So You Want a PhD in Accounting?
I spent a good part of the weekend reading PhD files. It seems like a fairly strong year, perhaps because the economy has closed out other opportunities. (Many applicants hail from Wall Street). I’d love to hear your impressions of any application pools you have seen. But if you are one of the students who are applying, you might want to take a look at this site, which has some nice information and advice for applicants.
It’s too late for advice about applications, recommendation letters and statements of purpose, but not too late for advice on admissions decisions and phone or face-to-face interviews. My own advice is to devote a lot of time to school-specific preparation.
Make sure you know which faculty are currently research active, and read at least abstracts of their papers on their school website or SSRN. Get on Google Scholar and see if any of the faculty at the school have written review papers, or perhaps had their work summarized in review papers. This type of preparation serves the dual goals of (1) improving your chances of admission by making you look informed, motivated, dedicated and professional, and (2) improving your chances of making the right decision between multiple admission offers, by making you more able to assess research fit.
I almost hesitate to write this advice, since it seems so obvious. But only a handful of applicants took this strategy for their written statement of purpose, and most tailored their applications only minimally (mentioning the name of the school), not at all, or incorrectly (we are not the “Cornell Department of Accounting.”) For those looking at applying for PhD programs next year, I strongly recommend school-specific preparation for the statement of purpose in your original application. After all, the information is all there on the web. The only reason not to tailor your statement of purpose to each school is because you didn’t think of it, or you thought of it but didn’t bother because you thought it was too hard and not sufficiently important. Sadly, you will be in good company. But this makes the benefits of tailoring even greater–standing out from the crowd is essential when admission rates are in the range of 1-4%.
Anyone else want to add their two cents?
Just having finished the application process myself, I completely agree with Rob’s comments on researching the schools. I’ll offer the approach I took for those trying to figure out their own approach for next year.
1. Get into the research. Read a couple issues of TAR, JAR, JAE, CAR, etc. Read the abstracts of everything. If a paper sounds interesting, keep reading. Keep track of the papers you thought were interesting and try to figure out what topical areas (e.g. financial, audit, tax, managerial, systems) you are interested in, and what methodology (e.g. archival, experimental, analytical) you enjoy the most.
2. After you choose what research type you want to do, make a list of schools that match. Take a look at this paper to help in that process. It ranks schools according to publications by each topic and methodology. The authors are currently working on an interactive website that will make searching even easier. The AAA put together some information that may help as well. It’s a couple of years old, but it certainly helped me. It gives average GMATs, graduation rates, placement, and other useful information about each school.
3. Once you have a list of schools you are interested in, dive in. Find out about the professors. I signed up for RSS feeds from SSRN for prominent professors at several of my top schools. Research what the program entails: expectations, location, admission criteria, deadlines, coursework, etc. Talk to people from those schools. I had the opportunity to attend a research symposium as I began my application process. I made a point to attend presentations by people affiliated with schools I was interested in. Try to get a feel for the culture. Is it an on-your-own type school or a work-together type school? Which type of person are you? Talk to faculty at your school and ask their opinions.
4. Even after all is said and done, keep the list of schools that you originally made. Realize that you may be going through the same process in 5 years as you try to find your first job.
That’s my two cents anyway.
Thanks for the publicity! Rob, the website is still a work in process, but we are getting closer to finished. We’ve found the website works well for recruiting future students. We can email the link out to our undergrad/masters students so they think a bit about the academic lifestyle and have some basic questions answered before visiting with us.
Check back on the website periodically. We are working on adding video and several other useful tools. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. Also, we will integrate it with the research paper that Jeremy mentioned to provide (hopefully) a good set of information to potential students on which program best fits them.
I guess the tailoring thing doesn’t bother me as much. But i agree, it seems trivial … do it right, why don’t you.
I think our top issues are: Good quant and equally good verbal on the GMAT. OFten they are so far apart (with verbal too low). We are looking at 45 for minimum verbal and 50 quant. THis field is all about writing and communicating, in my opinion.
Good knowledge of what you are getting into.
These are not the only things, of course.
Interesting to see that according to Rob many new applicants are coming from Wall Street.
I’m curious about others’ thoughts on the role of experience prior to pursuing a Ph.D. I realize most of these posts have been directed towards the positioning of applicants as opposed to qualifications, yet I always find this an interesting conversation given it would appear (prior to this year) the influx of applicants in recent years to my knowledge are applying without ever working outside of academia.
I’ve asked the same questions as I’ve prepared to enter a PhD program. Most professors I’ve talked to have encouraged me to go straight into a PhD program and not try for any work experience. Two arguments seem to stand out. (1) If you work for a couple of years first, it’s much harder to go back to school and a student lifestyle and budget. (2) By the time you finish your PhD, any work experience you may have will be outdated anyway.
That being said, it is intimidating to know that I’m competing for slots with people who have several years of experience and may even come with funding (e.g. ADS scholars).
All else equal, better work experience is surely a plus, helping students ask better questions as researchers, and eventually be better and more credible teachers at top MBA programs.
But rarely is all else equal. People who choose to go directly into graduate school often have a real interest in research, and a pretty solid background in math (otherwise they probably would have sought a traditional job out of undergrad).
Ultimately, there are many ways to be successful in academia, and many ways to get into a PhD program. If there were a lot of Wall Street managing directors who kept up with calculus and econometrics, and were willing to earn $20K/year for 5 years while studying research techniques that apply to extremely narrow issues, they would be hard to compete against. But there are probably only a few of those every year, leaving plenty of spots for everyone else.
Rob, you stress math as being extremely important. I am a year out of undergrad, currently working in Big 4, tax. I’m interested in doing behavioral tax and financial accounting research (tax planning across states, tax planning as provision for income taxes vs. actually minimizing tax liability, and pension reporting’s effects on securities pricing, among others). I have excellent credentials (including GMAT) in every area but college math/econometrics. I only took a year of calculus and a quarter of statistics, B’s and an A. Is a PhD in accounting something that I can realistically pursue?
@staff accountant,
Absolutely. By the end of a PhD program, I think most accounting students will have had the equivalent of 3 semesters of calculus (multivariate calculus) and a semester of linear algebra, often all packaged in the form of a PhD course in “math for economists”).
This math background is used to help the student through a semester or two of calc-based economics, two semesters of calc-based basic statistics, and then some additional statistics courses that will depend on your interests (experimental design, econometrics, time series).
You don’t need to have learned this math before you get to the program, but you do need to demonstrate that you can learn it. If you did well in a year of calculus, that is a good sign.
Those who have the opportunity might consider taking a course in calculus or calc-based stats or econ before they apply.
My advice is not to take the PhD lightly. A PhD in Accounting is not an advanced MBA. It is a PhD in Economics applied to a specific area. At most top schools you will be taking classes along side Economics and Finance PhDs. In fact you take the same core classes as they do…so be prepared to work. If you think you can do a 9-5 day in the PhD program, you are fooling yourself.
I don’t want to scare anyone away. You just have to be determined and you have to love it. If you love it and you are a hard-worker, you should be able to overcome any deficit in your background.
Rob, I just came across this site and found it very interesting. I’ve been looking into the possibility of pursuing a Phd in accounting for several months now and I’m trying to read as much as I can from other people thinking about the same thing. I’m in my first year of auditing for a big 4 and know it’s not something I’m wanting to try and do as a career. What do you think are the chances of getting into a Phd program without a MAcc? I chose to stay in undergrad to get a duel degree in accounting and economics rather than get the MAcc. Also, how do you think Phd programs value having a CPA/an individuals scores on the exam? I received scores of: FAR-86; AUD-96; REG-98; BEC-93 and am wondering if these would be of any value to a Phd admissions board.
@Big 4 Auditor,
I think in general PhD programs do place value on being a CPA and work experience in general. However, I don’t think they are very concerned with individual scores on the CPA exam (I don’t remember seeing any question addressing CPA exam scores on any of my PhD applications). The exam score they do care about is the GMAT. As one of my professors put it, the GMAT is the lens through which everything else on the application is evaluated.
The AAA (referred to in an earlier comment I made) has a compilation of surveys that may prove useful to you. It’s a little bit dated (2007), but provides some information on what various schools expect from applicants. Some schools place a lot of value on work experience while others say it is “Not required, but considered.” If you feel it is one of your strong points, talk it up in your letter of intent. In particular, relate how and why your experience as an auditor has made you decide to do a PhD and how it will help in your research.
Most programs don’t require a MAcc, but rather are concerned about a student’s math and economics background. Your double major will probably be seen as a very positive thing.
That’s my perspective as someone who just finished the application process. Hopefully someone on the other end of the process can address your questions from that perspective as well.
Interesting! I see most professors speak about the GMAT score. I wanted to share my experience with you regarding my PhD granting school (a second/third tier U.S. university). I recall that one of my PhD colleague was admitted into the PhD accounting program without having the GMAT and she was fully funded because she is from India. While I was on the top of applicants in terms of GMAT score, prior research and teaching experience, I was not allowed to get funded because my school prefers to fund Indians over Middle-Eastern. I received an acceptance letter into the PhD program stating that I either bring money for my study cost or they won’t be able to admit me. They told me later during my PhD study that they don’t fund students from my culture (Middle East) regardless of our qualifications. YES, I am traumatized after getting my degree from there. Rethinking doing my GMAT again and redoing my PhD in a decent school.
I wish I had a chance to study in top notch PhD accounting programs where PhD recruiters value candidates based on objective measures!!