is more demand for it, and less students willing to work during spring semester. Everything seemed to be aligned perfectly until I looked at “not invited” across the board on all of my interviews. </p>
<p>I had one other question about ranking of school. Why would recruiters not care about school prestige? It is my understanding that the better the school, the better the students.</p>
<p>College board has taught me how hard it is to get into some of the best schools in the nation. You cant tell me the quality of students at Harvard is equal to that of Arizona State. If I am a recruiter I would take a Harvard student with a 3.0 over a weak school with a 3.5 everyday. This is because just to get into Harvard I know this student must have gotten nearly all 4.0s and perfect test scores, and great experience, and interview, ect. Also, it is much harder to get a higher grade at a better school. In my classes, only a certain amount of people can get a 4.0. Well, if my entire class is full of geniuses, like at Harvard, my chance of getting a 4.0 just fell significantly. You are naive if you dont think the recruiters are aware of this fact.</p>
<p>A couple things. </p>
<p>First, most of us agree that you should go to the best school you can, particularly if you are judging by employment stats(assuming they’re legit). </p>
<p>That said, it probably matters less than it does for other majors. A Harvard history major has good prospects, an Arizona State history major is probably completely f’d. An Arizona State accounting major still has a decent chance at getting a top accounting job. Not as good a chance as a UT grad, but a decent chance. </p>
<p>Everybody tries to get spring internships as that is busy season and the time the accounting profession needs interns.</p>
<p>“and I do have good leadership experience”</p>
<p>Sorry to burst your bubble Jonah but you didn’t get call backs because of the fact that your leadership experience consisted of running a BAP bake sale. That’s not leadership experience. That’s you taking charge at one small event. They want consistent positions of leadership. Not bake sale experience.</p>
<p>I mean just think about what you’re saying. You say you have the “leadership positions” they look for by running a BAP bake sale but then go on to talk about how you only got 1 callback (which fell through) and obviously did not receive an internship offer. So how can you say that’s what they want. They have to give a certain number of interviews. They probably saw your gpa and BAP membership and gave you a chance but when they asked the typical behavioral interview questions “Tell me about a time when…” and all you could talk about was one bake sale it didn’t take more than 5 minutes for that recruiter to cross your name off the list. </p>
<p>I’m sorry but don’t listen to his advice on leadership positions. You need to be in charge of something significant. You need to be an officer of something, etc etc. </p>
<p>You also talk about getting a job after other GOOD candidates have been taken. What’s your point? You didn’t get a good job and had to wait until you had crappy competition to get one?</p>
<p>I was in the Marines. I was criticizing their selection of others who have done nothing but run a bake sale.</p>
<p>I meant to say “not” as typical as running a bake sale. The sentence doesn’t make sense without the “not”. I’m sorry if that ruins your jihad against me but did you really think I was upset because my “bake sale experience” did not get me a job? I’d rather be hit by a bus than run a bake sale.</p>
<p>–I also don’t know if your problem is you are competing with people in a 5 year program who will be CPA eligible with a Masters degree. I understand that many are going to tell you that you are fine with a Bachelor’s. That’s undeniably true IF THERE AREN’T 300 PEOPLE AT YOUR SCHOOL GETTING A MASTERS DEGREE WHO WILL BE CPA ELIGIBLE APPLYING FOR THE SAME JOBS AS YOU.–</p>
<p>Couldn’t agree more with you on this point. I found a list of E&Y interns for summer 2009 from Kelley School of Business. 12 interns; eight were masters’ students and four undergrads. They took no undergrads for Indianapolis internships; the four undergrads went to Chicago, NYC, etc., big cities that had openings. IU Bloomington has on average each year 100 3/2 MBA students (overwhelmingly accounting majors; some finance majors) and 50 MSA students. And Kelley at IUPUI has 250 in the MACC program including part time students and who knows how many in their MBA program. Not a lot of room there for an undergrad to get a summer internship in-state.</p>
<p>Thanks for the stats and making me feel less of a failure to not get an internship so far as an undergrad.</p>
<p>Does anyone know where I can find admission criteria for masters in accounting schools? Or if you could tell my chances at some of the top schools? I think Im suppose to apply around now and I have a 3.82 GPA and 4.00 Major. Have not taken the graduate exam yet. If I go to MSU I dont need to take it but I am considering going to University of Michigan.</p>
<p>GPA and GMAT is basically all that matters as far as I’ve heard</p>
<p>Unless you go to one of the top schools like UT, BYU, UIUC…you should go some place you would like to live and go to the best program with the best placement stats. </p>
<p>What I would do for anyone who is thinking about doing something which requires the GMAT…get a practice book and familiarize yourself with the different types of problems. Particularly data sufficiency. After you’ve spent a little bit working through problems from every section and feel like you have a good handle on them, you should download the GMATprep tests from the GMAC website. There are two tests there which will give you a very accurate measure of what you’d get on the exam. Because it is a computer adaptive test, a paper version will not suffice. People who get correct answers are rewarded with harder questions, so someone getting a 750 will have taken a much harder test than someone who got a 600. At any rate, what you get on the prep test will give you a clue on what you’ll eventually get and that should let you know if you are competitive for top schools(your GPA is great so as long as you are around the average GMAT score for a given school you should have a great shot at getting in).</p>
<p>I just accepted an internship offer from Deloitte.
I only have a 3.3 gpa.
Profe that GPA isn’t the only thing they look at.
Any tips for a recent accounting major who has just got done with recruiting, ask away.</p>
<p>Since it is 'everything ’ I need to know,</p>
<p>1) is accounting the major or is it a class of majors, like engineering?</p>
<p>2) please cite the list of the top 25 schools where one can get a <em>good</em> acctg degree.</p>
<p>I just have a general question…</p>
<p>Let’s say the school I want go to has an AACSB accreditation, has the honorary accounting fraternity and all that, and also has public accounting firms within the city, but those big-name companies don’t necessarily recruit actively on campus, would that negatively impact employment chances or does it not matter?</p>
<p>AACSB doesn’t mean that much.</p>
<p>Beta Alpha Psi doesn’t mean much either. It is a good idea to be in BAP if it’s at your school because it’s an easy way to get face time with employers. It filters out undesirables(i.e. people with less than a 3.0 or whatever it is as that school) that firms would rather not have to talk to or feed at events. If your school doesn’t have BAP, then there will either be some other filter they can use(like an honors program) or they’ll just had to feed everyone.</p>
<p>mrd124,</p>
<p>Are you a junior, or a senior?</p>
<p>“Couldn’t agree more with you on this point. I found a list of E&Y interns for summer 2009 from Kelley School of Business. 12 interns; eight were masters’ students and four undergrads. They took no undergrads for Indianapolis internships; the four undergrads went to Chicago, NYC, etc., big cities that had openings. IU Bloomington has on average each year 100 3/2 MBA students (overwhelmingly accounting majors; some finance majors) and 50 MSA students. And Kelley at IUPUI has 250 in the MACC program including part time students and who knows how many in their MBA program. Not a lot of room there for an undergrad to get a summer internship in-state.”</p>
<p>you need to realize that there ARE other schools in the indianapolis area that are recruited from for internships. (purdue and butler) in addition there are more big 4/6 firms in indianapolis that recruit at iu, purdue, and butler for jobs/internships.</p>
<p>i’m a high school senior from the indianapolis area and i’m figuring out with school i should go to for accounting. the only 2 schools that i’ve applied to are purdue and iu so far. my number one choice by far right now is purdue just because i love the campus and my entire family went there and i really just can see myself going there. i was concerned about going to purdue over iu to study accounting and how it may limit myself. i have a mentor in a program that i’m in whose a senior accountant at a big 4 and they told me that if i get good grades from either school then it really doesn’t matter since she said they have interns/hires from both schools every year. she also explained the how important it is to get an internship with a big 4 because that is generally who they hire for full time positions. she also told me that getting the macc is nice but really not necessary. i just thought i would add this because people were talking about how important rank is in recruiting.</p>
<p>mrd</p>
<p>what school do you go to?</p>
<p>-Lots of people get a Macc because most need to take a few extra accounting classes to sit for the CPA, hence it kills 2 birds w/ 1 stone</p>
<p>nevs000, I dunno how Purdue is ranked, so this may not apply(it might be close enough to IU to not be significantly lower). It probably graduates less people so this doubly may not apply. However everyone should be quite wary of arguments about how people from School X get the same jobs as higher ranked School Y. You don’t want to have to be the perfect candidate just to get a job. Better to to play the odds and go to a place where the stars don’t have to align just right for you.</p>